I had just arrived and used my last pennies in buying my favorite food, "Chipacitos." These little bread-cheese balls left me without a cent, but they were lovely. The next stop was the bank to correct this situation.
Along the main city pedestrian mall is one lonely shop with lights.
In the bank was a line of people but the air-conditioning was lovely. Outside it was in the mid 30's but the charts were saying that it felt like 44 degrees Celsius. I could not disagree with them. It was already 8pm at night but the temperature had not yet budged. So standing in line for an automatic bank machine was not a big issue at all in this lovely and cool room.
When finally it was my turn, everybody had left the large multi-machine room that I was in. Inserting my card in the machine and going through the familiar processes to which I had become accustomed, I was surprised to have the machine spit my card back out again and tell me it was rejected. This was unusual behavior as I had previously used my card successfully in this very machine.
Unperturbed, I considered another previous experience when the same thing had happened. When I tried another machine in the same room during that experience, everything worked out fine. Thinking that this would be the same sort of thing here, I removed my card and walked over to the machine next to mine, preparing it to enter the slot.
Only darkness except for a supermarket that provides some light later on.
At that moment in time, just as my hand was reaching forward to insert my card, the lights flickered and went out for a moment, returned again, and then dropped out for good. As I was taking in all of these events, the monitor of the teller machine in front of me suddenly disappeared, caving into a center dot of light which slowly faded to nothingness.
There I was, standing in a bank where all power had been lost. No backup power, no cameras, no machines. But I had my card in my hand. By the grace of God I had my card in my hand. Getting a card out of a machine over here is a significant task, and if you arrive late then the card is destroyed. So I was very thankful that I had my card with me, even though I was still completely broke.
In leaving the bank, I discover that this power outage had affected the entire city center. There was no lights at all down the pedestrian mall that marked the heart of the city. It was complete blackness. Shops were moving customers out and closing their doors. People still moved around, but the only light provided was that by the cars at each intersection.
The only light available was from passing cars at the intersections.
After hanging around for half an hour, some of the stores started to turn on generators to give lights that cast a glow over the darkness hanging around the place. People still wandered casually up and down the street as though nothing had happened, watched cautiously by bewildered shop owners and attendants staring out of their locked glass doors. Others rested on the benches in the darkness, watching the shapes of those that kept on wandering.
The shops that now had light were once again open for business. For lack of competition for attention, each of these scattered places was very popular and filled with people. It took over an hour for the lights to come back on again, by which time I had climbed onto my motorbike and headed back home.
Of course the drive home was also very interesting. No traffic lights nor street lights made it very dangerous along the main avenue that I was traveling down. The lights on my old motorbike did not reach too far ahead, so I was left to search out bicycles and mopeds crossing my path by their shadows in the lights of approaching cars.
The popularity of shops with lights increased.
Many of the intersections that I was able to identify, and there were quite a number that I passed through before realizing, involved an unintentional game of chicken with other drives vying to cross over in front of me. There was only one harrowing moment when I had to duck and weave through some bicycles but the rest of the journey was bearable.
Returning to my neighborhood revealed lights and everything functioning normally. There had been a moment when the lights dimmed but it did not cut off. In my travel back here, this would be one of the few areas in the city that were not dotted with darkness. The blackout was the worst I have experienced yet.