Wrong Turn Through the Market

Bus station in Xela from window of chicken bus

I'm on hyper alert these days.

Time stood still on Saturday in the biggest moment of panic since I left Mexico.


In two terrifying seconds, maybe less, my wallet was gone with all the cash I'd finally managed to get from the ABM as well as the bank card itself. It's true. The front pocket of your jeans is no place to keep your wallet in Guatemela. Your cash has to be kept in separate small amounts and secret places and you must never take your hand off your bags on the street. Looks like I'll have to start wearing my backpack in the front like everyone else I've seen. It doesn't look very ergonomic but I'll give it a whirl.

I left Casa Argentina with a Korean named Beck. The mini-bus was supposed to drop us off at Terminal Minerva where all the chicken buses meet. Instead we stepped outside to a market. There must have been some misunderstanding but Beck knew where we were. All we had to do was walk through the crowded market and we'd be there. No problem.

The last hurdle was the indoor market at the end of the street. Beck sailed on through with no problems but suddenly 3 old fat women in traditional clothing separated us by jamming up the entrance. No one was going anywhere, in or out. I was pushed against a woman selling sugar, salt and grains from big open bags and she shooed me away from the goods but there was no place to go. Suddenly it was a tight nasty mosh pit. A man in a cowby hat barreled up past from the inside, filling the spot where I had been. His aggressive elbow sent me to the far side of the grannies and then I was somehow caught in the middle of all three of them and they pressed against me hard all at once, squeezing the breath out of me. I barely felt the hand on my thigh when the dam broke. Everyone started moving again. I slapped my hand against my wallet pocket. Nothing there but me and my pants.

Total terror. I had just met my doom. Not a single quetzal to my name and no way of getting any more. I wouldn't be getting to Atitlan that day and it was a long walk home without any food or water. My lungs filled with helium but it was no high pitched chipmunk voice that came out of my mouth. All I said was "Hey!" like one of those big boomer fireworks or a cop with a particularly intimidating voice of command shouting "Freeze!". Everyone jumped. I spied my wallet on the floor under the foot of one of the corrupt old biddies. I crouched fast, dashed my hand through all the legs like an angry rattle snake, before anyone had a chance to kick it away and it was mine again. I grabbed it with a death grip and got the hell out of there, taking advantage of the lull in traffic while I still could. A different man with a white cowboy hat kept asking "Listo?" Anybody out there know what that means?

I had one quick moment with enough elbow room to check the contents. OK. The card was still there and at least a healthy chunk of cash. Beck was still marching slowly along up ahead, oblivious to all the commotion. The man in the white hat had run around the other corridor of the market to catch up with me, still asking "Listo?" He looked very concerned so I assured him I was okay with some universal body language, wiping pretend sweat from my brow with relief.

I'll never know exactly what happened. I think it was a combined effort between the three old hags, the woman with the bulk food stall and Mr. Elbows. How my wallet ended up on the floor beneath that woman's foot instead of in one of those charming hand woven shopping bags, I'll never know for sure. Maybe she just dropped it, thinking the gig was up or maybe the plan was to kick it to another cohort like a well choreographed soccer pass. I think it was my yelp. This yelp, sort of like a controlled focussed primal scream, has previously saved me on my bicycle from banging into doors swinging open from parked cars without warning or being sideswiped by motorists talking on cellphones. It's way more effective than a bell. Everyone jumped and froze for a second. I wonder if I didn't startle it out of her wrinkled hand or give her enough of a jolt to make her fumble and miss the bag.

I've never had any serious problems travelling before, at least not like I've had in Guatemela. You really can't be too careful here. This is the second time I thought I was going to be stranded without cash. I am definitely going to find another way to carry my belongings, especially the finances.

I'm thinking of hiding my wallet somewhere and buying another to put in the same pants pocket as always. Instead of finding money, the lucky thief will find a wad of notes on pages ripped from my notebook with valuable messages like: It's wrong to steal.; Keep your mitts out of other people's pockets. or You may end up in jail. If anyone out there can think of any other messages for the decoy wallet, please share them in the comments.

