That night I had made plans to meet Hans who I had met in the queue at J.Cruz to maybe go out to El Huevo, the egg, or possibly even get the bus or train out to party in Viña Del Mar. We had arranged to meet at 23.00 outside the egg, this meant that I had time to shower, do a bit of writing, eat and drink some beers before I had to go out to meet him.
The night turned out to be a complete DISASTER, I got there early, got hassled by some people they call punks, who are just down and outs who try to busk, beg and sell crap to make some money, they tend to loiter around bus terminals and the busier touristy places. So I waited, walked around the building because he gave no specific location to meet. I waited and waited and waited, no sign of him and I really needed the toilet. I went off to find a quiet street in order to relieve myself, found one, decided to go back and have one last look for him, this time it was already 23.30 so he was half and hour late. I cut my losses and went back to the hostel, had a couple more beers, watched TV, brushed my teeth and went to bed. There were two new people in my room, I was no longer by myself. Earlier in the day the hostel manager had told me that 3 people had arrived and that 2 of them would be in my room. He said there was a Dutch Girl, an Australian girl and a Swedish girl, I had no idea who any of them were or which ones would be in my room but when I went in there were 2 of them sitting on the beds chatting. Their names were Harriet from Australia and Astrid from Holland. They both spoke English but were out in Chile on a university exchange programme, so were mostly talking to each other in Spanish. We started chatting about general things then went to sleep.

Not too sure of the exact time, maybe 3.30 in the morning but it sounded like there was somebody in a room above stomping around quite loudly making as much noise as they could. It got progressively louder and the room started to shake, so much so that it could never have been a person doing it, the whole building was shaking now, shaking really hard. None of us had any idea what was going on, then chunks began to fall off the ceiling and cracks appeared in the walls, then the drawers in the room started flying around, Astrid's bed which was next to mine ended up shifting half way into the middle of the room, car alarms started going off, house alarms, dogs were barking, the building was making this really loud booming sound and creaking. It was an Earthquake, I knew Chile was on a fault line but never expected to be there when an earthquake took place, it felt really powerful, I was a little bit scared for my life and in that situation I had no idea what I could do, there was no real cover in my room, I was on the third floor and the building was very old and seemed as though it was quite buckled after the quake. When it stopped we all evacuated the building, for some reason in my half asleep state, I went to the toilet to wee, then went back to my room to put clothes on, I didn't get any of my things though. We all went outside and the hostel manager started saying not to panic or anything and went round checking if everybody was out, most of us were out apart from 2 American girls who were still in bed, there's no way that they could have been sleeping, firstly the first main shock was so huge then all of the little shocks that followed, no way. The lights had all gone out by this point so it was the time when having a camera phone came in very handy, the focusing light used as a bulb for the video made a good rudimentary torch. The hostel manager risked his life to go in and get them to come out, he was in there a while so must have been doing a lot of persuading to get them to finally come out. Once they were out, the smaller shocks continued. I asked the hostel manager if he had any spare blankets to keep us warm as it does get very cold at night, he said he had some on the ground floor. Him and myself went in, as quick as we could to get some blankets for everyone, we found some, went out gave them to people, went back to get some more, gave them out then went in again, we found enough for everyone so stayed back out. They had got chairs and cushions for people to sit on, a sofa and an armchair. It was easy to tell that everybody was in shock, not just us, the rest of the public too. Cars were driving everywhere, some full, some empty, some with all the clothes and things as if those people are fleeing the city. It seemed to have died down now, no shocks for maybe an hour, so I went back into my room to get some things and a torch, I went up and forgot to get my things and just got a torch, I managed to film some of it on my camera though as I was using that for a torch anyway it wasn't any extra hassle just to press record. When I got down I realised I had to go back up to get a jumper and shoes, I went in as quick as I could got my things and went straight back out. The hostel looked awful, a lot of its façade had fallen off, some of it was hanging off and some was just about being held in place by rotten pieces of wood. Earlier in the day I had actually had a chat to the hostel manager about the construction of the building, h said it has a thick wooded from, with wooden slats and then filled in with mud, literally mud, or at least a more modern version of mud bricks. It was very old too of at least a hundred years. It looked really beaten up with bits fallen and hanging off and cracks all over. Inside wasn't too much better, the stairs was all bent and buckled under the strain, it was still strong but a little out of shape, the kitchen had been ripped apart, the bathroom tiles were all over the floor, there was dust and debris everywhere and cabinets all over the floor. When I had got outside I heard the Americans talking to people asking the most stupid of questions, they asked me if there were usually this many cars out after an earthquake, how the fuck was I supposed to know. They also asked if there were any hotels or stronger newer hostels around or open, again, how the fuck was I supposed to know. They were clearly retard who had no idea of what their priorities were, they wanted to go back in to get some sleep, they were adamant on going back to sleep and waking up at 10, precisely 10. the stupid c**ts. They said they knew all the risks and were going to take full responsibility in case anything had gone wrong, they eventually went back in. I tried to get some sleep on the pavement outside the hostel but was too agitated and uncomfortable to do so. When the sun came out, my room mates, there friend Johanna and myself went off to find a hostel higher up the hill, in theory relatively more safe, especially since we had heard warnings or a tsunami. The poor people who run the hostel also live there so now they must have become unemployed and homeless, they are such lovely people and its such a shame this has happened to them. We left the hostel, headed for the hills but along rather than just straight up. As we got closer and closer to the older part of the city, the more built up and touristy part it was clear that the quake done no where near as much damage as it had where the old hostel was. We were walking up a hill and got touted into another hostel, it was safe, they had felt the shock but it hadn't caused any damage, at least it was safe and was much higher up the hill. We all went to sleep and caught up on what we had missed from the night during the quake, just as I had nodded off, we all felt another big after shock, not enough to do anything major but still pretty big.
After I woke, I went to the hostels common room, power had been restored and the news was on, nobody really knew exactly what was going on but it seemed quite serious, roads had been destroyed, bridges collapsed. In a city called Concepcion which was the closet place to the epicenter, whole tower blocks had collapsed, building had fallen down left, right and centre, it was mass destruction, the whole city looked as though it has been destroyed by the quake. After more news flooded in, we found out that Santiago had been hit pretty bad by it too. We all made a decision to get back to Santiago anyway, it was the capital, was the best city set up to cope with things like this so was a much safer option, even more so if there was a tsunami on its way. We went to have a bite to eat as we were all starving, then headed for the bus station to see if we could get tickets to Santiago. We got tickets for 18.45 that evening. Off we went to a presumably safer place. Astrid's flat mate had said I could stay at theirs for the night, plus she had said that there had been no damage to her flat but the edge decoration and a piece of the balcony of the one opposite had fallen off. When we got to Santiago, the damage looked in no way as bad, most of it had been cleared up though so there was no real way of telling the extent of the damage. Some of the buildings had been cordoned off, the main campus of the Catolica University had been too, some of it had fallen off, it was the university that the girls went or were to go to. When we arrived at Astrid's flat, it looked as though nothing had happened, her flat mat has said that it was shaking a lot, by the sounds of it just as much as where we were but all that had happened was some cups and plates had fallen over and smashed. She cooked us a lovely dinner, had some wine and we all talked about most our first experience with an earthquake. Got a good nights sleep but was rudely awakened by a small after shock at about 8.30 in the morning, turned out to be nothing so I went back to sleep. Watching the news and reading some of the news reports, it was actually a huge national disaster, the earthquake at the epicentre was 8.8 on the Richter scale.