A very sad day

Posted by Lisa on October 18th, 2005 — Posted in Activities

Yesterday, I went to the beach with my friend Joanna and with a new woman Anne Marie who has just moved down here from New Hampshire. Her husband is on sabbatical, and is a professor of marine biology. He is currently studying some type of seaweed found here in Chile. Last weekend they were up in the northern part of Chile and said that the desert is blooming. This happens every couple of years, when there has been a large amount of rainfall. Steve and I are thinking about driving up north this weekend to see the flowers. Anyways I digress, about my bad day. So after laying out on the beach for a while, it was a beautiful, and sunny day with a small breeze, we decided to go to Coquimbo for fish sandwiches. We walked around the market in Coquimbo where everybody peddles their goods, and then went to the fish market. After a terrific sandwich, I wanted to go see the sea-lions. So picture this, we are walking down a dirt road along the ocean. On the left hand side of us is the ocean, but you couldn’t really see it do to the construction going on, on the right hand side are a bunch of beautifully colored boats. On our way to the pier, a small kitten popped out from under a boat. It was the cutest thing. I decided to take a picture of the tiny kitten. I got out my camera and was bent down and taking a picture when out of no where my camera is ripped from my hand. I stand up and see a guy running away with my camera. What nerve!!! So of course, I start yelling like an idiot, my camera, he stole my camera, stop, arrete!!! And give chase. Not really sure what I was thinking of as I started to run after him, I mean really. Even if I was able to catch up to him, and then miracle of miracles knock him down, then what would I do? “Uh, hey man, that’s my camera??” He ran too fast and got away. There was a group of guys out by their truck (definitely smelling like they had been smoking), that said that he had got away. Luckily Joanna was with me and was able to communicate with them. We think that wanted us to go for a ride in their truck and go looking, but we declined. We think they also said that this guy was from Santiago, and was robbing lots of tourists, his nickname being, ironically enough “the robber”. I’m so sad. I was so excited to get a bunch of pictures this weekend of the desert to share with you guys, though lucky for me I have my friend Joanna down here that will let me borrow her camera. But still. In the end, nothing horrible happened to me, but I still feel violated, and slightly like a dork. I mean, come on, he stole my camera out of my hand as I was taking a picture. I did download all my pics from my trip home the night before so those were saved. I would really have been upset if I had lost my pics from Karin’s wedding. So that in all, was my very sad day 🙁

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