Last Sunday afternoon, Feng sent me an email.
âJust a thought⊠you can stay in Santiago for another couple of weeks if you feel like it. Let me know, I can call Air Canada tonight or tomorrow.â
My return ticketâlong gone are the days when you can book a one-way international flightâwas for March 19 from Santiago, Chile. I didnât foresee the pandemic when we planned the trip, itâs just that leaving on March 19 meant I would arrive in Canada on March 20, a day before turning 37.
I call Feng back when I got his email.
âSure, why not?â
Remember last Sunday? The epicentre of Europeâs coronavirus was in Italy and most neighbouring countries seemed to think âbeing carefulâ was enough. First cases were being confirmed all over the world. We had just learned schools would be closed for two weeks following the traditional March Break holiday in Ontario. The USA wasnât yet an epicentre of the global pandemic and lockdowns were only an option.
The situation was very serious but it hadnât spiralled out of control yet.
Staying in Santiago didnât sound like a bad idea. South America was still relatively spared from the virus (most cases had been tracked and imported from Europe or the US), it would be reliably hot and sunny in Chileâs capital until mid-April, plus I know Santiago and itâs a city Iâm comfortable in. I could deal with the ongoing protests, I speak Spanish well enough to keep up with the news, and I had some work to keep me busy. Besides, the coronavirus travels with travellersâstaying put sounded like an acceptable option.
Feng couldnât reach Air Canada on Monday. âIâll try again tomorrow,â he said. âIf I get through, do you want me to go ahead and book you on a flight for early April?â
âSure,â I agreed. âBut no later than that. I miss you guys!â
That night, at 3 a.m., I sent him this email: âlâll call you tomorrow, hold on, donât change my ticket yet.â
What had happened?
Well, pretty much everything at the same time.
I had started to read French, Canadian and Chilean news every night for updates and I had just learned Chile had entered ârisk phase 4.â Fase 4 included closing borders for 15 days and a series of other measures like closing schools and universities.
It wasnât just in Chile. Most South American countries were closing borders and Peru had gone straight into lockdown with military patrolling the streets.
Border closures didnât worry me that much since it was clear you could still leave the country. However, if the next step was a curfew or complete lockdown, I was screwed. It would be a logistical nightmare to get groceries, updates, etc. I can live out of my backpack, but I canât live though a weeks-long lockdown in an Airbnb.
I was also scared Piñera, the President of Chile, would be tempted to kill two birds with one stoneâdeal with the COVID-19 crisis and go the extra mile to stifle protests.
Shortly after, Canada closed borders to anyone who isnât a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident. Meanwhile, most airlines started to reduce services and cancelling flights.
Staying in Santiago had seemed like a good ideaâ24 hours later, it sounded like a very risky move.
âCome home, you donât want to be stuck in Chile,â Feng wrote.
I called him. âYep, coming home. Iâll be here⊠well, Friday, as planned.â
Meanwhile, panic was spreading in Santiago. On Monday, everything was pretty normal but for the fact that âalcohol gelâ (hand sanitizer) and âmascarillasâ (face marks) were sold out in pharmacies and supermarkets. On Tuesday, âFase 4â prompted panic-buying. Like in Europe and North America, Chileans started stocking up on pasta, cleaning products and toilet paper. Toilet paper for a shitty situation, but pasta? As far as I know, Chileans arenât big pasta eaters⊠I canât imagine what happened in Argentina where pasta is a staple food!
I started to sleep with the phone under my pillow, like I do when I have to deal with a crisis with my French family. Barely awake, every day, I checked CBC for the latest updates, then my emails, then Le Monde, then various Chilean news websites. Rinse and repeat throughout the dayâwho know what had happened again, what had been decided at the highest level while I was out.
Powerless, I was still determined to enjoy Santiago. I went out for long walks under the sunâit wasnât very hard to avoid crowded places, streets were much quieter than usual.
Reading lots of news about COVID-19 and strengthened screening measures at airports triggered new hypochondriac tendencies. I was worried about my throatâit was very dry, probably because my body was adapting to dry heat after months of tropical weather, plus I had been exposed to tear gas. âDo you have a fever?â my mom asked. I toyed with the idea of buying one of the best-sellers of the week from vendors street, a thermometerâitâs pretty hard to do forehead test alone, especially when itâs 30â°C.
On Wednesday, many small businesses were closed and there were long lineups outside the supermarkets because only a certain number of people were allowed in at the same time. I bought bread, soup and yogurt at the Venezuelan corner store instead and grabbed my Kindle to go to the Quinta Normal Park⊠but it was closed, and so were most public places. There were many people standing in front of the LATAM Airlines office, probbaly waiting for news since the company had just cancelled 90% of its flights.
It was a weird day. It was a weird week. Hell, itâs a weird year.
I emailed my Airbnb host to let him know I was leaving on Thursday as planned. âI wonât come over to pick up the keys,â he replied. âAs for checkout⊠stay as long as you want.â
Just in case my Italian last name meant âthe traveller who brought the plague to Chile,â I emailed back and added that I wasnât coming from Europe or North America, that I had been travelling in South America for three months. He sounded relieved.
I packed once again, one last time, digging out the clothes I wore when we landed in Lima in Decemberâjeans, t-shirt, hoodie.
Phew, my jeans still fit.
Shit, I need socks too, right?
More digging into my backpack to the sound of the âJournal de France 2,â French TV 8 p.m. news Iâve been playing every night this week on my computer for the latest update.
Air Canada sent me the email I was waiting forââItâs time to check in online!â
Phew. AC 93 would be here.
I was flying back to Canada with a mix of sadness and relief.
(To be continuedâŠ)



Everything as planned is a little bit disappointing đ
Okay, a teaser for part 2: 3 medical emergencies on board!
similar things happen around the world, people buy hand sanitizer and mask, alcohol swab you name it!
the world turn upside down, easy thing like Indonesian female who usually refuse to be under the sun ( so they don’t get darker color, here…white skins means total beauty, silly) are stepping out their room to get Vit D.
I never thought sitting in the park, doing nothing but fooling around is a luxury now đ
hope we all fine !
It’s been – and still is – a crazy time almost all around the world. A weird year indeed.
I was really worried for you a few weeks back ; here, they were cancelling everything implying people gathering in the same place, and I was reading your stories about carnival in Brasil…
It was still safe when I was in Brazil, the first case was imported from Italy right towards the end of Carnival. I was checking the news and everything but we felt quite sheltered for a while down South.