Thefts, and lost property in SANTIAGO!

My first real interaction in Spanish was at the Santiago airport, with a lovely indigenous man from Peru. I was trying to work out which of the two airport buses went to the place where I was supposed to by staying in Santiago, and he came to my aid. He asked where I was going and it turned out we needed to catch the same bus, so he chatted with me a little, asking where I was from, where I was going, and so on. I could tell he was building up to something, though, so I wasn’t really surprised when he pointed to my money pouch, which was hanging around my neck outside my clothes, and spoke at length about… well, I couldn’t understand anything actually, but he was gesturing zipping, putting something inside his clothes, and so I figured he was lecturing me about pickpockets. He kept shaking his head and looked rather disgusted with me, but in a really considerate way… I could tell he was thinking, ‘Silly foreigner, I’d be surprised if she lasts five minutes without getting robbed, she doesn’t even know to put her money away safely.’ Anyway, I took the advice, and made sure that my money pouch was inside my jacket and safely hidden.

Even still, I guess I didn’t hear the lesson well enough, because the next day I went walking I took with me all my cash and valuables in my backpack. I guess I felt they were safer with me than at the hostel. But every time I had to pay for something that day, I would open up the money pouch and the cashier’s eyes would boggle when they saw the wad of cash I had in there. A couple of them told me to put money pouch away at the bottom of my bag, somewhere safe. Or I assume that’s what they were saying. They seemed happy when I complied… But I hadn’t really thought much about it, until I got back to the hostel that night, and was chatting with a group of travellers from Budget Expeditions, and heard that 3 out of their group of 30 had had something stolen just that day! 10% of the group! One had a camera yanked out of his hands, only about 100 metres from the door of the hostel, one had her backpack slashed and her purse and camera taken from it, and the last one had her entire backpack stolen as she was sitting waiting for a bus. Since then, almost everyone I have spoken to has shared with me a story of them, or a fellow traveller being robbed. Some were mugged, some pickpocketed, some were even robbed at gunpoint… I even met a poor girl from England who had had her camera stolen THREE times. Every time she replaced it, it was stolen again!

I hate that my first blog entry from south America is about something negative, because my experience so far has been that the Chillean people are so overwhelmingly friendly and helpful… but I have been totally bowled over by how much theft I have heard about in my first week. I believe in signs, and so these were as clear as day to me. I heeded this lesson, and now have a very complicated system, by which I keep the money that I’ll need for the day in pockets of my jeans, some more money in a money pouch inside my handbag, the bulk of my money in a money belt locked inside my backpack… I have my atm cards in three different places… I am as prepared as I can be to be robbed, I think. But so far, (touch wood) I myself have been untouched by this aspect of travel in South America… The only things that I have lost along the way have been thoroughly my own fault, and I have unwillingly donated one towel, one sunhat, one beanie, and one pair of exfoliating gloves to the Hostelling International lost property department. I nearly left my thermal top on the plane today, too! But I rescued it just in time... I have a feeling that I will go through the year and end up needing to replace every item I'm travelling with along the way, so I come home with a completely new bunch of stuff!