Drama In Calama, Thieves Steal Our Backpack
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
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96
221
Trip End
Ongoing
Calama,
Chile
Thursday, March 20, 2008
I had a dream on the bus that customs officials were cutting open Monoloco monkeys head and legs looking for diamonds, a premonition of what was to come perhaps
cactus
.The town of Calama is a dusty, hot service centre for miners and even Chileans had told us it is the ugliest city in Chile. We immediately hated its guts.
Here is how the robbery of the backpack went. This time they stole a big load of gear causing our drama in Calama. Unable to secure accommodation here, Nadine had gone in search of a hotel whilst i was to watch the backpacks on the sidewalk. I am paranoid about the bags and never saw anyone come near them. As far as i am concerned, an invisible man walked up and took Nadines very full and heavy daypack (the everyday use bag that attaches to the bigger backpack) from under my nose and left no trace, they are that good and we cant work out how they did it. We think there was a witness, a guy with car cleaning rag who was sitting on a plastic drum next to me and taking spare change from drivers in exchange for getting them a car spot. For awhile i thought he had the bag stashed under his plastic drum like a magician who hides plastic balls under tumblers then makes them disappear. I really wish i had caught them in the act. We have since heard that theft from foreigners is big business and very common in Calama. A whole lot of scams are going on here
1
. So we sat on the sidewalk in disbelief of the event and really pissed off at the bastards then made an inventory of the contents of the bag, not too much of a loss and generally, replaceable items. The items in the bag were the spork (a hard to find plastic fork and spoon combination utensil that travellers use), the headtorch, alarm clock (essential item), 7 books including the South American recipe book, Spanish language book and the bible, our Lonely Planet plus the good rain poncho that covers the whole backpack, a camera property of John Minnitt (we were using this one as a back up and it had a few photos on it), US$100 in cash, sunscreen, the crystals that came from Jules,a scarf and thermal top. So if a warm, dry, cashed up, well read bloke without a tan turns up early to set your table with plastic cutlery and offers to cook you a South American inspired dinner and perform a crystal healing ceremony for you, then he is definitely the guy we are looking for. We went shopping to replace some of the gear but the loss of the Lonely Planet is annoying because we have our whole trip mapped out in there for the next four countries and all our map drawings too plus all the hints and tips we have collected from other travellers we have met on the trip. We are lost without some printed map material.
We checked in to the Park Plaza Hotel, the plushest digs in Calama so that we would feel better. All the fun had gone out of going to the fair so we bought bus tickets for the following morning to get the hell out of dodge and holed up in the hotel all night, ordering room service (giant, designer sandwiches), using all the hot water, watching "South American Idol", Spanish speaking "Simpsons" and "Wheel Of Fortune" and drinking from the mini bar
jump for joy
. In the morning i had fun jumping leap frog style over the phallic shaped cactus plants in the gardens of the hotel. There is no sympathy for one who does this when they end up with cactus spines in their inner thighs. Still, it was the highlight of Calama.There would have been more drama in Calama if they had taken my bag with all our memory cards of photos, ipod and microphone, wallet, passport and we would have lost Monoloco who was strapped to the outside of the bag so we were lucky in this respect because we have the Bolivia border crossing coming up soon and we want to have all the documents in place after the dried fruit palava.
Calama is full of copulating feral canines, divey dump accommodations, hissing and spitting men and thieves. Whilst waiting for the bus out of town to San Pedro de Atacama, we noticed a sign on a door that stated that women were not to go inside the venue it was posted on. Turns out the joint is a schops con piernas (beer with legs) which basically means it is a pub that has scantily clothed waitresses and offers extra services, similar to the skimpies who work in the Australian outback mining towns. The men in Northern Chile display the worst kind of machismo (overtly masculine) behaviour we have come across
To top it all off, on the way out of town Nadine saw a rotting German Shepherd dog on the side of the road.
May the Hare Krishnas move to a more peaceful locale and Calama be left to rot in the desert.
No Joy!
