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Published: June 20th 2010
Never go with strangers. That's what we all learn when we're young. But as we get older (and supposedly wiser with our increased ability to judge and measure people) we create our own exceptions to that rule.
After all the travel I had done over the past 10 years, I had never experienced a serious incident. This was about to change...
As I traveled from Honduras to Nicaragua and spent a somewhat uninspiring day at the capital Managua, I made my way to the old colonial town of Leon, which has some interesting old buildings and a huge cathedral. The next day, I was traveling on to Granada. On my way on a minibus to Managua, where I had to switch to another bus to Granada, a local guy started chatting with me. He was young, in his early twenties, and appeared to be studying English as he was practicing some words from his notebook on the bus. His English wasn't very good, but by his way of making conversation, calmly and patiently, I think I started to trust him. He asked me where I was going and after I told him that I was going to Granada, he told me that he was going there as well. After a while, he explained that he was continuing on to Granada with his brother, who had a car. He invited me to join. Somehow, I didn't even hesitate and accepted his offer.
When we got to Managua, things happened fast. The switch from the minibus to my new "friend's" brother's car, was smooth; too smooth in hindsight. He got in the backseat, I got in beside him. Suddenly, a few seconds after that, two more people showed up and got in the car next to me. This was strange, I thought, who are they? I quickly found out that this was all a setup. I got shown a knife and I didn't have to think long to know what was going on. I found myself squeezed in between several people and there was no way out. I was being robbed!
They put a baseball cap on my head and made me look down as we drove to some dodgier neighborhoods (the roads were getting worse). Luckily, they didn't hurt me. The knife was predominantly there to scare me, although they didn't point it at me all the time. I chose not to be a hero and cooperated. Looking back, I think maybe these weren't the toughest of crooks, but at the time I thought I shouldn't take any chances and upset them.
It didn't take long for them to take out my phone and wallet from my pockets and stripped it of all the cash and cards. We drove around for a while and they were going through all my stuff. They made me give the PIN codes of my cards and while I was in the car, one of them got out to get money out of my bank account. There was still no way out of the car and I didn't have a clue where I was.
After about an hour or so, I was dumped in a Nicaragua backstreet with an almost empty backpack. Gone was my phone, camera, laptop, ipod, money and some other stuff. A few clothes, toiletries and books were left in there, and my Cuban cigars. Oh, and my robbers were "nice" to give me $10 for a taxi ride back to a hotel. Disillusioned, I tried to grasp what had happened and how I could have been so stupid to walk into this trap. I quickly tried to stop blaming myself though, as it was no use. It had happened, and there was no turning back. The worst thing for me is that I lost all my pictures of the past 7 months of travel around the world. I had them backed up on a hard drive, but they took that as well. All I have left now are the pictures on this blog. But the memories are forever with me and I'm happy to be in one piece.
Luckily, I wasn't too far away from a major road where I could take a taxi, and after 20 minutes I was back in the hotel where I had stayed before a day earlier. There I made the necessary phone calls to inform my family and friends of what had happened and to block my bank cards and phone SIM. After that I headed for the police station, where the line was too long to wait for my turn. I decided to come back the next day.
The next day I was there early and I was happy to have someone of the hotel staff with me who spoke a little English. I told what had happened, listed all the things that were stolen and described what the robbers looked like. After that was all on paper, I had to wait a little bit more at another detective's office to get me a copy of the finalized police report. About 2 hours later, I was back at the hotel again...
What now? Should I keep on traveling? My plan was to travel for another 5 weeks to Costa Rica, Panama, New York and Washington DC, not the cheapest of places. I didn't have any cash on me and asking my friends and family to send me cash for the remainder of my trip wasn't very appealing to me. Besides, I'm not the kind of traveler that lives off $100 a week, so I didn't want to knock on other people's door all the time. Also, my camera was gone, and Nicaragua didn't seem a good place to buy a new one. I really can't enjoy traveling without a proper camera... Furthermore, I had a lot of things to arrange at home regarding my finances, and I now lost all access to my bank account.
All this was reason enough for me to decide to go back home. The next day, I decided to take a bus back to Tegucigalpa in Honduras so I could meet my friend Carolina again, whom I had met
on the bus from San Salvador to Tegucigalpa. I figured I needed a couple of days to arrange my trip back home, and I'd rather do that with some friends around me than all alone in a horrible city like Managua.
After a few days in "Tegus", I started my trip back home, with a bus to San Pedro Sula and a flight to New York City the day after that. In NY, I was luckily able to crash on the couch of a friend of a friend for the night. I explored Manhattan for a couple of hours the next day before it was on to Amsterdam, where I arrived about a month ahead of schedule. There, my dear family and my best friend awaited me at the airport, a truly happy moment!
Although my trip ended in a tragic and abrupt way, I still look back on 7,5 months of amazing travel in South-East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Americas. I've seen incredible things and met so many great people. I certainly made some new friends for life.
I'm also happy that I kept this blog continuously updated to share it with everyone and so I can read it back again anytime. Thanks to everyone for following me and I hope you enjoyed reading my blog. My travels won't stop here, I will be back with more stories in the near future!
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Ali
Ali Watters
So sorry to hear this...
I really enjoyed following your blog the last few months - I know the loss of the photos is the most devastating. Good luck with the insurance company. The main thing is that you got out of the situation safely and unhurt - everything else can be replaced...