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| The Lovely City of Valparaiso, Chile |
We have returned home now, back to Oregon. We have completed our Round the World trip with stops in sixteen countries, many we'd never been to before.
As always, I have tried to hit the highlights in this blog, but space and time limited how much was included.
And, as always, there is more to the story. I will outline a very sinister incident that took place early in the trip that rocked us back on our heels and provided many unwanted challenges.
Lightning strikes twice, we were robbed (again)
We had gotten off to a good start, with stops in Mexico and Bolivia; we even got to stay for a while with friends in Mexico. By the third week, we had made our way to Chile, one of our favorite countries.
For most of our trip we tried to avoid driving ourselves, for several reasons. Unknown areas, driving on the other side of the road like British, unsafe areas, cost of rental, insurance, better with a hired driver, etc.
But in this case, we rented a car in Santiago Chile and drove to Valparaiso, an wild and adventurous city on the Pacific Coast. It took a couple hours and the weather was excellent, sunny summer in the southern hemisphere.
Unfortunately, we were jet lagged from an all night flight from La Paz, Bolivia, through Lima Peru to Chile. And fatefully, we were warned by the rental car agency about thieves where we were going. We dismissed this advice, we've been to Chile probably thirty times over the years and speak passable Spanish.
We arrived in Valparaiso in good time, late morning, and were using Google to provide directions to our hotel. But in this case, Google was not terribly accurate. One of the things that makes "Valpo" interesting and colorful are the winding streets that twist through the city, built on a hill by the ocean.
We got to a place and Google said "you have arrived at your destination". Only it was not so, we were at a street corner with no hotel in sight.
That's where the fun began
The streets are tight, often one-way, and with virtually no parking. So to stop and look for our hotel I had to pull off into a dead-end side street.
Of course there was no hotel, and as I tried to back up, there was a vehicle right behind us and a guy was saying "wait, don't back up yet!" I saw him bend down behind our car.
I thought maybe he had dropped something, but he moved and we were able to back out and continue looking for our destination. It wasn't long at all before I heard a loud hissing sound - the unmistakable sound of a flat tire. Great!
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So I circled the block, absolutely no place to park, and finally pulled over halfway into a small intersection. We could go no further, I had to change the flat tire. Unfortunately, after our two hour trip from the airport, and driving around the city looking for the hotel, I had to go pee real bad.
I quickly started to walk around to the back of a building, and I heard some shouting.
I turned around and there was money blowing down the street! There was a lady yelling something in Spanish. Fiona had gotten out of the car and was trying to help the lady chase down her money. It was a little unusual, did she drop some cash?
I went back and we gathered up the money and as we finished a guy came by in a car and pointed and yelled, "there's more money over there you missed!" After that I finally had a chance to relieve myself - and I set to the task of replacing the flat tire. It wasn't long before Fiona asked me "did you do something with your wallet?"
You know how you get that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach? Because of the many toll booths on the highway from the city, I had been digging into my wallet to pay the tolls, and it had been sitting in the console between the front seats - but not any more! It was gone! Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Drivers License, Insurance cards, other valuables, and $300 cash!
We double checked and looked everywhere. It dawned on us that the flat tire and money blowing down the street were a designed distraction! We had been robbed! In broad daylight ...
That is a bad, bad feeling, especially since a similar incident had happened two years ago on a long journey (click here). We were always extra vigilant, but lightning had struck twice! No way!
This can't be happening ...
After I got the tire changed, I checked it over to see how it had gone flat. There was no apparent nail or hole in the tread? I used to work at a tire store when I was much younger and I knew how to look for the source of a flat tire. Couldn't see anything. We all of a sudden got a mysterious flat tire?
We sat there stunned and and tried to figure out what had just happened. We began to drive around again, but we still didn't know where our hotel was ...
We pulled over in a driveway (no place to park) to try to come up with a game plan. It wasn't long at all when a policeman pulled up on a motorcycle. "You can't park here," he said, and looked like he was going to write a citation for illegal parking.
I jumped out of the car and said in my rudimentary Spanish: "Hey, we are glad you showed up! We have a big problem! We just got robbed!"
He looked confused by this statement. I tried to explain what had just happened, but in my broken Spanish it was hard to describe the incident. He called for backup. Two more motorcycle cops showed up, and one of them spoke some English.
After they understood what had happened, they said we should make a statement and they could file a report. They said they would give us an escort to the police station, a couple miles away.
So off we went, with lights flashing
We spent some time in the police station, and they were very helpful, taking down a lot of detailed information (which later came in quite handy).
After a considerable amount of time, they offered to take us to get the tire fixed and put back on the car, and then they would take us to the hotel.
So we stopped by a local tire shop and they were quick to get the flat tire out and repaired it. I asked the guy if he could see where/how the tire had gone flat. He looked for a minute and then said "look here" he pointed to a small clean cut on the inside side wall of the tire - "this tire has been slashed!" after a pause he said "I've seen this before."
The cop came over and looked and muttered some words in Spanish that I'm sure were not meant for translation. It began to add up - the guy who had been parked behind us so we couldn't back up had bent down and slashed the tire! Bastards! It was a total set up.
We eventually found our way to the hotel and once in our room we got online to see if anything had happened with my wallet. All hell was breaking loose! They had already charged thousands of dollars against each one of the cards!
We scrambled to contact our bank, credit card companies, and other affected financial matters. Basically you have to kill all the cards, shut them down. Not the way we wanted to start our visit to this town. It was a huge hassle, but we ultimately got it sorted out for the most part. Pretty much all the fraudulent charges were reversed, but the cash and other documents were gone as was my drivers license.
We realized we had been the target of a theft ring! They cause a flat tire, and then cause a distraction so they can rob you! Wow.
Unfortunately, we have experience with this kind of thing and once we had addressed everything as much as we could ... we decided to press on and continue our journey. Minus a few credit cards and debit cards and other things. It turned out to be a hassle to have no drivers license.
We completed our trip, but there was another twist about a month later. Some friends from Chile had seen an article in the Valparaiso newspaper. Along with the article was a picture of a guy in handcuffs, they had broken up the theft gang! Turns out the gang had been fairly successful with the exact scenario they used to victimize us. The ringleader had the nickname "Albacore" like Tuna?
Life is gonna throw you some curve balls. It seems like we have had more than our share at times. I had mentioned that travel contains some degree of risk, and we've had a little too much exposure to that!
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