Going Nowhere

Fearghal

Cuzco-Peru

Cuzco seems to have a pull on us. It feels like we’ve been here for ages. We’d planned a stop-over as Si’s folks were in town for a week, and Emma, our newest revolutionary(who’ll be introduced properly in due course) needed to acclimatise to these andean heights, but we never thought we’d be here this long. Every time we try to leave, something crops up. First it was more blockades, this time due to civil unrest because of rising water rates.

Unfortunately, today’s holdup was a little bit more sinister, and as a result we spent the afternoon and evening in the copshop. We’d stopped for lunch in a run of the mill Comedor(eatery) after climbing out of Cuzco. We were all in good spirits, glad to be moving and on our way round the world again. When we went to leave Marina, noticed her bag was gone. It seems that 3 shady characters had followed us into the restaurant, ordered 10 lunches “to go” to distract the staff, then vamosed with the bag when the opportunity arose.

After a feverish race to an internet cafe to cancel cards before the thieves got a chance to use them, the cops were called, and a merry-go-round of recounting exactly what happened, and describing the culprits began. Oddly enough one of the rozzers had a picture of the thief on her phone??? Her naff glasses were the giveaway. So, we all went down to the station to give statements so that they could go and raid her house. It seems that she was on their most wanted list and there was much activity at the station as Marina was cross examined.  

To an extent, it was inevitable that we were going get something stolen in South America at some point, although that’s no consolation to Marina, who lost the guts of 500 euro’s worth of gear. However, I think that its interesting that it happened in Cuzco, tourist central. Before leaving many friends relations and well-wishers expressed concern for our safety- what, with us travelling through all of those unfamiliar and “scary” places . Yet we’d been on the road for six months with no events. Then we go somewhere that’s familiar and cosmopolitan, Cuzco even has a Mc Donalds, and we get robbed. Today’s mal-adventure reaffirms my belief that one is safer away from the tourist crowds in unfamiliar and “scary” places.

Fingers crossed, the raid goes well and Marina gets her bag back, although we’re not holding out much hope.                

Tomorrow, we’re going to give leaving Cuzco another shot. Hopefully this time we’ll make a go of it.