16 Time To Go Home: but Major Mishap Strikes!

27th March 2012: At about 7:45 this morning,  I had my passport stolen while waiting at a bus stop just metres from the hostel, for a bus to the  international airport for my flight home. The scammers didn't use the line I'd been keeping a wary ear out for: "You've spilt something on your coat. Let me help you wipe it off."  However, it was spotting a thin line of muck (a bit like toothpaste, only brown) on my backpack, and later coat, that made me realise what had happened.

http://www.tripadvisor.com.my/ShowTopic-g312741-i979-k5257987-Theft_scam_Please_read_to_help_prevent_further_incidents-Buenos_Aires_Capital_Federal_District.html

In brief, a nearly empty No 8 bus to the airport failed to wait for me, even after I'd flagged it down from a bus stop a few metres away from the one I was apparently meant to be at, and was only a few meters from where two other passengers were getting on, when it ignored me and left - even though the driver must have seen me running for it, followed closely by a man who had also been waiting at my bus stop. I had vaguely wondered if it was OK to board the bus with a large backpack on my back, since previously I had been asked to remove it before boarding a crowded bus elsewhere - but this bus had not been crowded.

I didn't have to wait long for the next number 8, which I boarded, without any problems. However, the driver said that this one wasn't going to the airport, so I had to get off again. The man who had run behind me for the first bus, but who had then gone back to the other bus stop, then walked over and said, 'Mochillo!' (Backpack.)  I  thought he was telling me that the bus wouldn't take me while I was wearing it so, not without some difficulty, eased it off my back - thus sparing him the chat line, which would have given me my warning.

As I took it off, I noticed a small dribble of muck, and straight away realised that I was a victim of a scam attack (see link above) - but it still took me a few seconds to register that my hand luggage had gone: as had the man, and also a woman who had been standing around at the back of the pavement, well behind the bus stops. 

Passengers at the other bus stop, who must have watched it all, were pointing in two different directions, indicating that the man and the woman had gone in opposite directions: but didn't show which way I would have had to go to retrieve my daypack, even if it had been possible to run with the heavy mochillo - or safe to try and do so. Had they taken that, I wouldn't have been half as upset - there wasn't much of sentimental (or other) value in it. But in my daypack, among other things,  I'd had my passport, my sleeping bag, my camera, and worse still, all the photographs from my 3-month trip - which, of course, would be of no value to anybody else.

Thinking positive, I should consider myself lucky, since at least I wasn't physically hurt, and after  35 years of independent travel with few problems, I shouldn't be too surprised that at some time, my luck was going to run out. All those photos, though . . 

As for trying to resolve the problem, it was quite a day. The hostel staff were great, making phone calls to Air Europa to see if they could let me travel on a copy of my passport (of course, they couldn't), to the police and to the British Consulate/Embassy. They marked the police station and the Embassy on a map for me and called a taxi, once I had finished emailing the agency who had issued the ticket, asking them to let Air Europa know that I might not be able to travel (depending on what happened at the Embassy). They also printed out a copy of my passport for me, that fortunately I had emailed to myself before leaving home - once a cartridge for the printer on another floor had been found and fitted . . .

At the police station I had to wait the best part of two hours to make my statement - or rather, to be interviewed, so that the policeman could write a report for me to sign. (Comes of not being fluent in Spanish: there is only one translator to cover 53 police stations.) Until I had this police report, the Embassy couldn't help me. When I finally got to the Embassy, they sent me straight to a nearby photography shop to have my photo taken. By the time that had been done, it was nearly 12.30. 

Next, I was given two forms to fill in, which I completed straight away: but by then they realised it was too late, since they couldn't process them after 1pm - they couldn't hold them for me at the office either, so I had to take them away with me, and then go back next day, to get the last part of the form  filled in by one of their staff ! They also had to tell me that they would be unable to issue me with an emergency passport until I'd got a ticket reservation, and that the passport would be valid only for that specific journey: meaning that if I were to have the passport issued and then be offered an earlier flight, due to cancellation, I would be unable to accept it, unless I paid another £99 to have it re-issued. (The passport is valid for a specific journey - not for that route on or up to the specified date.)

