Strange Sightings
Trip Start
Sep 05, 2006
1
21
33
Trip End
Sep 04, 2007
Various,
Chile
Friday, January 26, 2007
1. The Dog Gang Rape
The first experience happened in Valparaíso in December. For lack of a better, less-marked term, it could accurately be described as a gang-rape of a female dog. There were nine boy dogs enclosing her in a circle on the main street of Valpo and she was doing her best to fend for herself. One boy dog was mildly sucessful at protecting her, but it was definitely a struggle. I watched the whole scene from my second story hostel room window. This, however, was not the strangest part of this sad scene. What I found so completely odd and obsessed over for a good twenty minutes, was the apparel of the ring leader. I deduced that he had to be the ring leader because aside from his clear dominance and complete devotion to the task of barking away other dogs and humans that might interfere in the event and the fact that the other dogs yielded their turn at the lady dog to him, he was wearing a scarf. And not just any scarf, but a black and white striped scarf with fringe that was meticulously tied around his neck with the loop knot and everything.
So while the poor lady dog was being abused and violated, all I could think about was how that scarf got on the dog´s neck. Was he able to tie his own scarfs or had some Chilean trickster decided to put the scarf on the dog? And why was he even wearing a scarf when it was 90 degrees out anyway? And was it because he was wearing the scarf that the other dogs respect and let him be the leader? Did the scarf have a royalty property in the world of dog? Was I watching a twisted dog version of Animal Farm?
Unfortunately, I never did get a chance to ask the dog how he got the scarf as the scene was just too depressing and dogs don´t talk anyway.
2. The Rainbow Wedding
The second event was strange because of it´s location, not so much because of what took place. A couple friends and I were walking through Concepción through the Plaza de Armas (which is the main plaza in every Chilean city) to our favorite cafe when we heard the wedding march. On weekends there is usually quite a bit going on in the Plaza so we didn´t find it unusual to see a large gathering of people. Carnivals, protests, artesan fairs and Santa sittings are all just part of the plaza´s bustle. But our curiosity had risen and we meandered over to find a tall thin woman in a black dress and white veil walking slowly yet purposefully toward her finacé, a shorter woman in a black slacks with tears of joy running down her face. Rainbow flags were flying at half-mast and thus began a beautiful ceremony where they pledged love to each other and sealed it with a kiss, whereas of course I cried as I have seemed to have made a habit of doing at every wedding I have ever been to.
But what was so intriguing about this wedding was not the wedding itself, but that it took place in a public square in Chile, arguably the most conservative country in Latin America. Even my housemate, bless his heart, came home from the hairdresser one night where to his dismay, he was alone in a room with ¨5 gays!¨ I don´t know if he thought the were going to hold him down and kiss him or just sprinkle gay pixie dust on him, but he was clearly concerned.
At the wedding´s end, the two women stood up and gave very eloquent speeches to a very receptive crowd and emphasized that even though what they were doing wasn´t the social norm, they were still humans and deserved to be in love. While the wedding had no legal distinction in Chile, of all the protesting that I have witnessed down here, this one was by far the most beautiful.
3. El Gato Loro
My eyes were droopy and my brain was slow as I crawled off a twelve hour bus ride from Buenos Aires to Mendoza, Argentina. It was about 10:30 in the morning and already at least 85 degrees. It was a welcome change, however, as I had been so cold on the bus the night before that I had actually wrapped myself up burrito-style in the newspaper that I´d been reading.
Thus began my usual new city routine, get my backpack, search for an internet cafe, find hostel. When I´d gotten about a block away from the bus terminal, however, I encountered the strangest man I´d yet to see in Argentina.
He was dark-haired and clean shaven, maybe late 40s early 50s with small dark eyes and a pointy chin. He was rather short as well, but none of those reasons were why I noticed him.
It was because I was across the street focused on my cafe search when I heard a cat meow. And not just a friendly meow, but the cat-in-heat or the cat-just-got-hit-by-car type of screeching meow that crawls under your skin and bites like a leech.
I looked over to where the sound came from, expecting to behold a cat splattered across the road with a car speeding away when to my utter dismay, the dark haired, middle aged man made eye contact with me and let out a bellowing ¨MEEEOOOOWWW¨ and shook a large canvas bag that had a fluffy cat tail attached to the bottom. The bag said ¨GATO LORO¨ (cat parrot) and it looked like he was trying to sell stickers with cats on them as part of the gig.
I´m sure he saw the look of complete shock on my face and he just smiled and then twisted his mouth to the side and meowed a bit more. He didn´t say an intelligible word, only meows. I hurried away just as quickly as I could and tried to absorb what I´d just saw.
I continued to think about the incident for a few days and when I finally got up enough courage to go back and find out what he was selling, how lucrative the meowing business was, if he had a family, and countless other questions that were nagging at me, he had gone. I´d seen him 3 times in those 2 days on various trips to the bus terminal, but I seems as though the meowing ´Cat Parrot´ takes the weekends off.
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dog gang rape caught on film
