A New Form of Adventure

Like Taking Candy From a Baby.

– Owner of the Silva Ica (Likely)

To Arequipa

With a great Christmas under my belt, I bought a ticket for the next destination: Arequipa. Stoked out of my mind to begin some climbing and find new friends to do so with. I left with a Quebec friend who was stoked to do the Colca Canyon trek. We were both feeling pretty high.

Flash forward to Arequipa, post 12 hour bus ride. I decide to pay my credit card off, and am floored to see a charge from the Silva Ica (a bar next to the Wild Rover) for a lot of money (think roughly a months worth of work). This starts a whole conversation with the bank to figure out what is going on. But calling the bank is no easy task as my phone will not make any calls here in Peru. I go on a goose chase through the streets of Arequipa, to a microscopic phone booth in the back of the convenience store. This seems to work but the call keeps dropping. Thankfully FaceTime works over wifi, so I call my moms phone via FaceTime, and she presses her phone up against my dads, which is on the line with BMO. Its a McGyvered solution that works only so-so. Then a radical idea crosses my mind: what if I Googled how to call Canada from Peru? It was just so crazy that it was destined to work. Apparently you dial +001 rather than +1. It works seamlessly, and I realize an important thing about myself. I am an idiot posing as someone with intelligence.

The upshot of many hours of phone conversation is that the transaction was PIN approved, and is therefore difficult to claim as fraud. I need to return to Ica, and talk with the business, after that point I can go to the police. If the police open an investigation then the bank can become involved. Good thing I love long bus rides. I was about to complain when I received a healthy dose of perspective; my Quebec had developed leg pain on bus and went to get it checked out. Blood clot. He needs to be bed ridden for 3 days, and may have to return to Canada (update, he did fly back for medical treatment). It can always be worse.

Bartending at the Wild Rover

I cancelled my nights in Arequipa and ventured to the bus station, snagging one of the last two seats on the last bus back to Ica. Ringing in my birthday on the bus, just as I had dreamed for myself. I returned to the Wild Rover and immediately asked to volunteer, as I had no idea how long I would stay. The staff were very helpful and immediately started to try to get in contact with the owner next door. Unsurprisingly he was very difficult to get a hold of, but after a few days we got him on the phone. He would meet with us monday, which was more than a week away. So I pushed it from my mind and made a good attempt at enjoying the present situation. This task was easier than I anticipated, because the groups of people I was volunteering with were all gemstones.

My first night on the job was a New Year’s Eve’s Eve bingo game. Cards were handed out to the participants and I went about serving drinks. A fairly inebriated English fellow looked at me and said “ah, ye knew this was coming” and motioned for me to come listen to him. I did, and he grabbed my face and planted a fairly substantial kiss. Unbeknownst to him, I did not know that was coming. “Kiss a bartender” was on the bingo sheet, and as a silver lining this incident set the kissing bar fairly low for me, and was easily surpassed with subsequent interactions. Also, I can now empathize with any lady that complains that you are not clean shaven. I see you.

The next day was New Year’s Eve, and all hands were on deck. I started my shift four hours early, and ended it 5 hours late. On a normal night, we are encouraged to have a good time with the partiers but this night there was simply no time. All I saw for 14 hours straight was 550 bodies milling about, taking turns hanging over the bar, flopping dinero in my face and shouting “PISCO”, “CERVEZA”, “MOJITO”, “POOOOORRRR FAAAVVOOORRRRR”. It didn’t help the mood that I required instruction on how to mix each drink. But I learned fast, and must have put on 20k steps in my little 8ft square zone.

Later, a handful of people would each independently tell me that I looked like the most stressed human being they had ever seen. So, maybe I lost a few years off my life but at least I was getting free bed. A few times per night at Wild Rover there is the call of “FREEEEE SHOOOOTTS” and a staffer will climb up on the bar and mother-bird fresh booze into the keenly awaiting gullets of the masses. I had the distinct pleasure of doing this New Year’s, simultaneously being the most popular person and learning how nasty this practice is. Some people try to suck on the tip as though they are a common hamster going for water, while others move or close their mouthes too quickly, allowing sticky juice to cascade down their faces and onto their clothes. VERY COOL!

The rest of the days were spent suntanning and chilling with my friends during the day, and slanging drinks, partying and table dancing in the night.

This included myself doing karaoke to “Juice” by Lizzo, a song no one had heard. Am I hero for introducing them to it? I’d say yes. Additionally, I was forced into another ladies night, however, this also happened to be the only night I made any substantial tips. I think I’ll take the dress with me, I might need to make some money back.

