its the most common story you hear about backpackers getting robbed in bolivia. in peru its more dodgy taxi drivers and pickpockets that trouble us gringos...
i´d just come off a 12 hour (i think) bus ride from potosi. i was the only gringo on board. oh, and i sat next to this girl who had two tiny kittens, one of which escaped in the night and we used my ipod light to find it. only for some of the other passengers to complain to driver about the noise the kittens were making and them being put in the hold. she cried.
as soon as i was off the bus i was in standard pragmatic mode. the bus stops about 5km outside of town. taxi. there must of been 5 or 6 waiting there. everything valuable was hidden nicely away except a bit of cash in my pocket. i was tired and not focussed and being threatened was the last thing on my mind. (big tip... don´t wear a money belt. thieves are on to this. it is easier for a pickpocket to get a moneybelt off you than something from your pocket! - on any transport where i have to have everything on my posession, i where shorts with zipped pockets under whatever it is i´m wearing)
the taxi drivers see me and see gringo. the first guy approaches and wants 5 bvs (50p) - well i don´t know where i am, it´s dark and all i know is my accomodation is 5k´s away. "done".
then another driver hears this and offers 4. "sold".
i´ve heard many a story about people getting done. some horrible - of course, but most are standard procedure for these guys. i went to get in the front seat and put my bag on my lap as normal. he told me to put my bag in the boot and get in the backseat. ERROR - i know not to do this but at the time wasn´t bothered. i should of, and now always do, insist on sitting in the front. and you´re very vulnerable to them driving away with your bag, on entrance and exit, if you put it somewhere else other than with you.
well what happened? he drove around the corner... not even a minute away from the bus stop. i went to pay him and he said he´d deal with it when we got there. he said he knew where the hotel was. he pulled over. a guy was talking to him through the passengers window and then got in. he checked the drivers licence. he looked at me and instantly asked to see my passport...
looking back i knew this was obvious... at no point would i have ever given this guy anything unless i´d seen a weapon. which i never did. i told him that i didn´t believe he was a police officer and asked to see his badge. a lame attempt of a laminated photograph, that looked less official than my library card, was passed to me. i told them both, as i knew the taxi driver was in on this, that i wanted to go to the poilce station, on foot, and that he needed to get my bag from the back for me. i could see my bag in the back behind the seats as there was no boot cover, however, my bag is full to the brim and about 30kgs. there was no way i was getting out of the car until i knew that my bag was coming with me. the driver walked around to the back of the car only to come back and tell me that the door wasn´t working. meanwhile the ´police officer´ was getting aggressive, a few slaps on the face were delivered as he growingly knew that i wasn´t just going to hand it over to him.
i wanted to open the door, not to get out, but just so that they were less inclined to drive off. this is when i found out he´d looked it and the locks from the inside were broken. shit. now i´m wide awake.
well, what would you have done?
i grabbed my bag from over my shoulder, kicked the window out, unlocked the door and walked off down the road shouting ´policia´. thank god i wasn´t wearing my havaianas.
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