Pequeña Gigante: Have You Seen My Rhinoceros? Having seen the bus wreckage the previous day I was eating lunch in a restaurant as tv-news played footage of a giant marionette walking through the city. There were tens of thousands of people on the streets to catch a glimpse of her. A newspaper headline read: "Little Giant creates furor in Santiago." I later found her in a main square sleeping (picture 4) and was amazed how life-like the puppeteers made her. For as she slept they kept her chest rhythmically expanding and contracting to give the impression of breathing. On a third day, stepping out of the art museum, I noticed the police had blocked off the streets and stayed for her to appear. Around the corner she comes, giant popsicle in one hand, stopping to take a lick of it with her tongue. Every lick brought a huge cry of delight from the crowds. The whole experience was phenomenal. You stand looking at her and your mind says she is piece of wood with strings yet she brings tears to your eyes to look at. Doing a Google search I was obviously not the only one to be affected as such. One fellow types: "I must say that this was one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed. People got very involved in the story to the point where they interpreted what the Little Giant was feeling based on what she was doing and how she acted. They talked about her as a person, not a contraption. At one point we asked someone where she was and they told us that she decided to go out for a walk after her shower. In the evening people were saying that she was riding the elephant because she was sleepy. I didn't see it, but I was told that on Sunday morning, the Little Giant had to pee -- and when she did, all of the handlers turned their backs and looked away so as not to embarrass her. It's that kind of little detail, that kind of gesture, that allowed it to transcend mere puppetry. It's hard to believe without actually being there, but just watching her sleep fills you with emotion." (see the link here) French by birth, the theme to her appearance in Santiago was a lost rhinoceros she was looking for. Half of the city's police force must have been out for crowd control. A live band jammed out tunes on a flatbed truck providing great funky beats for her to step to. Considering it was sheer coincidence I came across her during my five days in Santiago it was brilliant luck. I am still meeting travellers a couple months later who say they have Chilean friends exclaiming "You guys missed the best thing ever to hit Santiago!" Chile