If I had to describe my time here, it’d be a little too close to the word “bender” then I would like. The toll on the body is hard, you are up super late without fail, and cannot sleep too long because it is incredibly hot, and the music starts early. I feel myself withering away. I was so withered that during a shift I nearly sliced the tip of my thumb clean off. Luckily it instantly was filled with lime juice which felt great.

And of course, any experience doesn’t count for anything if you don’t properly document it. So I needed to climb up on that bar and taking some dancing computer selfies. The results speak for themselves!!

Monday Meeting

The Earth continued to revolve and soon it was Monday. “Time to go have an amicable conversation with an upstanding member of society” I thought to myself. However, my hopes slowly dispersed as me and Daniel (the Wild Rover general manager) slipped deeper and deeper into the dark club. It felt as though I was diving into a mafia den, and the fact that the owner appeared before us lounging by a pool, shirtless with chain, and smoking did not help that feeling.

It started to feel serious pretty quickly. He did not shy away from jabbing his finger into my chest, and used some colourful language. “Its not my fault you are fucking loco! You should have seen yourself! You don’t remember do you? You were high on cocaine, molly, everything! You ask me all the time for more drugs.” Daniel was painfully silent, so I had to stick up for myself. It took a lot of restraint to not come back at him, but luckily I kept my cool. I asked him to show me what they charged me for, and he grabbed his book.

He continued to barely let me get a word in edgewise. He said I bought round after round for all the revellers, and that he has video of me going crazy. So I asked for the video, but he didn’t really want to go to the trouble of grabbing it. I asked if I paid for every line item individually, because it seems like poor business to let someone rack up that tab. He said yes, so I said that I had only one transaction on my statement for this night. After some hesitation he said I left my card with them. So, his version of events was that I was blackout drunk and high on everything imaginable, they took my card, and allowed me to buy the bar dozens of rounds. To me that sounded even scummier than my accusation of an intentional and hidden overcharge. I let him know I was going to go talk with the police, and he invited me to do so. We left with him saying he respected me, and myself saying I wish I could say the same.

Police Time

A man named Guillermo from Colombia became my best friend through this time. He wanted to help, and he did all the talking and translating for me. He really went to bat for me, and did his best. I asked him why he was doing this because we were strangers and he said “You need a friend right now”. We got to the police station, and had some police come out to the business. Arguments ensued, and the owner again was no where in sight and would not answer any phone. The police instructed us to return at 10 when he would be here and to fill out a page in his reclamation book. We went there, and he made us wait an awful long time. Eventually he brought us in, shut off the lights and turned on the revolving green, blue and red club lights. This was done for ambience I can only assume.

The long and short of this is that he refused to give us the book, which was in violation of the police. So, tack on another day. Me and Guillermo rode the tuk-tuk like a couple of absolute bosses back to the police station the next day to tell the tale of last night.

Eventually they came out and explored his business, finding him in violation of the reclamation book law. He will be fined a minimum of $1700 CAD. This tit for tat raised my spirits for the first time in a little while. They also gave him 24 hrs to produce evidence against me, and if it was not to their liking, they would allow me to fill out a demand. This day went much better than I had anticipated!

So the next day we wander down to the station. The owner never showed up, instead sending a picture of the receipt, which looked produced that day and had no features identifying me. Either way, we were told there wasn’t time for this today, and to come back tomorrow. One more day hopefully.

This was the standard for the next few days; wake up, chill out, tuktuk to Ica, wait in the police station and be told to come back the next day. Eventually one morning I was extremely ready to get out of Ica, I had Guillermo text the officer to see if a demand could happen or not. They responded saying a demand would not be possible, with no real reason given as to why. They told us the owner had said I bought drinks for the whole bar that night, which is not new info. The momentum I had believed was present had crashed and burned.

Conclusions

In his book Slaughter-House Five, Kurt Vonnegut’s protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, describes most events in his life, happy and sad, by saying “So it goes”. During this period of events those words were on my mind lots.

I met a tonne of great friends, and being in one place for a long time really cemented them with me. So it goes.

I spent far too much time in a place I really did not want to be. So it goes.

I finally met my extremely elusive Brazilian wife. So it goes.

Out of the many people I met, only one was bad. Guillermo is one of the best I have met! I believe that most people are fundamentally good. So it goes.

I will never receive closure on this problem. The business owner may do the same things in the future. Was I scammed? Was I drugged? Why did the police go from helpful to not? Somethings, like this blog post, have no resolution.

So it goes.

Reid

Currently unsure of where is next.