A Thief in the Night
Sunday, July 6th, 2008Gina. Huanchaco, Peru.
We arrived very early this morning in Trujillo (around 5:30) where we discovered that another traveling couple of gringos had their cameras swiped on the bus during the night. Only one passenger had gotten off of the bus at what I think was an unscheduled stop (upsetting). It might have been scheduled, but our tickets only said there was one other stop and that was about an hour after we got on in Lima. We were traveling on Cruz del Sur which is the most expensive and supposedly the safest bus company (they take a video of all of the passengers as they get on). One of their great safety features (I thought) was that they don´t stop in the middle of the night and let people on or off of the bus. The most upsetting (and relieving) thing about the theft was that I woke up at some point during the night (with earplugs in, eye mask, no contacts, and a neck pillow) to what felt like my carry on backpack being slowly tugged from under my seat. I was sitting towards the window and had the bag at my feet (my purse with my camera was safely on my body under my coat and blanket). I immediately woke up and said Steve´s name a couple of times to see if it was him pulling on the bag to try to get some water or something. I obviously woke him up, so I knew it wasn´t him. Now, I was half asleep and blind and completely disoriented, and I halfway thought that maybe I was imagining things. So I just pulled the bag under my feet and wrapped the straps around my legs. I thought about hugging the bag, but there wasn´t anything in there except for a couple of books and our water. It wasn´t until the morning when the couple discovered that their bags had been opened from under the feet and their stuff taken out that I realized that what I felt was real and that I could have possibly done something to prevent their cameras being stollen. I have some guilt about not calling the bus dude over or even turning on the light and looking behind me. There was one guy sleeping behind us when I went to sleep, and he was gone when I woke up in the morning, so he was probably the culprit.
I´m relieved that none of our stuff was stolen but I feel bad about not making a fuss when I felt my bag move. I keep telling myself that I wasn´t sure if what I felt was real at the time, but hindsight is 20/20. Poor nice couple. They searched everyone as they got off the bus, but nothing. They lost all of their Machu Picchu pictures and were pretty upset about it. Which I would be, too. I´ve been keeping the memory card of the photos in my money belt as we´ve been trying to upload all of them. I´d be heartbroken if the photos were stolen.
We´ve been really careful with our stuff on buses in general (keeping all valuables either on our bodies or in our luggage which is checked under the bus and you have to show your ticket to receive your luggage), but this whole under the seat bag grab is going to put me even more on my guard. I´m surprised that I woke up at all since I´m usually a pretty deep sleeper. I think I actually had my leg on the bag and that´s why I felt it being pulled from under me. So just a warning for anyone traveling at night (or during the day, really) in Peru to be extra careful and keep all valuables on your body or stowed away under the bus. You can´t be too careful even on the luxury buses (and really maybe you have to be more careful on those as the only time we´ve seen other gringos has been on the ´safe´buses. The other buses are all local people and they just leave their stuff on the bus when they get off to buy snacks or go to the bathroom. So maybe the lower class buses are the safer bets since it´s be silly for a thief to target them as foreigners´buses).
montarsig