Thursday, 11/16/23: My Trip Completely Falls Apart

After breakfast, I took a short walk over to bus terminal where I found an electronics store.  I needed a Chilean SIM card for my phone.  It was fine using wifi in hotels for my computer for emails and the news but, out on the street, I especially needed Google Maps to navigate, find restaurants, bus stations, etc.  Verizon had wanted an extra $10 a day to use my phone (including calls, texts, and internet) outside the US.  Unless I was going to be using the phone most of the day for business purposes that was a big rip-off.  A tech-savvy friend had suggested an e-SIM card app, Airalo, which offered reasonably-priced country plans without physically changing the little SIM card in the phone.  Great idea but I learned that my Samsung Galaxy A10e phone is too old to be able to use this app.  My phone is maybe five years old, and I guess you’re now expected to buy a new phone every couple of years – grrrrr. 

For about $11, the store clerk sold me a Chilean SIM card (good for 30 days) and physically exchanged the tiny thing for my American card which she carefully taped to a business card so I wouldn’t lose it.  So now I had a Chilean phone number and access to the web from my cell.

When I was initially planning my trip, I had learned that there was new high-speed train service from Santiago, south through the central valley to the city of Chillán, a distance of 400 km (250 miles) which was covered in less than four hours.  Being a train enthusiast, I included that trip in my itinerary.  However, a few weeks before I left for Chile, I read that service had temporarily been suspended south of the city of Rancagua 90 km (55 miles) from Santiago.  Heavy winter rains and snowmelt had caused flooding in the area wiping out one of the rail bridges.  I got the impression that the destroyed bridge was just south of Rancagua.  Looking at a map, I assumed that it must have been the bridge crossing the wide Cachapoal River, the only stream of any significance in the area.        

My objective for Thursday was to take a train 90 km (55 miles) south to the city of Rancagua.  It would at least give me a feel for Chilean train service, provide an opportunity to get photos of the destroyed bridge, and see if any progress was being made to repair or replace it.  If I could get some good photos, I figured that a railroad magazine might be interested in a little story about the situation. 

Modern, Chinese-built, express trains were introduced in Chile in early 2023.  Photo source:  https://www.railwaygazette.com/passenger/first-bi-mode-inter-city-trainset-for-chile-on-test/63354.article

 

The station was a 10-minute walk from my hotel, and I purchased a round-trip ticket for less than $3.00.  The train was modern, clean, and nearly full of passengers.  The cancelled express train had been non-stop to Rancagua but this one was a commuter train and made eight stops along the way.  The trip through the central valley took about 75 minutes.  There were some nice views of the mountains to the east once we got out of the Santiago metro area but, like many rail lines in the U.S., it went through a number of scuzzy industrial and poor residential areas.  Perhaps the route south of Rancagua was nicer but I wouldn’t recommend this stretch. 

Once arriving at the Rancagua station, I started walking streets south along the rail line in the direction of the bridge.  I had figured it was about a mile from the station but I hadn’t looked carefully enough at Google Maps.  After about 20 minutes, I realized it was further and there was no good pedestrian access to it.  I hailed a cab.  The driver was confused when I told him I wanted to go “al puente del ferrocarril destruido por las inundaciones recientes” (the railway bridge destroyed by the recent floods) but I got him to take me in the correct direction.  He stopped just on the other side of the highway bridge crossing the Río Cachapoal.  The railway bridge was adjacent to the highway.  I hoofed it a few hundred feet back along the rail line to the bridge.  I looked at it from both the left and right sides and there appeared to be absolutely nothing wrong with it. 

When I got back to the cab, I was able to discern through the driver’s challenging Chilean accent that he knew of no bridges in the Rancagua area that had been destroyed or damaged by the winter floods.  So, the damaged bridge was obviously somewhere further south.  I hadn’t done adequate homework – certainly, I wasn’t much of a journalist given such sloppiness.  In my defense, it had really been hard to get the detailed information I needed off the internet. 

The driver dropped me at a Chinese restaurant not far from the train station where I had a big bowl of vegetable soup for lunch.  Actually, there were also some tiny shrimp in the broth.  In Chile, vegetarian seems to mean no beef – chicken or fish don’t seem to count.  On the way back to the station, I walked along a street closed to traffic which was full of vendors with their products spread out on blankets on the pavement.  Each seemed to specialize in various types of consumer goods.