Unfortunately, the agency I booked my original ticket with didn't pick up the email in time to phone Air Europa, as requested; and when my brother rang, he was just told that I should go to the airport before 12:00, to get booked onto a new flight. Even if I had picked up that message, it would have been impossible to have got to the airport as well as the police station on the same morning - so I counted as a 'no show'.

Consequently, I spent most of the afternoon at the Embassy on their computer, trying to get a reasonably priced flight back to the UK. I got nowhere with the Air Europa call centre, who said that I would have to start afresh and buy a new ticket. They wanted over £1000 for just the one-way ticket: about half as much again as the cost of the original return ticket - and with Easter coming up, I wasn't getting anywhere with my hunt for an alternative.

Fortunately, I didn't book the ticket. ("This price is available only for half-an-hour. After that it goes up."). Nor did I take up the option of flying Air Canada via Toronto the following week, and then reclaiming the return part of the ticket. Instead, I went to see a helpful travel agent. He couldn't check the current ticket prices, because his computer was down, but agreed that even taking into account that it was Easter, £1000 was steep. However, he told me that Air Europa had an office just 2 blocks away. (If I'd known that before, it could have saved me a lot of hassle, as well as money!) 

Air Europa staff at the Buenos Aires office were far more sympathetic than their call centre, but confirmed that unless I could fly the next day (impossible, because the embassy would not be able to issue the passport in time), I would either have to pay something over £1000, or wait until 7th April (Easter Saturday), when there was a flight that would get me back to Gatwick on Easter Sunday. What they could then offer me was a ticket that would cost me a penalty 'no show' fee, plus the difference between the fare I had already paid, and the fare on the day of travel: amounting to  'just' £198GBP, which hopefully would be covered by my insurance. (I was less confident that £1000 would have been - but the insurance details were in the stolen bag.) 

The following day, I returned to the embassy to get the final section of the form completed. Even then, I was advised not to submit it until the following week. "You never know, you might want to change your ticket, and if you do that, we will have to fill in a fresh lot of forms and charge you again. We are on holiday next Friday, but you would be better to come back next week . . . " 

Fortunately, having booked my ticket, I decided to go back on Friday, at least to get the papers submitted. Just as well I did, for what they hadn't told me before was that Monday was also a national holiday, and although the Embassy staff would be working, I "might have difficulty getting in" , because it was the 30th anniversary of the Falklands invasion, and there would be demonstrations outside the building. Great!  

The Guardian, 3rd April 2012: The government has condemned violent protesters who attacked the British embassy in Buenos Aires on the 30th anniversary of the Falklands war.

Several hundred demonstrators pelted police officers with homemade firebombs and threw rocks and flaming bottles at the embassy as a series of events were held in Argentina and the UK on Monday to commemorate the 1982 conflict.

Television footage showed riot police using a water cannon to disperse the group of extremists, who had earlier set fire to a union flag and an effigy of the Duke of Cambridge in protest against British rule of the islands. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/03/falklands-protesters-attack-british-embassy

Happily, the passport was ready on the Friday. Petrol bombs, rocks and riot police might just have been the last straw!

Earthquake in Santiago

Afterthought: at least I hadn't booked my flight back from Santiago (Chile), rather than Buenos Aires: the option that many people take, and that I had considered. Had I done so, I would have had the additional 'adventure' of an earthquake, the effects of which were felt in Santiago on Sunday night, 25th March:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/26/us-chile-quake-idUSBRE82O0HM20120326

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2110051,00.html

The night before leaving for the airport, I had contacted the two Santiago girls I spent 4 days with from Puyuhuapi to Futulefeu, to see that they were OK.

Pilar's version (26-yr-old biologist): "The earthquake was a lot softer than the one we had in 2010. It's funny how we wouldn't call yesterday's quake an 'earthquake', we are so used to them, that is just a big shake for us."

Valentina (medical student, aged 20): "The earthquake here in Santiago was strong, like 7 grades. In that level all the things move a lot but not strong enough to panic, houses didn't get damaged so it was ok, just a little scary."

'Just a little scarey?' Hmm . . . . there was also a 'yellow' alert on a volcano -  some miles away from the active Villarica that I saw, but not so very far:

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/seismic-activity-triples-at-chiles-ilaima-volcano-yellow-alert

Perhaps I'd had enough adventures for this trip, I was thinking - but there was just one more to come .  . . . . .