That morning early in September 1973 I was preparing to go to the University when one of my cats came to me with an urgent request. He was very talkative and was insisting on me to follow him.
Since I had a bit of time, I decided to find out what he wanted. He took me to the window of the living room.

The house I rented was on a hill in the arid city-port of Antofagasta. No traces of green on these hills! This area of northern Chile is rich in minerals, particularly copper. The largest open pit copper mine in the world, Chuquicamata, is only 130 miles from Antofagasta.

From the window of my living room and looking up, because the house was on a slope, I only could see part of the street and looking to the North I could see several army vehicles. It was September 1973.
I knew that the political situation in Chile was taking enormous steps to explode, and soon. But army intervention? My cousin, Arturo Araya, the Navy Attaché to the President, had been killed on July 27, 1973, and that was fresh in my memory. There were so many theories on why he had been killed!

From my position at the window, I just saw some legs of people probably coming out of a house, two neighbors from my house, climbing into an army vehicle that looked like a jeep but was all enclosed.
My cat did not stop meowing! I saw the vehicles stopping at several other houses and taking people out of them.

When all the vehicles were gone, I took my Citroën Deux Cheveux and left for the University.
When I went back to my place I saw a group of several neighbors. They greeted me and signaled me to join them. The comments were about the neighbors that had been taken by the army vehicles. Nobody knew what the purpose was for taking them or why.

Two days later, in the afternoon, I saw several students running and pointing at the sky. There were two planes dumping sacks, the size of a person, into the ocean. I wished I had a camera!

Next day some fisherman at the fish market told us, while we were buying urchins, that they heard shouts coming out the sacks the day before. They were very close to the area where the sacks were thrown. They said that something that looked like pieces of railroad tracks were attached to the sacks, and they submerged very fast. No way to try any rescue.

Unfortunately, the fishermen were not to be found at the market after they told us the story. My neighbors, who had been taken in the military vehicles, also disappeared.

The military coup took place on September 11, 1973.