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Published: August 26th 2007
Well all our bragging about being safe and lucky and having no dramas at all in South America was a little hasty.
We have just been in Mendoza, Argentina and went on a bike ride/wine tour around the nearby wine region of Maipu. As we were riding along this dusty, dirty, shit house road filled with trucks, buses and boring, ugly scenery, 2 boys ran past us and mugged us.
The first dude grabbed Sarah and pushed her off her bike and ripped her leather purse/bag off her which was firmly wrapped around her wrist so she now has a nasty burn/bruise on her arm. The arsehole pushed her into the dirt with quite a bit of force and she has several swollen and badly bruised spots on her legs. The worst of all was the dirt moustache she developed during the incident!
She had a credit card which we have cancelled, some cash, her expensive makeup, pocket knife and a few other random things in there.
The other bastard ran up behind me and ripped the backpack straight off my back, snapping the straps. I was really lucky that I decided to take a small flimsy pack whose straps had already broken and were held together only by my dodgy sewing, so it just snapped right off and i didn't come off the bike. If I had taken my much more sturdy and wicked backpack, I am sure I would have had a massive spill and be quite hurt also, possibly even gaining a dirt moustache and gravel rash of my own.
The biggest heartbreak for me was that my brand new camera, the recent love of my life since I left nick, was in the bag. Only had about 1 week worth of photos on there but I was really attached to that baby. My jacket was also in there along with a gorgeous little purple leather purse i had bought in Buenos Aires, cash, lipbalm, the keys to our lockers at the hostel which they thankfully had spares for, and thats about it.
We were pretty shaken up and thanked god that we had hooked up with two other Aussie guys just half and hour earlier. Ben and Greg were our heroes for the afternoon. We would have been screwed without them. Ben tried to chase them but it was an extremely dodgy situation so he couldn't really pursue them too much without risking his own arse.
The police turned up straight away but couldn't find the thieves either. So one of the aussie guys translated into spanish what happened, then the sweet boys came with us to the police station and sat there for 7 bloody hours while we waited to get a police report - which we would need for our insurance claim.
Ben and Greg bought us some food for dinner, gave me a warm jacket to wear, paid for a taxi back to Mendoza and basically looked after us the entire time. I don't know what we would have done without them and would like to officially thank them for all their support.
The most disappointing thing of all is that we only got to go to one bloody winery and taste 2 mouthfuls of red wine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our amazing vision of a big wine tasting tour through a famous wine region has been shot to shit. The roads were crap, the tour was crap, the region was crap - so don't go on the Bikes and Wines tour if you ever come to Mendoza.
Sarah and I have given each other many hugs since the incident but been very brave girls and haven't even cried, although a few tears have loomed in our eyelids several times, they haven't actually fallen out!
We are more angry now than anything, not only about the inconvenience and heartbreak of losing items we were attached to, but also how they've tainted our experience and confidence.
Cheeky bastards had a fair bit of guts to assault us like that but we figure they had it well sussed out before we rode past. They've probably done it to heaps of gringos before and I'm sure will continue to do it again, because there was a big olive field next to the road which they easily disappeared into.
Anyway, the most humourous detail to come out of our robbery was courtesy of the kind policeman who carefully wrote out a detailed report for us. He was entertained by the fact that we had a spanish/english dictionary and persisted with us as we tried so hard to communicate effectively. He loved the dictionary so much he proudly looked up some english words he needed and titled our police report, Certificate The Rob. We didn't have the heart to tell him it wasn't entirely correct after all his patience and found the strength to giggle about the whole ordeal as he kissed us goodbye and we departed at 1am with the our Certificate The Rob in hand!
Most importantly, we are both ok. Sarah's bruises are looking more impressive, black, blue and gutsy everyday as they begin to heal and I have been doing some self mental therapy to work through the grief of losing my beloved camera.
So we are now in Santiago, Chile and have drowned our sorrows with a massive night out on the town. Much local beer and red wine has been consumed and we have put the nightmare behind us.
2 more days here, then it's bring on Peru. Let's hope this will be the only nasty event we experience for the duration of Quest1127.
xAbby
PS There are now heaps of photos on our Uruguay blog entry if you are interested in checking them out.
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Jess O'Leary
non-member comment
jealsous in a nice way.
Hey chiccas, I am sooo bloody jealous in the way that i wish i was there sharing all those great moments and scenes you so eloquently talk of! But i am so happy that you have each other to look after each other!! what a horrible, scary and iritating experience! tools! I am an avid reader of all your blogs and tune in daily to see if there is any news. You lucky girls i hope though that there are no more crappy incidents on your travels!! lots of Aussie love Jessxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxooxox