Pick pocketted in Valparaiso

Valparaiso is a nice place, with many colourful and old houses around the bay. Much of this area is world heritage. It used to be a major port before the Panama Canal opened and is still quite large as a container port and naval base.

We never did feel entirely safe here and got a few warnings but today the inevitable happened - I got "pick-pocketed". That sounds better than robbed anyway :-S

Kim and I were walking around a fairly crowded market having a bit of a look around, next thing I felt a whack on my leg and saw a bloke running away flat out through the crowd. It was weird at first because I felt for my wallet and camera and I had both of them so thought that nothing had happened. Then I realised that he had taken my glasses which were in a small neoprene case in my pocket.

I thought that the glasses would be of no use to the robber because I have a strange prescription. I have one weak eye and one almost normal one, with variegated multifocals. When I first wore them they made me feel dizzy and took about two weeks to get used to. So they wouldn't be much good to anyone else but me.

I walked up the street a bit to see if they had been ditched anywhere but it was no use so I headed back to the market. One of the ladies that had a stall there had seen what happened and she was really concerned and rang the police on her mobile. She couldn't speak a word of English and she tried to talk to us but it was hopeless. It seemed that most people near us knew what had happened. A couple of blokes came up to us that could speak English, one of them apologised on behalf of Chileans and said that this made him 'feel like shit'. We had to wait for nearly an hour for the police to come and the woman stayed with us the whole time. I thanked her several times and wanted to give her some money for helping me, but the police told us not to.

Next thing we are in the police van and off to the cop shop. I needed to make a statement so that I could claim the theft on insurance. We had to wait in the station for about 1/2 an hour and while we were in there we met two Australians that had also been robbed. They were a young couple that were walking in a fairly isolated area and got held up with a knife to the throat. They took the young woman's backpack which contained her phone and other documents. I guess my situation wasn't that bad after all.

Eventually I got called through to read my statement and that was it all over. We went to an 'Optica' shop where I bought a new pair of glasses for $10, which are nowhere near as good as my old ones, but heaps better than none.

Funny, I don't even feel that bad about it. The kindness of the people that helped me more than made up for the theft, which probably was an act of desperation. So in the end no harm done and a valuable lesson to learn, that is only carry what you are prepared to have stolen. It could have been heaps worse.

This video was taken about an hour before the incident .. expect it when you least expect it.