-Sorry I haven’t written in a while. I struggle with writing to start with, and the mugging experience gave me writer’s block.
In Argentina and Brazil, we were warned by Viking and local tour guides to leave jewelry back on the ship. A Brazilian tour guide told us that thieves would rip necklaces right off your neck and the same with earrings. And he said that Rolex watches and cell phones are always a prime target.
The problem is that we hear the warnings but don’t believe it. Until someone you know describes their experience, it doesn’t seem real. Who would want this necklace I wear every day that my grandmother/spouse/sister … gave me? How can I wander about the town without a watch? How will I know when to get back to the rendezvous point for my tour or ship?
Other than his children, my husband only has one thing he treasured from his first marriage – a Rolex watch. He cherished it as an engineer would – he loved how it functioned. As long as he wore it, it would keep telling time. No batteries, just the motion of everyday living, kept it going. Periodically it would slow down, or the crystal would get so scratched up you could barely read the time. He would take it into a watch repair shop, they would clean out all the dust and replace the crystal and then it was like new again. In addition to keeping time, it had a little window that showed the day of the month (1-31). On months that had less than 31 days, he had to remember to manually roll the date forward to get it to 1 again. Shortly before we left on this trip, the day-wheel got stuck between two numbers and wouldn’t go ahead anymore. The crystal face was looking somewhat battered again, but he didn’t have time to get that all fixed before we left on the trip.
So when he heard the warnings about not wearing a Rolex, he thought that his watch was too old and damaged to be of any interest to a thief. If he took it off, he wouldn’t know what time it was, and he might need to reset the time on the watch if it stopped while we were gone.
So off we went exploring Buenos Aires. He with his Rolex and me with my iWatch and its elastic velcro band. Like many other big cities, Buenos Aires converted one street, Florida, to pedestrians-only to provide a mall-like shopping experience.
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| Buenos Aires Argentina – Redline is the pedestrian-only part of Florida St. |
We took a Viking-provided shuttle bus to Plaza Hotel Buenos Aires. The bus ran every 30 minutes except for a long break at dinner time. We were carefully watching our time, so we didn’t end up waiting for the bus in that long dinner break.
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| Our Path Along Florida |
We meandered through 4 blocks of Florida Calle. Many shops were boarded over, and the ones that were not closed were desperate for customers. The sales clerks would come out of the shop to try to recruit customers to come in and see what they had to offer. The ones from the many leather shops and cashmere shops were especially assertive in the heat of summer.
One thing we were looking for was a post office to send cards home to our grandchildren. The map we had was inaccurate, and we don’t speak any Spanish, but eventually, we were able to get a store clerk to direct us to the post office. We mailed off the postcards and started back to the Plaza Hotel, where we would board the bus back to the ship. The heat had taken its toll, and we were ready to go back to the Viking Sun.
We had considered buying some leather clothing, but the more we thought about it, the less appealing that was. After all, Houston rarely gets cold enough to wear warm clothing.
Even though Florida didn’t allow any vehicles, the cross streets did. The google street view below shows our view of the intersection of Florida and Paraguay as we waiting for the crossing light to turn green. (Big red X on the map above.)
The strange part of this particular street view from Google is the lack of people in the street. What we saw was a wall of pedestrians 2-3 people deep waiting to cross. This street view allows you to spin the image around, and then you can see the side of the intersection where we were standing, also 2-3 people deep all across Florida. I was standing behind and to the right of my husband as we waited for the light.
Suddenly I see a man’s arm reaching down towards my husband’s neck on the left side. I scream, and everybody turns to look at us instead of the light. And then, we all saw the man run and jump on a motorcycle that appeared in the cross street precisely in time for the thief. The driver of the motorcycle was wearing a helmet that kept him disguised. Although my first thought was someone was trying to kill my husband, he appeared perfectly fine when I turned back from the motorcycle to him. But something must have happened – so I checked for his watch. The Rolex was gone, and in its place were bruises and scrapes.
The next moments seemed to be total chaos. We don’t know any Spanish, and everyone was talking at once. A police inspector appeared right away on the other side of Paraguay. Immediately the pedestrians on both sides of the street told her what happened. They gave descriptions of both of the men as best as they were able. The locals appeared to be angry at the thieves and, at the same time, ashamed of this blot on the reputation of their city. The inspector made calls on her radio, and then she disappeared.
A Brazilian athlete working on the corner you see on the left came over to tell us to wait for the police to come back and that the police were chasing the thieves. As we waited, we started processing what had happened. The man who landed on the motorcycle was only of average height — so how did he reach down towards my husband’s neck? The only conclusion I could come up with is that he ran and jumped so that he could come down on the watch with enough force to break the watch band.
My husband didn’t even realize what had happened until I noticed his watch was missing. He, too, was focused on the man’s arm coming down towards his neck.
Eventually, two police officers came to talk to the Brazilian man and then us. They were dressed in a police uniform that consisted of distinctive polo shirts and khaki pants. Their duty station appeared to be restricted to Florida St. Then, the police inspector came back. She was wearing a typical police uniform. Then two more police in standard uniforms but mounted on bicycles came. The inspector and the two bicycle police were dripping with sweat from their unsuccessful chase.
Then they tried to take a statement from us – but their English was almost as limited as our Spanish. They called another policeman on the phone, and he talked to my husband. The inspector wanted to know if we wanted to go to the police station and give a formal report. I asked if there was any chance of getting the watch back, and she did not think so. We needed to get back to the ship, so we said no to the formal report. But they still needed some information. They asked for a passport. We didn’t have those as they were in a central vault on the ship. We showed them our ship identification. It was not overly helpful with the identification information they were looking for, but the photo of the Viking Sun on the back did help with the concept of “ship.”
I finally found a copy of his passport on my phone, and the police took a photo of my photo. This seems to make everyone satisfied with the identification, but they were quite upset and worried about us getting back to the ship safely. As you can see from the second map, we were only one block away from our bus, so we elected to go to the bus rather than take a taxi. The two police in polo shirts walked along with us as we headed to the bus. As we came to the end of the block, the police recruited a newspaper vendor to ask us exactly where the bus would be. We told the newspaper vendor, and she relayed that information to the police. They were somewhat concerned that our bus stop was just out of sight of the limits of their duty station, but I think the newspaper vendor assured them that the hotel was a safe place.
So what did we learn from this experience? 1) What is “valuable” is in the eye of the beholder. Even a damaged Rolex is worth something on the black market. 2) The locals flocked to the police to tell what they saw instead of scattering to the wind. That was quite impressive. 3) The police gave every indication that they really cared about what happened to the tourists but were unable to stop the thieves. 4) The shock of an attack like that lingers much longer than the bruises and scrapes. We had several sleepless nights with thoughts of what might have been.
