When I bought my Nikon D800, I was still in my early 30s and had dreams of being a National Geographic photographer. I dubbed the camera “Fancy,” and took her everywhere. The walls of my house are lined with the evidence of our adventures, both at home in the Pacific Northwest and abroad.

Two years ago, I booked a trip to Chile with my friend, Tanya. After being cooped up and isolated during the pandemic, we decided to go somewhere together—somewhere new—and neither of us had been to South America. Chile appealed to us with its beautiful vineyards and coastal drives near the capital, its jagged mountains and glaciers to the south, and its volcanos and desert moonscapes to the north. It would be the perfect place to take Fancy!

Various travel websites also claimed that Chile was one of the safest countries in South America, a bonus for two women traveling on their own. So, we completed all the entry requirements, got our COVID-19 boosters and all the associated documentation. We planned for everything.

Well, not quite everything...

Part of our trip included renting a car. Driving in any foreign country can be scary, especially when weaving through a busy city. There are different rules of the road, different street signs, different rhythms to get used to. Even so, we were excited to set out and see the country. Three days in, we planned to drive north from Valparaíso to La Serena. We were going to visit the Elqui Valley and learn how pisco is made.

Twenty minutes outside of Valparaíso, I heard a strange noise and turned down the radio. Tanya listened too. Then, we felt the dreaded thunk of metal hitting pavement as one of the rear tires went flat. We pulled into the crowded shopping center of a resort community and parked, trying to think of our next steps.

I hate remembering this next part, because inevitably my brain starts re-writing history into a series of what-ifs:  

What if our Spanish had been better? We could have gotten ayuda over the phone from the rental car company and waited for someone to arrive with a new tire. Unfortunately, no one understood us over the phone, and because the Chilean accent is very thick, we couldn’t understand them either.  

What if we’d had a contingency plan for a nuematico disenflato? We could have asked the rental car company what to do before leaving the lot.

What if we had learned how to change our own damn tire before leaving home or mapped out different tire shops along the way? 

So many what ifs.

Instead, we accepted help from a clean-cut man who looked like an accountant. He wore a sweater and glasses, spoke perfect English, and seemed so sincere in his efforts to help us. As his “friend” tried to teach Tanya how to change a flat, the accountant walked me to the corner of the parking lot and pointed out a garage about a quarter mile away. I verified this on Google Maps, thanked him, and walked to the shop to find a new tire and a mechanic.

Successful in my mission, I returned a short time later and found Tanya crying.

“They stole our backpacks!”

My blood ran cold—Fancy! Fancy was gone!

Disbelief. I frantically searched the empty backseat, under our large suitcases, and even under the seats (which was ridiculous). Then, I looked again, thinking we must have just misplaced them somewhere. My mind refused to accept what it already knew.

The police later said this happens all the time: thieves work in teams, targeting tourists by slashing their tires and then following them until a tire goes flat. They offer to help. They separate the travelers, distract them, and then steal their belongings.

We spent the afternoon canceling credit cards, dealing with the police, and shuffling travel plans instead of driving to La Serena. So much needed to be done that I didn’t have time to think of Fancy and what that loss would mean. I was just thankful to have, by some miracle, kept my passport, a spare credit card, and phone on me.  

Tanya and I talked that night in our hotel room about if we should stay in Chile or go home. We didn’t exactly feel safe, but we had also spent a lot of money to be there, and it would be such a waste to give up and go. In the end, we decided that if we abandoned the trip, we’d be robbed a second time. We refused to be victims.

But when we’d done all we could and the lights went out on that day, I started to think of Fancy—all the experiences I’d had with that camera over the previous decade, all the hopes and dreams I had attached to it. No tears came at that time, only a wave of grief. I allowed it to wash over me.  

Then a different thought hit me: I hoped that whoever ended up with Fancy would feel the weight of it in their hands, see the scratches and dents and probably a few grains of sand embedded in her body from too many trips to windy beaches. Then, I hoped they looked through the lens. She helped me see the world a little differently, more clearly—to find what is beautiful and extraordinary about it. I hoped this person would look through that lens think about all the places they could go. Maybe Fancy could give them a little something to dream about too. That was her power.

The robbery was a kind of gift. I had been holding onto a lot of pain because of various losses during the pandemic but also just the disappointments of not really fulfilling all those dreams I’d had as a younger adult. Fancy was forcing me to see the value in letting things go—and not only the value, but the necessity of it. When we hold on so strongly to what we might have been, we can’t embrace all that we have the power to become.

Anyway, that’s not to say I didn’t curse those thieves many times over the course of the trip, especially when I found a vista that required a zoom lens, but I didn’t allow myself to get hung up on it for very long. I did what I could with my cellphone. (And yes, I did replace the D800 and lenses. I’d insured them long ago.)

I hope you enjoy this short tour through Chile, as seen through my cellphone. I suppose it’s somehow appropriate, as my blog started out with only cellphone photos. It isn’t the tools after all that make the art, it’s the person behind it.