ROBBED IN GUATEMALA
Guatemala City is not the most beautiful city in the world, nor is it the friendliest or cleanest, but there are a few sights to see. Most tourists do a short stop in G.C. before moving on to Lake Atitlan, Antigua, and the Mayan ruins. That was my plan. After spending just two days in the capital city, I decided I would take off to Antigua and then on to Lake Atitlan. I ran into a small problem though. While trying to get to the bus station in Guatemala City, I was robbed. This wasn't just a little mugging, but a full blown robbery. The only other time I experienced something like this was in Brazil (That story will be told later).
It was about a twenty minute walk to the corner of 18th Calle and 10th Avenida, where several other backpackers had told me that buses bound for Antigua (my next destination) were to be found. Another guy from the hotel was leaving that day too so we decided to walk together and take the same bus. It was 5:30 AM and the streets were nearly deserted. For once, I actually felt safe walking the streets of G.C. During the day and at night, there was an aura of danger throughout the city. Gangs of young guys and boys would walk around and I saw them threaten several people, but so far I had avoided them. About 10 minutes into the walk, a young man of about 20 started following us, but he disappeared when we reached the spot where the buses were sitting.
The buses were all sitting in a line and as we approached the third bus, the driver called out "Antigua" to us. I felt relieved that I would make it out of Guatemala City without incident, something that many travelers cannot say. Even the guy from the hotel, an Aussie named Derek, told me that he was mugged his first day in G.C. and lost his wallet and watch. The driver took my large bag and tossed it up to a kid on the top of the bus and I climbed on the bus, holding my smaller backpacker.
The bus was mostly full, and we were making our way towards the back, when the driver´s assistant met us half way up the aisle and told us to sit here, on either side. Slightly odd, but these guys were always telling me to sit down, so with a shrug we began to perch ourselves on the edge of the two benches. Then he told us to put our bags up on the rack. This as well was odd, but not unheard of. On crowded buses I had often been asked to put my bag up over my head. Vanessa, clever girl, held on to hers. I, meanwhile, acquiesced. After all, I had done it before, and if you just keep one eye on it all the time it is relatively safe (attentive readers will begin to perceive that hubris and complacency had begun to set in after so many uneventful trips).
At this point I already think the bus attendant is behaving a little bit strangely. I can distinctly remember watching him and thinking, "He is odd, I should keep an eye on him." Then he does something that should beyond any doubt have set off screaming alarms in my head. Having placed my bag on the overhead rack, he pushes it back a little bit, as if just tucking it away, muttering soothing words the equivalent of "Here, just like that," until it is a good foot or two behind me. It remains inexplicable to me why I did not at this point stand up, tell him to fuck off, and take my bag back. I swear to God, I think the guy had me hypnotized. I can remember looking at him, and thinking "OK, now this guy is really acting weird," but still I failed to react.
Finally, he made eye contact with both of us. Backing ever so slowly towards the front of the bus, saying "You two just sit there and relax, we will be on our way in five minutes." I´m convinced he even used his index fingers, pointing first at our eyes and then waving them slowly in to point at his own, directing our attention to his face.
I believe, although I can´t honestly be sure, that at this point he turns away and the bus begins slowly to roll. Contact broken, I glance back for my bag and in the same moment that I see it is gone I catch a glimpse of the emergency exit at the back of the bus closing. Screaming bloody murder, I charge to the back of the bus and out the back. Scanning the crowd ahead, I run a few paces, stopping when I see no sign of my bag. At this point Vanessa hollers¨"There!" from the back of the bus, and turning around I see some guy with my bag, not four paces to the side of the bus, climbing into a cab.
Still hollering, I give chase, and I think I´ve got him when I reach the cab. Surely hearing my screams the cabbie will stop. But no, as I reach the open driver´s window he screeches forward, accelerating rapidly. I keep pace for a handful of steps, actually putting my right hand in the driver´s window and grasping the edge of the door as if I´m going to singlehandedly hold back this cab. A few more bounding paces, still accelerating with screeching tires, and I´m being carried forward by the car rather than my own steam. Finally, either just in time or a moment too late depending on which side you look at it from, I realise the folly of this plan. Letting go, I quickly discover that my feet alone are not up to the pace, and Í go down, sliding on my side and cracking my skull on the grimy, encrusted asphalt.
That´s about it. Not really having alternatives, I climb back on the bus, at least intending to make good my escape from this evil city. The bus attendant, of course, was not the bus attendant, and had scuppered out the front as soon as he turned away from us.
To summarize my losses:
- One iPod (no more music this trip)
- One digital camera
- 250 odd pictures, 150 of which are gone forever (Steph, don´t trash my pictures). Many would have adorned the pages of this blog. I can now say with complete confidence that these were among the best images ever captured through a lens, exquisite in their composition and unbearably beautiful. Their loss is, I venture to say, the cruelest of this tragedy.
- 768 Megs of compact flash memory, 512 of which wasn´t even mine (I´ll be buying you a replacement Phil - do you know the specs?)
- 1000Q cash (perhaps $165 CAD)
- One credit card and two bank cards, easily cancelled.
- One passport (this is proving a nightmare to replace. I have to go back into the belly of the beast, twice, to get the job done)
- Birth certificate, driver´s license, medicare card (I really hope they haven´t figured out identity theft here)
- Various books and miscellaneous items
- Those damned clip-on sunglasses
- About three square inches of skin from my shoulder and elbow, liberally replaced with oily ground in grit and grime. Vanessa is proving to be a miraculous nurse, and with no sign of infection it appears I may keep the arm.
- A significant amount of pride, and good riddance. I spent most of the last twenty-four hours berating myself for being so stupid as to fall for such a pathetic ruse. In the end, I almost think having been taken in bothers me more than the actual losses.
This, combined with a couple other incidents this year, has me convinced that God is trying to tell me something. Perhaps that I am not supposed to have expensive things, at least not things I can´t afford to lose (and what other definition of expensive could there be).
As if to drive the point home, having arrived in Antigua and signed up for Spanish classes we were invited to participate in the creation of an Alfombra. For the uninitiated, an Alfombra is an extremely intricate, multi-coloured image that Antiguans at this time of year like to make on their streets (a picture would help here. too bad huh?). Painstakingly put together by packing many different layers of coloured sawdust into wooden stencils, while continuously watering the work-in-progress so it doesn´t blow away, a reasonably complicated Alfombra takes a team of some twenty to thirty people 8 hours of continuous labour, hunched over on their knees on the cobblestones, to make. It is generally timed to be completed perhaps half an hour to an hour before a religious parade comes through and stomps the thing into oblivion.
A concept not unlike the Buddhist Mandalas, created by monks over a course of days by dropping individual grains of coloured sand until a spectacularly complex illustration of the meaning of life, the universe and everything is created, at which point they stand up and grab their brooms.
Now I´m not thick. I get it. All things are transitory. So as I sat there contemplating the Alfombra and its impending doom, and considered my iPod, my camera, my pictures, my sunglasses, I thought to myself, "OK, sure, but I don´t give a DAMN about this stupid sawdust."
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