Tragedy + Time

It's been two days since my backpack was snatched off the beach at Vina del Mar. Of course, I'm still annoyed by it, but I'm not going to let it spoil my holiday. At least I didn't lose my passport. That would have been a serious nighmare. Instead it's a mild irritant and an expensive object lesson.

Almost everything I lost was replaceable. The major loss was my camera. Not only did I lose 4 days of what I think were some beautiful pictures, but I lost the ability to take more pics. I have a camera on my Blackberry (blessedly not stolen) but it's not the same.

This is what was taken (I think):

Blue JanSport backpack ($35). Of course the pack is replaceable, but not having one now means carting my shit around in a plastic bag until I can find a suitable one.

Canon G9 ($450) I already found a replacement on craigslist for 295. The trouble is, it's in San Rafael and not in Argentina. This was a great camera. I was just starting to get used to it as I've had it less than a year.

Canon G9 case ($90) bought specially from a vendor in Japan because the case they sell in the USA is total crap. The one I had a classic rangefinder feel to it, made of hand tooled leather.

Grabzilla tripod ($40) Just bought this thoing at REi before the trip. Tried to use it once in Santiago but it was too weak for my G9. I was going to take it back when I got home.

4GB SanDisk Extreme III Memory card ($18). Not so much the money but the hundreds of photos I'd taken since I arrived in Chile all gone. I'm going to try to remember and describe them in another post.

50SPF Banana Boat Sunblock ($8) almost empty anyway. Bought a replacement in Mendoza for 25 pesos. It's about 3.5 to the USD.

80GB iPod Classic ($299) that's what I paid, but certainly not what it worth, which is next to nothing. It stopped working properly a little more than a year after I bought it-out of warranty, of course. The iPod would reboot every few minutes, so you'd be listening a song and it would just crash and restart. In order to get it to work semi-properly, I had to download special software to install old as fuck firmware. Still the volume controls didn't work right. Details can be found on this site by searching for iPod. Serves whoever ends up buying my iPod from the theif that it won't work right. I'm bummed that I won't to be able to listen to music, learn spanish or entertain myself with audiobooks on the two 17 hour bus trips I have ahead of me, but ill live.

Headphones ($13) left my earphones at home and had to buy a cheap replacement at Hartsfield. No major loss here.

Hotel Keys (n/a) replaced quickly, easily and with much sympathy by the ladies at the Reloj de Flores which almost absolves them of running one of the worst B and B's in the world.

Oakley Rx Glasses ($175) looks like contacts at night for the rest of the trip. Two years old. Scratched and kind of tired. Needed to be replaced, but still cool. Never saw anyone else with them. I called my optometrist to have them email me my Rx and I will go about getting a new pair in Buenos Aires. I should just get my eyes tested again. Como se dice "better, same, worse?" en Espanyol?

US Bank Visa & WAMU Debit MasterCard (n/a) both canceled. Temporary card on it's way to my hotel in BA.

Black Leather Wallet ($20) totally falling apart. Have been looking for a new one since I arrived in South America.

Cash (about $30) split between one USD20 and Chilean pesos.

BART ticket ($5.25) can someone pick me up at SFO?

Lonely Planet Chile (free) Picked it off the free shelf at Book Soup on Telegraph ave. in Berkeley

Various: gum, zip locks bags, small value Chilean coins for foreign coin collection, 3/4 empty water bottle, 2 pens, 1 mechanical pencil, body shop sunblock for face (hardly used), one small gift.

There were probably a few other things, but nothing major. I have insurance through my credit card company, but I didn't have time to get a police report so I doubt ill recover anything. It sucks, but it could have been a whole lot worse. Most of my money, my passport and my bus ticket from Vina del Mar were safely locked in my bag at the hotel. I could have been broke with no passport and had to find my way back to Santiago somehow.

Luckily, I had remembered to store the telephone numbers for both my credit cards in my phone so I was able to cancel both quickly before either were used. After some difficulty dealing with US Bank to get a replacement, they finally put me through to Visa international who were extremely helpful. They are going to send the temporary card and offered to wire me money, which wasn't necessary, but nice to know it's an option.

In some ways I feel unburdened without the need to lug my backpack everywhere nor take photos of everything interesting. If that sounds like a massive rationalization, it's because it is and I'd much rather go back to bearing that minor burden.

On the bus to Mendoza, I was talking to this older (he was born in 48) couple from Brooklyn, Paul and Doris. When I told them about my theft, they told me the story of how the were in some tiny town in Guatemala about 10 years ago. While they were walking around, someone slit a hole in Doris' handbag with a razor. They didn't notice it at the time, but everything fell out including all their money, their passports and their plane tickets. Here they were in a small town in the north of country and they had to get back to Guatemnala City to replace everything. First they had to return to Flores where they were staying and they managed to get a free ride on the bus. Then the woman at their hotel called Amex. They were on the phone for two hours getting everything sorted out, including being able to get money at the back with a verbal password since they now lacked identification of any sort. At the time, I'm sure it was a painful ordeal, but given the perspective of time, it's now just a story to tell.

Time + Tragedy = Character + Story

Anyway, Paul is very sanguine about it. He says to me, look, if you're going to leave your home and travel you're going to lose things and be robbed. That's just a fact. You can choose to stay home, but think of all the experiences you'd miss.

I couldn't agree more.

As someone who was robbed and could have been shot 100 yards from my front door for my Blackberry, I know that this sort of thing can happen anywhere. I wasn't hurt, physoically anyway and I'll live.