Well, at that time, I lived alone in El Bosque, and I headed to vote in the morning, around nine, nine-thirty, at the Campus Oriente. I was very good friends with the youngest son of General Pinochet at that time. He had gone to vote before me because he hadn’t slept much that night, so he went straight to vote. When I called him, he had already voted and told me, “Look, I’m going to vote, I’ll come back, and we’ll have breakfast together and start watching the news.” So, I went to vote and then returned to Marco Antonio’s house, who lived about 5 or 6 blocks away from me in Providencia. He lived alone as well. We both were dating with different girls. He married Soledad Olave, who later became the president of a polling station. Marco had an idea; he voted for the Yes option with some hesitation because he remembered that the best thing that could happen was for the No option to win since the country was like a pressure cooker and needed some release. And I, being a bit more right-wing, wanted the Yes option to win regardless. But as time passed, I realized that it was best for the No option to win. Later, we went to Marco’s house, had breakfast, started watching the news, and talked to Soledad, who had already arrived with snacks to spend the whole day as a polling station president.
Well, we started killing time, and the first results came out around one or two in the afternoon. From the Antarctic, where there was a military base, obviously, about 90 percent of the votes favored General Pinochet, either the No or the Yes. We were waiting, waiting. This would bring a lot of uncertainty to people. The No side had instructed its supporters not to celebrate until it was officially recognized by the military government. So, around five o’clock, we went to Isla de Maipo, where my friend’s girlfriend was. We went to pick her up because she was finishing her duties as a polling station president around 7 or 8 o’clock. When we went to get her, she came out looking very distraught because the No option had won by a significant margin in her polling station. It takes about an hour to travel between Santiago and Isla de Maipo. On top of that, due to traffic, we all took a while. Between going to Soledad’s house and everything else, I don’t know, we must have left around 9:30 or 10 at night. We had the radio on, the one we listened to was a communist station because no, no, no, we didn’t listen to the others that were clearly biased towards the No side. Later, another announcement came, and we went to Marco’s house, turned on the TV, and there was a second report. As far as I remember, the Yes option was leading again, with about 10 percent of the votes counted, and at that time, the information seemed quite ridiculous. Then there was silence for a long time, and there was speculation that the No side had won, but there was no official recognition from the government. Apparently, the executive branch wanted to deny the victory, but the three members of the Junta, who were called to La Moneda on their way because they were at the Ministry of Defense, which is two blocks away from La Moneda, walked from the Ministry of Defense to La Moneda and were interviewed by journalists. General Stange, Matthei, and General Merino, the head of the Navy, all acknowledged that the No side had clearly won. With that declaration from the government’s Junta members, the executive branch couldn’t do anything against it. At that moment, we had already arrived at Andrés Stincher’s house, along with our girlfriends. Senator Jarpa was there speaking and also acknowledging the victory of the No option. General Pinochet, after this, had a clash with the members of the Junta at La Moneda. He got upset and I think he left around two or three in the morning and went home to sleep, accepting what had happened. Afterward, the celebration started for all these people, this pressure cooker, as I call it. They celebrated in the streets, not violently, but with champagne, cheers, and car horns. There was a constant honking that drove me crazy. So, in the morning, I didn’t hear anything else. I immediately went to the beach in Cachagua. And then on Monday, it was back to work. And that’s more or less the whole story.