SHIT HAPPENS

Ok, I am the worst and most unprepared traveller ever existed. Usually I book my trip plus hostel, arrive somewhere, connect to the WIFI and literally google: "What to do in ..." and "What to eat in ..." You can fill in the "... " - gap the cities I have arrived in.

Because I had a 1 day delay with the Buenos Aires trip, I had more time to actually inform myself more about the place I will go to. And obviously there were a lot of tips, warnings and security recommendations in general. So because I was better informed, I was more scared about which bad things could happen to me whilst in Buenos Aires. I found myself hiding money in my shoe, carrying around pepperspray and holding on to my iPhone while walking around the streets of Buenos Aires.
After a few days I thought that it was unnecessary and I should calm down a bit because for no second did I feel less safe than in comparison to the other cities I have been to.

Arriving in Santiago after Buenos Aires, having read the same scary stories about the city like before, I was more relaxed about everything.
But then yesterday someone broke into our dorm and stole basically everything they could grab in a quick manner and unfortunately also my wallet with $70000 CLP, that's 100€ of cash, my german ID and 2 bank cards. They also randomly took my first aid bag with medicine and a bag of all cosmetics I brought with me which is worth approx. 1000€ - I'm not even exaggerating. (I know I'm stupid for bringing them but I thought those are the only fancy things I took with me, everything else was very backpack-traveler-like, I swear!)

This time, I was quite calm. Neither did I cry and freak out nor was I thinking about going home. I called the 2 banks and cancelled my cards, tried calling the police but they didn't pick up (!) which is a joke. So we just went out on the street, stopped 2 of the traffic policemen and they radioed their other police friends and 3 (!) big police vans came with their crazy lights on. I was questioned by a very much relaxed policemen and it took him literally 30 minutes to fill out one page of information which i could have done in 5 minutes. Anyways, that was all and there was no hope that I will ever see anything of the stolen things ever again. The worst thing was we were standing on the street and every person who passed by looked at me with the you-dumb-tourist-got-robbed-look.


I have been talking about security when traveling to countless people before and while being on the road. And I have always been saying: "Well, bad things could happen everywhere, not just in South America. If you are careful and walk around with open eyes, it should be alright. If someone holds a knife against your throat, there is nothing you can do anyways other than giving him everything you have."
Too bad, this had to be one of my bad experiences but it is ok. Even though I didn't sleep very well last night but this morning when I woke up I was even more determined I should be staying here, wait until my new cards arrive and just make the best out of the situation - that is taking things lightly and with humor. It's the only way to take it anyways.