I have been tear gassed in Chile!

Who would have thought that Ben and I would be subject to tear gassing? It has all happened in a lovely seaport city of Valparaíso located about 120 miles north east of Santiago. We chose to come here at the end of the trip booking a gorgeous hotel called Manoir Atkinson n the historic quarter of the city. The hotel is over 200 years old.

The wow view from our room:



The impressive outside of Manoir Atkiinson:



We loved walking around and getting to know Valparaiso but there has been a downside to our stay. There is a lot of intense political protesting going on daily particularly at night. And it has become a bit of a battle scene with police firing tear gas at the demonstrators. So on the first night we could hear the young people calling out and loud action of rife shots. It went well into the night. What the heck?

There is a good reason for the continuing protests as is shown by this sign conveniently placed outside a cafe. It is very evident from talking to the locals that they have enough suppression by the government. They do not even get all their superannuation/pension when they retire, only a portion of it. The government officials keep it and currently has 170 million pesos that rightfully belong to the people.



The military and the police are battling the people in the form of rubber bullets, torture, imprisonment and tear gas. It has even been reported that women are being raped. We also heard in Valparaiso that a number of people are losing eyes with the bullets that are composed of more metal than rubber.

The people are angry and not giving up. Sadly, some of the demonstrators have burned large corporate run supermarkets and pharmacies, in some cases the fires have got out of control and burned down neighbouring buildings.





There is a lot of graffiti around the city particularly on the old buildings and statues.





People of all ages are protesting and yesterday in the city there were thousands peacefully walking on the streets peacefully. We noticed that there were hospital and medical people and educationists in the crowd. One child had a gas mask on just in case the police used tear gas on them.



Well as it worked out, the police came up to the historic quarter and tear gassed it. Don't know why as there were no protestors around. We heard that they do this quite regularly. Ben and I were having a very pleasant dinner at a lovely restaurant near the hotel only to walk outside into a cloud of tear gas. It was not pleasant, the eyes stung, the throat hurt and we forgot about the Grand Mariner and the Chocolate orange filled dessert very quickly.

We also found out from our hotel hosts that lemon is good to combat tear gas with. Just a pointer in case you are ever tear gassed!

Standing on the roof of the hotel we could see the police firing tear gas at the young protestors.



We survived the tear gas and being subjected to the remnants of tear gas when walking around the city the last couple of days. Despite the troubles that are occurring in this lovely city we have thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and are thankful we dropped in. At no time did we feel unsafe.

We know a lot more about the reasons for the protests and wish the people all the best for the changes that they so very need.

What we do know is that the people in Chile are angry and will not stop until the President resigns and change happens.

Cheers and Blessings

.............................................................................................





...............................................................................................

The beautiful view from the restaurant last night that turned out to be a most memorable evening in more ways than one.