Day 8 — Assault and Flattery

No travel diary would be complete without a couple of cautionary tales. As it happens, our second day in Valpo furnished not one, but two. Both involved thefts, and one involved violent Chilean self-proclaimed lesbians.

Let me explain.

We awoke to discover that my wallet had been stolen, presumably taken at some point during our walk home the night before. This was not good. In addition to a couple days’ worth of cash, it had my credit card and bank card in it. Served me right, I suppose – it was sloppy traveller’s technique on my part to keep everything together in one place.

When I reported the theft at the local police station, a very attentive constable proceeded to interview me and write up a report on the incident. To do so, he pulled out an incident report template, and began to type the whole thing out again. As far as I could tell, he copied the original word for word, except for the two sentences that described me, and where the theft took place. Otherwise, the final result was a carbon copy of the original, and it took almost an hour to type out using the tried-and-true hunt-and-peck method.

Still, I shouldn’t be so quick to disparage. After all, the police stations in Bolivia don’t even have computers, let alone a computer filing system. Moreover, the Chilean police really were quite friendly (if not particularly helpful) throughout the incident. All in all, if I were to pick a South American country to be robbed in again, Chile might well top the list.

Turns out we weren’t the only ones to suffer an attempted robbery that day, either. We spent the evening pub-hopping with an American acquaintance of ours. At the end of the night, after we had said our good-byes, he was quite literally attacked – and I swear I’m not making this up – by a group of four girls, three of whom claimed to be lesbians.

They had approached us all earlier in the night, asking if anyone was interested in attending an after-hours party. It was at this point that several of them announced their sexual orientation. Manuela and I demurred on the after-hours invitation, whereas our American friend showed some interest. Admittedly, his attitude was strongly influenced by the fourth girl (the self-identified non-lesbian) who seemed very interested in getting to him better.

At this point, Manuela and I bid our farewells and jumped into a cab, while the American headed off with his new friend and her three friends in tow. The next morning, I checked my e-mail to find a message from our intrepid American, an excerpt of which is reproduced (with kind permission) below:

Sadly, the night didn’t end so well. The girl that was supposedly interested in me for my rousing intellect was part of an attempted robbery 4-some.

While walking to my hotel, the other 3 women (and supposedly lesbians) kept following. I kept asking in the best Spanish I could why this was the case. Having traveled enough, I thought there was a chance she was a prostitute. I was ready to turn her down when the request for money came, and I enjoyed having her hang off me until then. I asked why they were following. They not only laughed at the suggestion that they wanted money (and the suggestion that their friend was a prostitute), but they still would not leave. The “girl” remained sweet and nice throughout, even after one of the [other] girls literally came out swinging. She ripped my sweater to shreds. I punched her away ….

Amazingly, the “girl” came up after, offered her phone number and suggested we meet the next day when her friends weren’t around.

As a tourist scam, I give it full marks for originality and design. They’ll have to work on the execution a bit — my friend did manage to get away with his wallet intact — but otherwise, I think it’s a winner.

The fact that the “girl” (i.e. the scam’s bait) came back afterwards is intriguing, as it suggests that she really did want to get to know my friend a bit better. Perhaps the whole story could be made into a movie (admittedly, it might be of the made-for-TV persuasion) about a Chilean girl who grows up on the mean streets of Valpo. Forced by cruel circumstances to join a lesbian gang that preys on tourists, she nonetheless has her heart won over by a dashing American (possibly played by Fred Savage… I did say made-for-TV, after all). If anyone’s interested in the rights, make an offer!

Note: Special thanks to my brother for the title of this entry.