Scalp that thief!

Ever since arriving in Santiago – and even before – people have been warning me about the petty crime. The pickpockets are legendary. On our first day in Santiago – doing the Zombie Walk for 6 hours – Roger and I passed by the Plaza de Armas and a middle-aged man came up to me and asked “Where are you from?”. I replied, “from Holland” (he didn’t look like he was fishing for the 30 minute SHORT version of my life’s story). He then advised “watch your bag, this is a very dangerous area for pickpockets”. Juan and Maria had reiterated it on our first evening, and last night Nadege’s parents warned us again – especially about the Plaza de Armas. Can you feel it coming?



So, we moved to the Fundador this morning. We bid our B&B goodbye and piled everything into a cab for the move Chez Maman. Truth be told, I preferred the B&B, but what can I do? We then arranged to have the pre-booked tour in the afternoon so we’d have the next day free. The tour wasn’t available until 3pm, so we decided to head to the shops for some last minute shopping for the cruise to the Glaciers. I don’t like being a nag, but sometimes it’s necessary. My brother had the same idea, and together we must have warned my mother over 30 times within 2 hours to keep a watch over her bag, to hold it tight, to keep it by her side, to watch out for pickpockets etc etc etc. But, they’re slick if you're not paying attention.


We arrived at the...da-da-da-dummmm... Plaza de Armas and went into the Cathedral to have a look at this wonderful building (and in my case, escape the sizzling heat). Roger had already exited and I was taking one last picture when my mother tells me she’s taking the side door. My back was turned and as she tried to exit, she was crowded by 4 or 5 women who suddenly appeared out of nowhere. One shoved a mobile phone in my mother’s face and kept saying “photo, photo”. My mother reached up to push it away and... that’s when they must have been opening her bag and taking her wallet.






My brother was 5 metres away taking a picture of the front of the building and saw the crowd suddenly disperse, and my mum’s bag open. My mum quickly concluded that they’d taken her wallet and my brother took off after the group that looked like the people that had crowded her. It can’t have taken more than 30 seconds. I stayed to take ONE picture of the inside of the church, then turned to go outside, to see my mother running to the side of the building. I knew something was terribly wrong as soon as I saw that – my mother RUNNING. Not jogging, not walking slightly faster than her usual pace, but actually running. I took off after them to see my brother on the other side of the road, still running. I ran straight through the traffic on the road and caught up just as he’d caught the sleeve of a woman. My mother was not far behind and screaming something. The woman was pulling away so I got behind her and kneed her in the back (as you do) and then got her arm behind her in a half-headlock (self-defence has paid off Big Time). My mother got a death grip on the thief’s hair and finally got the words out that she stole her wallet. She found her wallet on the floor under the thief’s feet – she’s apparently dropped it when my brother got a hold of her.


The three of us were doing a good job of both keeping her immobile and scalping her at the same time – a true Peek Team effort. We then started looking for police as the crowd around us got involved. I guess they don’t see 3 obvious tourists having a knock-down fight with one of their own in broad daylight by the side of the cathedral every day... One particularly pugnacious guy screamed in my face “just let her go, you don’t have to treat her like that”. To which I replied, pugnaciously, “she robbed my mother, she deserves even more than what we’re doing”. Finally a guy in a suit told us that there was police in the square in front of the cathedral and got a grip on the thief to drag her there. I let go and got in front of her to snap some classic photos (what if she got away... we’d need a Mug Shot, right?!). It turns out that the man was not an undercover police officer as I thought, but a lawyer on his lunch break. Same difference? Used to dealing with slime in any case...



We finally got her to the police, who seemed unimpressed. My mother went through her wallet and found none of the cash was gone (over a hundred dollars), but ALL her credit cards were missing. I went into damage-limitation overdrive and we got her banker’s phone number and immediately called to have ALL cards cancelled. We also called the hotel to reschedule the tour – priorities people! We then had an escort to the nearest police station and put in a report of the incident. Since I had the pictures, we could describe her quite well. The police, however, were not interested in the pictures and even told us the woman would just be let go as there was no real evidence and, well, she didn’t take any cash and the credit cards were already cancelled. Like everywhere in the world, they have more important criminals to chase – even though they no longer needed to chase since we served her up on a newly follicly-challenged platter.



We got back to the hotel at 3:45pm to find the tour guide waiting for us. Since his suggestion of a historical tour of Santiago and the Plaza de Armas was not met with enthusiasm we decided to do a tour of New Santiago and the San Cristobal mountain look-out (gondola!). We drove up to the top of San Cristobal – a hill-top look out on the outskirts of Santiago that offers unequalled views of the city (and has a Gondola!). Roger enjoyed a local drink of...erm... some juice, wheat-type-stuff-and whole syrupy peaches. Delicious if a little on the complex side for a libation. We also bought a mega-something to share, turned out to be a filo-cookie covered in sugar that I just had to show my appreciation for on film! (BTW, this was just for the photo, I shared with the family and the pigeons... that promptly started following me around hoping for more of the same).





We’re just taking pictures of the monument at the top when my mother comes over and says “hey guys, I need to tell you something”. Odd. Alright... “Look what I found”. In her hand – yep, her credit cards. She’d misplaced them in her bag and had not put them back into her wallet the night before. Instead, they had been buried in the bottom of her bag. So, the thief got absolutely nothing for tangling with my mother, except a future follicle issue. The credit cards were still cancelled, but it seems my mother’s banker knows her better than we do. He’d put a temporary block on them rather than cancelling the lot and they were reinstated for 30 days.



On a high, we continued our tour by descending in a mini gondola and taking a tour of Sanhattan and the Millionaire’s Row type houses in the suburbs of Santiago. In the evening we headed over to an area called Patio Bellavista – an internal courtyard with artisan shops and several restaurants, and by far the best ice cream ever! So it was a good ending to a bad start! Peek Family 1: Santiago Pickpockets -100 (it’ll take a lot of future “earnings” to pay for treatment of that sudden bald spot...)