It's alive

By sheer stubborn will, the little Canon works again. I had given up on it after more than a week with no sign of life and was just off to a place that recycles these things when I pressed the power button on impulse and saw the dimmest glimmer of life. The screen read E-something error. I took my shoes off and hit the internet.

On the advice of some website, I took out the battery and tapped the camera on my desk. White powder, mineral deposits from Cheonggye Stream, fell out like dandruff and we were back in business. If only I had stopped there, I could have saved myself another week and a half of experimental tinkering.

I wanted to make it better than new so I took it apart with a mini-screwdriver set. I was careful, just not careful enough. It all became more complicated when a tiny part below the power button, apparently an important one, tinkled out of place. A lot of trial and error to figure out where it fit and how to get it to stay put while putting everything else back, besides taking the entire apartment apart to find a tiny screw I only thought had rolled off the table, and it was fixed for the second time. If only I had stopped there.

I went to Seolbong Park early next morning for some exercise before the heat wave drove me back to the air conditioning. A lot of people had the same idea. 7 in the morning and people were already working out and descending from the trail. I brought the camera along for a shot of the compressed air hose people use to blow dust and sweat from their shoes after a hike. The laptop gets this treatment once a month and it does wonders for performance. A good blast should have taken care of any deposits the desk taps had missed. It probably did but another essential part, apparently attached by just a microscopic dab of solder, fell off. I could still focus the lens but the shutter button wouldn't move.

There was no sense in quitting now even though I had two loose parts to finesse into place and hold still while reassembling the casing. I was in over my head but there was no stopping. I sat on one of three benches under a sun shelter and got to work.

I had been experimenting for almost an hour with the new broken piece when a random scary guy came by with his wife to hassle me. He didn't speak English. I don't speak Korean. Normal people just let it go with friendly smiles and move along. This guy kept talking away in a tone I didn't like while his horrible wife threw back her head and laughed at everything he said. I was not getting a good vibe from them at all. I would have loved to just ignore them but the man had no intention of allowing that to happen.

He pulled the hair on my arms and compared it with his smooth one. Children do that at school. They find it pretty fascinating. It's not something they see too often. But this guy was at least approaching my age and it was a total violation of personal space. There was nothing lacking in his non verbal skills as he offered several times to take my camera and smash it under his foot. His loud wife found that so funny. He reached through the buttons of my shirt, pulled my chest hair, grimaced and fanned his nose in disgust. The second grab for my arm hair confirmed I might be in for serious trouble when he showed me the gang tattoos, some kind of Asian characters, on his left arm.

I've been warned that if you get in a fight in Korea, all parties are arrested, even if you only acted in self-defense and that it is unheard of for the court to decide in a foreigner's favour. If you manage to gain the upper hand, you still owe the other guy blood money. It's a lose lose situation for everyone involved and besides all of this, I'm not a fighter at all while every man in this country has at least had a few years of military training. Of course, even with all these good reasons to play nice, fights still happen. Too much rage, alcohol, stupidity or plain meanness is all it takes for reason to vanish. The best advice is to get away from the situation. Run. And that goes double if you encounter a gang member.

Outside of the gangs, no one wears real tattoos in Korea. It isn't considered cool or attractive. I would have loved to get off the bench and walk away from this guy right then or run if he started to follow me. He was menacing and there was no telling how far he might go. But my camera was in pieces. Eventually he got up and left me alone after pulling my chest hair one more time and raising his shirt to show me his belly. I got lucky. Either by design or out of boredom, the woman walked away down the hill and he decided to follow, leaving me with a hand not quite steady enough to tinker with tiny camera parts so I packed it in and left soon after, once he was well out of sight.

Days later, I finally figured out that shutter button piece. In the right place, it looks upside down so it took a while. The camera works.

Here are some of the pictures taken on that fateful day at Bukhansan and Cheonggye Stream. The Youtube video from that day stops about 15 seconds before the Canon slipped out of my pocket.

Nobody needs two cameras and I found a great home for my personally refurbished Canon. From now on, I'll be playing with the water proof Olympus. It all ends well.