South American Adventure

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Hi everyone.
Well, thanks to Argentine airlines, our plans have been hijacked again, so we have an extra day in Paraguay instead of the day we had planned in Buenos Aires. So this means we now have time to continue our blog. We are sorry that we don't update you more regularly, but shortage of time is a factor, as well as access to computers in some places.
Now, back to La Paz for the most ëxciting"(NOT!!!) part of our adventure. We had a day to spend in La Paz. We had the option of going on a bus trip up on the highest road in the world (supposedly). However, it was cloudy, rainy and foggy on that day, and we thought better of it, because the road would probably be dangerous in the wet and we probably wouldn't have seen much anyway in that sort of weather. So we decided to walk back and take another look at the San Pedro prison (but not take any photos! - lucky Gordon has a good zoom on his camera!). After that the sun came out and it was a lovely morning. UNTIL!!!
The main street (6 de Agosto) of this basically grubby city is a lovely wide road with beautiful trees and gardens down the centre. We were sitting on a seat admiring the flowers, when we were approached by a young woman, who asked if she could sit beside us and we started talking in a mixture of English and Spanish. She said she was a tourist from Chile and we were chatting away when we were approached by a very well-dressed man who showed us his police ID and demanded that the three of us go with him to check for validity of our passports and to check for forged currency. (This is actually a big problem in S A). When we hesitated, the "Chilean" lady reassured us that this was OK and it had already happened to her twice. We were all bundled into a strange car, and we knew we shouldn't have been getting in, but he was so forceful and aggressive that we were too scared to do otherwise. He kept poking his finger in my face and saying "You not do - you big trouble". The driver pulled up in a side street, not at a police station, and the "policeman" proceeded to take everything out of our handbags - cards, money - even checked to see if we had money belts under our clothes. This all happened so quickly and so frighteningly and he supposedly verified everything by mobile phone. Then he bundled us out of the car, but told the "Chilean"lady to remain for more checking. I kept one foot in the car, and wasn't going to get out until I had located Gordon's wallet which was missing.
But the car took off before I had my foot out. We found the wallet - the "policeman" had put it in my handbag. We knew we had to fly to the bank to change our pins, but when we got there, we found both our cards were gone. We have no idea how he got them, because I saw him put mine back in my purse, but we now think that the "Chilean" lady played her part here. So we now had to fly back to the hotel to get the details to phone Travelex to cancel the cards. By the time we did this, he had made 5 withdrawals of $200, but fortunately the bank stopped further payments at that point.
So we now had to sit down to complete the Disputed Transaction form to fax to London. But Bolivia's communication system not being all that good meant that we spent considerable time at the hotel and in a communications centre attempting to send the fax. It did arrive 2 days later! To our surprise, we had an email 3 days later saying that the bank had refunded the money and it was already in the account. Amazing service.
Next task was to report the robbery to the police. What an experience that was. The police station was just over the road from the hotel. The concierge at the hotel told us that we would be able to type the report in English and that the police would translate it using Google. Not so! The policeman was sitting in the corner in front of the TV - sound asleep! We found another policeman who spoke no English, but showed us two more policemen down the road who did. They had very little English, but when I told them (in Spanish) what had happened they drew us a map and called a taxi for us and sent us to what appeared to be the Police Headquarters. Well, words cannot describe the condition of this station. It was an old building in a dreadful state of disrepair. It had creaky old wooden floors, dirty walls and old lounge chairs with all the stuffing hanging out. They had very old computers to work with and apparently no filing system. All pieces of information provided were written on little (and I mean tiny) scraps of paper.
This was where I was really glad I had studied Spanish. There was no way we could have got through the next three hours without it. Firstly we reported the robbery to a detective and were then taken to the identikit section. After about 20 photos, I identified the "policeman". This was very easy - I had no doubt at all that it was him.
His "Chilean" accomplice was much more difficult as she had a couple of disguises, but then another officer entered with lo and behold - a laptop! He had a full body image of her and I positively identified her too. No one could have any idea how stressful this afternoon was for me. I was still distressed after the events of the morning, and trying to understand their questions in Spanish and to come up with the correct answers in Spanish. I was just about at breaking point by the end of it. Just looking at all the photos of the criminals, male and female, was also distressing. We have never seen so many unfortunate, frightening-looking people. At the end of all this the detective produced a written report and they appeared to be very pleased with us. We feel quite sure that, even if captured, the "policeman" will avoid prosecution, because it appears that anyone with money can pay their way out of anything. The corruption in most of South America is endemic and is the ruination of most of the countries.
We couldn't wait to get out of La Paz. We had to leave for the airport at 1.00 am the following morning and guess what - the car broke down on the freeway half way to the airport. Gordon was thinking that this was another set up, but not so. We made it without further drama.
Apart from this, we did like the Bolivian people. We found the shopkeepers to be very honest and most people very friendly and helpful. Things were very cheap here. We paid the equivalent (in Bolivianos) of 60 cents for a two and a half litre bottle of water.
Next stop was Santiago where we were met by friends Eddie and Marie, who have lived in Brisbane for 40 years, but have just decided to return to live in Chile. We stayed in a lovley hotel in the suburb of Providencia with them. On the first afternoon, we were taken to lunch by Marie's cousin (who is a gorgeous looking chiropracter with a gorgeous looking wife- Gordon adds - they have excellent taste in dogs as they have 2 whippets, Gill please note!) He took us to a typical Chilean country style restaurant in the foothills. It was a lovely setting, but the meals are oh so big! But that was a lovely typically Chilean experience.
Cake for breakfast seems to be the norm in S A. All sorts of cakes and biscuits, Lemon Meringue Pie, cheesecakes, caramelised condensed milk with everything - on toast, in pancakes and even in my PROFITEROLE! I had bread and butter pudding and rice pudding on a couple of occasions and Gordon even had JELLY for breakfast this morning. I'd kill for a Weet-Bix.
The next day we spent in the city of Santiago, which we really enjoyed. So many streets in the centre of the city are tree-lined boulevards. This was a couple of days before the anniversary of the earthquake, and they had large posters showing pictures of the devastation - so sad to look at.
Next day, the four of us set off to stay on a small farm to the south of Santiago, owned by friends of Eddie and Marie, who used to live at Sunnybank. They have a beautiful Spanish style home with two pools running through the house and into the main swimming pool. They were wonderful hosts and we got on very well with them.
We had a wonderful time here too, driving around the countryside among the many vineyards, corn fields, potato farms, prickly pear plantations. The area around Santiago is extremely dry, so everything is very dusty. Even though it is so dry, there is plenty of underground water, so all the crops are flourishing.
Chile has 2,200 volcanoes, some active, some not, but they say any of them could erupt at any time. As well as this they are in the earthquake zone, so many of the buildings are being designed to be earthquake resistant.
It would appear that we aren't going to be able to give you any photos until we get home. Even when we do have time, some of the computers make it very difficult and also we are getting repeated warnings about using public computers to share photos.
Until next time
Gordon and Mary

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