The Return to Chile

South America » Chile
September 25th 2008

Published: October 7th 2008

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ross and polly

Crossing the Border from Bolivia to Chile

Polly:

We'll keep this brief as we're off to New Zealand in 24 hours and want to enjoy our last day in South America.

Direct Travel Insurance was truly useless, and seem to have clauses that get them out of everything, so we had to find a way back to Santiago on our own. We got the first bus from La Paz to Arica, in Northern Chile on the 17th, the day before Chilean Independence Day, so the town of Arica was somewhat excitable, with the entire contingent of the local armed forces parading about in front of the mayor and co.

We then managed to buy a flight with Sky Airline for the next day to Santiago.

Thanks to the offers in the in-flight magazine, we scored a great little pad, Imperio Suites, in Barrio Brazil, in the west of Santiago. 50% discount meant we paid 23GBP a night for a room with a super-kingsize bed, cable TV, bath (for children or dwarves, though still very welcome), kitchenette, fridge, microwave, table and chairs, buffet breakfast and a small pool on the roof. Total heaven. We went to the supermarket, and stocked the fridge. It was sooooooooooo

Arica Harbour

nice to be able to make some proper food - eggy bread, boiled eggs & soldiers, spag bol.

We explored a few different areas of the city and generally chilled out.

Yesterday we got a bus 1 1/2 hours west to Valparaiso, on the coast. "Valpo", as it's locally known, was a bit bustling and didn't have a proper beach so we jumped on a local bus to Vina del Mar, about 5 minutes north. We wandered along the sea front until we found a nice spot to sunbathe. As it's not really their summer, the beach was quiet, but it was still about 27ºC!

In Brasil, we were super security conscious, and when we went to the beach we always had the bags padlocked and a strap looped round our ankles. Maybe this sleepy little town lulled us into a false sense of security, or maybe 3 months of travelling has made us a bit too relaxed, either way we didn't have our wits about us.

We were both lying on our fronts, soaking up some rays with our rucksacks between us when some "ladron" grabbed both our bags and ran. Without being completely aware

Arica

of what I was doing I found myself sprinting down the beach in my bikini (not quite Pammy Anderson!) yelling "ROBAR!!!". Ross had got his shoes on and resumed the chase. The thief dropped one of the bags so I went to get that and guard the rest of our stuff. Unluckily for the thieving chump, and seriously lucky for us, he dropped Ross' bag with the passports, credit cards, camera and money. I doubt we could have got some temporary passports by tomorrow! Anyway, the Ross aka The Hoff was still in pursuit. He chased him some way down the road and even flagged down a bus which we thought he'd jumped on, but then saw some guy on the other side of the road rifling through my bag. We think there were 2 of them working together. The guy dropped my bag and got on a bus going in the opposite direction. He missed my phone in the inside pocket (Ha!), left my knickers and other girly rubbish, and only got my Diesel sunnies. For some weird reason, I took out my wallet and camera from my day-sack that morning and put them in my main rucksack. It

Arica High Street

Ross says it's like Western-super-Mare crossed with Kidderminster

was definitely the luckiest bag-snatching ever, for us...

We flagged down some local police who had coincidentally caught 2 guys. They took us to the station for an ID parade, but neither of them were the little scrotums we saw.

Once the shock of the event had passed we celebrated our lucky escape with a slap up meal at "Las Vacas Gordas" (The Fat Cows). The T-Bones were huge, and as tasty as in Argentina. We got a bottle of champers and toasted the fact that we were not sat in the British Embassy trying to replace our passports!

Off to Auckland tomorrow. Adios Sud America...

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