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Several years ago I had the good fortune to be travelling around South & Latin America with my then girlfriend Kay. We had been shocked at the relative expense of the buses in Columbia and so had hitchhiked from the Ecuadorian border to Cartegena, ready to take a ferry into Panama. It was a magical piece of hiking and we encountered nothing but friendliness and hospitality from the good natured Columbians although of course we were constantly being warned about the gorillas (guerrillas) hiding just around the corner!!
Upon reaching Cartegena we settled into a cheap hostel in the less salubrious part of town and set about exploring the fine old city. We were down to very little cash (pesos) and it being a Friday and the banks being closed until the following Monday we thought we’d change a traveller’s cheque with a street dealer so at least we could eat reasonably over the weekend. We went to the main plaza where dealers were in abundance, and after studying them for a while settled upon one who looked less dodgy than the others. Having heard of slippery practises we were being particularly cautious, Kay held on to the $100 cheque while the pesos were counted out twice into my hand. I counted them a third time, and being satisfied only then did Kay hand over the signed cheque – the whole time I was gripping the bundle of notes tightly. We went our separate ways, us to the nearest ice-cream stand to have a treat … and it was only then did it become clear that we’d been kippered. The large denomination pesos had simply disappeared, leaving us with about $10 instead of $100!! But how? The whole time the money never left my sweaty paws and the dealer never came close nor resorted to distraction tactics…. To this day I’ve still no idea how he did the switcheroo, and if I wasn’t such a sceptic I’d say it was pure magic ….
Forgetting the ice-cream and thoroughly dejected we walked the mile or so back to the hostel and needless to say Kay blamed me for the incident, perhaps justifiably so. Across the road from the hostel was a supermarket and we went in to buy some water to keep us going for the weekend, when halfway down the aisle Kay gave a shout “fucker” and started running. I dropped the water and started running after her, and as we got to the exit there were three men, one of who was our moneychanger!! They ran out of the shop and we ran after them, Kay shouting all the time and locals stopping and staring to see what all the commotion was about. I caught up with the dealer and he immediately gave me back the cheque, he seemed to be worried that the commotion would bring the police , I was worried that confronting three (probably armed) Columbians was not a very sensible thing to do!!
The men seemed anxious to get away and I wasn’t in any position to stop them, and so after a few more choice insults from Kay they slunk away – we’d even managed to come out $10 up on the deal!!!
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