The train back to Santiago was downright boring.  It was older than the one I’d taken in the morning.  It was also shabby with dirty windows.  Still, it was fast and punctual. 

When I arrived back in Santiago around 4:30, I was again met with a plethora of street vendors both in the station and along the Avenida O’Higgins (named for Bernardo O’Higgins, a 19^th Century leader of the Chilean independence movement).  Their impromptu “stores” made for colorful street life which I eagerly photographed as I made my way back to my hotel.  The sidewalk was busy with pedestrians but not overly crowded so I was not bumping into people. My small Canon camera fit conveniently into my pants pocket.  I always had it attached with a thin cable to a carabiner on a belt loop.  If I dropped it, the cable would save it; I wouldn’t absent-mindedly leave it somewhere; and the cable would act as a deterrent to would-be thieves or so I thought. 

Just as I was arriving at the hotel, I reached into my pants pocket for the camera.  My heart sank to the soles of my shoes as I pulled out the cable finding only a frayed end where the camera had been attached.  The camera was gone!  I had felt nothing – no one had bumped me on the sidewalk, and I’d had no sensation of movement in my pocket.  How could this have happened? 

My heart was racing out of control again as I approached the front desk and told the clerk what had happened.  I must have looked faint with all the color drained from my face.  The clerk insisted I sit down on one of the chairs in the lobby and he immediately brought me a glass of water.  Did I have travel insurance?  Yes.  Well, then I would need to file a report with the police for my insurance to cover the loss.  I knew this and figured the clerk must have had ample experience with foreign guests getting ripped off on the street.  He would get me a ride to the police station at no charge and said he was very ashamed that something like this would happen to a visitor to his country.  Did I want something to eat while I was waiting for the ride?  He brought me a menu from their grill, and I ordered a veggie burger with fries. 

I went over the incident in my mind.  I had assumed I was safe by staying off the streets at night, walking on main streets (not back alleys), and keeping my valuables in less-accessible parts of my person.  Someone had obviously been watching me taking photos and had spotted the weak link in my camera attachment – a sturdy but thin 1-inch string that attached the camera to the cable.  They were so crafty that they were able to pull the camera out of my pocket without my feeling it while quickly slitting the string, probably with a knife.  With criminals this skillful, how could I ever feel safe again travelling?  The instant I had found that the camera was gone, something snapped in my brain.  I felt that the Wandering Geographer was done – it was all over. 

A driver dropped me at the police station, and I waited for over an hour before a handsome, young, and perky “carabinero” took my report.  I would have to call this office back tomorrow to get a case number, then go to the main courthouse with the case number to get a hard copy of the report.  All this to get insurance reimbursement for a $400 camera – I wondered if it was worth it.

I felt I had to get out of Chile and back home as soon as possible.  Once back at the hotel, I got on-line and to my pleasant surprise, there were a few seats available on the American flight to Miami the following night (Friday).  I was also able to change my ticket on Southwest and book a flight on Saturday afternoon from Miami to Denver. 

And, next I did something I should have done the previous day when I became upset about the $200 I had thought was stolen.  I faced up to what I’d been avoiding – an actual accounting of the dollars I had spent and exchanged plus the dollars I still had.  I had left Denver with a little over $600 in cash.  When I now counted up the dollars I had and listed the dollars I remembered spending and exchanging, the total came to $597.  Despite all the trauma I’d been through, I suddenly felt a bit elated.  I hadn’t been robbed of the cash after all. 

Should I reconsider returning home?  With the camera stollen, I had lost three days of photos that I hadn't gotten around to downloading.  I could still take photos with my phone (I had rarely used it in the past and wasn’t sure that the quality would be very good).  Was I being a quitter unable to overcome a little adversity?  Maybe I could buy a new camera in Santiago.  Yes, but what about the situation with my heart?  And with the trauma I had experienced over the camera, what kind of a guest would I be when staying with three different SERVAS families in the coming two weeks?  How could I be upbeat and paper over my sour mood?  And how well would I be able to focus on my Spanish studies which I had scheduled for the following week with a teacher in a small Pacific beach town?       

I would sleep on it but when I woke up in the middle of the night, I decided that I would stick with my new return schedule.  As events proved over the next six days, it was the best decision.