Keagan’s World

Rather than start this one with an over-dramatic one-liner as I usually do, I think the title takes care of that enough. Instead I’ll start with I’m all good no need to worry!

Still have my phone, passport, and no harm. Just down a very large sum of cash and all my cards at the moment… thank God for Venmo, Western Union, and Apple Pay!

So what happened?

Long story short, I got too damn used to Buenos Aires. Late nights out drinking before wandering home alone for 45 minutes without a worry in the world that anyone would do anything to me. As safe as a city can feel.

I was only going to be in Santiago for 12 hours. The walk to my hostel was only 15 minutes. Chile is the most developed South American country.

And that’s how it happened.

As I walked back to my hostel late at night before my flight to Easter Island, three guys jumped out of a car and made me hand over my bomb bag I had been carrying. Unfortunately, because I was spending so little time in Santiago, I hadn’t rearranged my items to disperse my valuables amongst multiple areas. So all my cash was in that bag… as was my wallet.

Tough.

I think it goes without saying, but it sucked.

It was even worse the next day when I missed my flight to Easter Island to go file a police report. I had a tracker on my stuff so I knew where it was being kept and I was told an officer could be dispatched with me to reclaim my items. Well that never happened, I waited 6 hours the next day only to watch my stuff start to move out of the city on my phone knowing damn well it was gone for good.

Again, tough.

As I sat on the road outside the second police station I had gone to, I was crushed. I felt helpless and unsure of where to go next. After all, I had no money or cards to buy anything, no idea what to do next, and was completely alone.

But then I wasn’t. The night before I had met a guy in his 30s from the States and gotten along quite well with him. When I told him what had happened he immediately started doing what he could to help out. He invited me out to dinner with him and his friend as well as offered the couch up in their Airbnb for me to crash for the night as I was completely devoid of a way to pay for anything at the moment. And you know what? It ended up being a lot of fun.

I got to know Brendan and his friend Russell fairly well, shared a fantastic dinner, and had a grand old time. While I was still bummed about losing all my cash, Brendan was able to quickly remind me the great fun in traveling. Yeah the situation sucked a lot, but I found two really awesome stand up guys who were willing to pick me up when I was down without hardly knowing me at all. That’s hard to come by. For that I was always be grateful to Brendan.

Even bigger than just the moment itself though, was they shook me out of my funk quick enough for me to realize that there was just but one way and that was forward. I had been contemplating going home, cutting my trip short, or just being scared. But spending some time laughing and enjoying the evening with them quickly reminded me the joys of traveling. This was a nasty hiccup on an otherwise beautiful trip, why would I let it ruin everything?

So I’ve continued. Yes, on a tighter budget than before, but still I’ve continued. And I’m so incredibly happy for that. Because already in less than a month, I’ve experienced two of my biggest highlights yet, and I reckon more are on the way.

Haven’t even made it to the Salkantay Trail yet. Or spent a week in the Amazon (okay lowkey I’ve done this now but it wasn’t true when I originally wrote this so I’m gonna act like it still works). Or FLOATED down the Amazon. Or surfed on the Pacific. Or… you get the point.

And my biggest inconvenience of having no cards or dollars will be removed in less than a month when I head to Ecuador. Oh yeah, forgot to mention that new change of plans. See you in a couple weeks Juan!