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Lima, Peru
12° 3' S 77° 3' W
May 19, 2006 18:31
Distance 205km

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E-lima-nated!

Text written in: English

It had to happen eventually. After 6 months and 19 days of travelling, I let my guard down and it cost me. Big time. The bus from Pisco to Lima took an hour longer than expected and, having woken up at 6am to do the boat tour, I was feeling a little tired. It was coming up to 6pm on a Friday evening and the sun was setting. I had wanted to be in a hostel before it got dark. My mum and sister, who had been to the Peruvian capital just over a month earlier, as well as every tourist I'd met with any experience of Lima had all warned me that Lima was not the sort of place you want to be wandering around at night, or by day for that matter. I was willing to give Lima the benefit of the doubt, though I was only really there to catch a flight to Ecuador on Sunday.

It all happened so quickly, as these things normally do. I was the last person off the bus and picked up my backpack. I then went to the bus station entrance to wait for a taxi. I saw one coming, so I took my guide book out to look for the hostel address and in doing so, I put my bag on the ground. A man tapped me on the arm and told me I had to go to the station office. I didn't need to look to know his friend was taking my bag. I turned to see the thief running off down the street, but I could not give chase until I had found somebody to look after my backpack - I didn't want to lose that too. By the time I started running after him, the thief already had a big lead over me and, although I was faster than him, he knew the streets and valued his life so little that he was prepared to throw himself in front of oncoming traffic, something I was not prepared to do. He got away. Only 24hrs after leaving Ben in Nasca, I had lost my passport, my wallet, my flight tickets, my mobile phone, my camera, my video camera, my sunglasses and a bag full of other vital possessions.

I returned to my backpack and a kind local man took me to the nearest police station. Unfortunately, they were unable to deal with the crime and directed me to the tourist police, a 15 minute walk away. The tourist police did little to restore my faith in limeños (people from Lima). I had to wait for an officer to finish his sandwich, before he would talk to me. When he did, he took down the details of all that I had lost and then wrote a report. He printed it off, but refused to give it to me, suggesting that he had done me a special favour in producing the report in less than the "usual 2 to 3 days" and asked me for some money so that he could get a taxi to take him around whilst he carried out his investigations and "cracked the case". It was an awkward situation. I did not want to annoy him whilst he was ransoming the report to me, but at the same time I was infuriated and shocked that he could ask for money from me at such a time.

At that moment, another officer entered the room and so I drew his attention by loudly pointing out that the thief was unlikely to have returned to the scene of the crime after such a big haul and that I couldn't understand why I should pay him to do what was essentially his job. However, the other officer was not my knight in shining armour, but a retard. He walked straight over to my Lonely Planet and informed me that it was a guide book. After flicking through it upside down, he handed it to me and started saying, "Lonly plate," over and over again. He then asked me how to say cajero ('cashier') and other random words in English. I indulged him for a while, until it became clear that these words were doing nothing to help me out of my present situation and were unconnected to each other in any way other than being the bizarre output of his brain. To get him back 'on the case', I asked if there was any way I could get the locks on my backpack broken, as I had lost the keys too. To my disbelief, he produced his house keys from his pockets and tried to force each one into my locks. I left him to it, while I pretended to see the other's logic for a moment, which enabled me to get my hands on the police report. I then went on the offensive and refused outright to hand over any money, took my backpack and left.