Thursday, 18 September 2014
So I rushed back to the bus station on foot (because there are no taxis in this bloody town) and went to the counter of the bus company whose bus I took (Frontera Norte) and explained to this oldish man at the counter as best I could about how I left my camera on the bus, and I gave him all the details of the bus. It was like talking to the wall. This old man who was manning the place, was extremely unhelpful and lazy to the point where I felt like strangling him. He further irritated me by refusing to make eye contact. When I asked him to contact the bus driver or the bus conductor, he said he couldn't do it because he didn't have their numbers. Really! What kind of bus company does not keep the numbers of their drivers and conductors? What if there was an emergency? I think this was a lie. He was just being lazy. He informed me that the bus had gone to Salta, Argentina, and will be back tomorrow at 4 pm, and I can talk to the bus driver / conductor then. In the meantime, I left a description of my camera and my hand phone number so that he could contact me if he heard anything, and I saw him keeping these details on his desk but it looked as if he was prepared to do nothing. But there was nothing left for me to do except wait.
So then I walked back to town, and stopped at hostels to ask for vacant rooms but it was all either full or extremely expensive. On the way I also stopped at various tour agencies to enquire about stuff to do while I was here. Of all the agencies I went to, there was one that gave me a good price to do 4 things, provided that I pay in cash. Having sorted that out, I must now look for a hostel. I think I walked the entire town of San Pedro, and then I don't know where I was walking and I chanced upon this hostel about a 10 minute walk from town, and they had a vacant room for a good price, but a shared bathroom. I didn't mind that so I agreed to stay here.
When I went into my room I just had to cry, for my own stupidity of losing my camera, for the lackadaisical attitude of the man at the bus station, for my luggage being so heavy, for the sun being so hot but the wind being so cold, for being alone in Chile, for life being unfair, and for everything in between. After this, I went back to town to find an ATM machine, paid the agency for the 4 tours, and then went back to the first hostel to collect my luggage and dragged it all the way to my hostel. I don't even want to think about dragging my luggage all the way to the bus station. That's a problem for another day.
At about 7 pm I went into town again to have dinner because by then I was starving again, and I had a beer to calm my nerves. It is damn cold here at night, typical desert weather. I told Amma and Philip about losing my camera, and I was bracing myself to be nagged at but they were quite kind, they said the best camera is my memory and that can never be erased. While true, I still wish I hadn't been so careless, there were over 1,000 photos in there! But such is life. There is nothing I can do about it now.
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