A jumble of travelers’ belongings and precious air mattresses. Delayed travelers whose flights had been cancelled could not even check in.
The weather was terrible when we visited Japan last month. There was a whole inch of snow on the ground, and slushy puddles to slog through. It seemed Tokyo was unused to clearing streets and sidewalks. (I’d rather have slush than what I experienced on my March 2011 visit to Tokyo: the earthquake and tsunami.) Our drive to the airport, usually an hour, took three and a half due to closed and clogged roads.
But no problem: flights at Tokyo Narita had been delayed or cancelled. The airport was crowded with huddled travelers, their luggage piled neatly or jumbled. Our flight, too, was delayed, but only by a few hours.
Tokyo Narita airport comfort
We spent the time in a sushi restaurant where we had a mediocre meal and good wifi. Others were not so lucky, but luckier than delayed travelers elsewhere. Tokyo Narita Airport had kindly distributed lengths of air mattress, similar to bubble-wrap. People were sleeping on them, propped against pillows of the stuff, and covered by it. Creative families built tidy fortresses with floors and walls of air.
What a way to make a miserable situation a little more bearable.
Bubble-wrap fortress: more comfort than the digital aquarium in the background.Lunch at the fabulous Aoki Sushi restaurant in Tokyo. Not the airport joint.
“Overlooking the pool” at the Esplanade Hotel in Fremantle, Australia
Hotel speak
“Welcome! We have a lovely room for you in our resort wing, overlooking the pool!”
Reality: Yeah, directly opposite the looming parking garage. True, there was a little pool down there. Actually visible if you lean over the balcony.
That’s hotel speak at the Esplanade Hotel in Fremantle, Australia.
We ran into a couple of cops in the lobby. They’d been summoned because of noisy guests. Is this a common Australian thing? The last time we stayed at an Australian hotel, two years ago, we couldn’t sleep until the people in the room next to our checked out—or were arrested—sometime after daylight broke. The hotel’s paper walls projected every groan, cry, and vulgarity uttered by our neighbors, and of course their fighting, shouting, wall-punching, and door-slamming. That was the Sydney Ibis Airport Hotel.
To be fair, I have to say that, besides very creative hotel speak, one thing at the Esplanade Hotel in Fremantle greatly impressed me, especially for a hotel “of this calibre.” Its breakfast buffet, which was pretty much on par with the sad state of American mid-range hotel breakfasts, included a total do-it-yourself delight: an industrial-sized juicer and an array of carrots, ginger, and apples. Magnificent!
They’s ony three kinda men I won’t play with: That’s a po’ man, a blind man, an a police-man!
Rod the Hop, my Las Vegas three-card-monte informer, died last month, aged 56. He was a card tosser whose demonstrations proved that drills teach skills for life. He set up in areas with less police presence, favoring the sidewalks outside large factories, especially on payday, “where there’s eight hundred people going to lunch and they have to walk by you,” he said.
“A real good spot is outside military bases, where you’ve got a lot of young, naïve kids with nothing much to do and a little bit of money to spend.
“The moves are easy. You can learn it in a day and be good in a week. It’s the presentation that’s important. You have to have unflinching audacity and unmitigated gall. I don’t get intimidated.”
I love the way Rod spoke.
He was renown as a “card mechanic,” which is a card manipulator, as entertainment and teaching, and/or cheating in card games. As a card mechanic, Rod the Hop worked both ends. He was loved by the worldwide magic community; and had four felony convictions for casino cheating.
He was also renown as a “slot mechanic,” which could mean slot machine repairman but, in Rod’s case, meant he was a convicted slot machine cheat. Just last year he had the honor of becoming person number 34 in Nevada’s Excluded Person List, aka “the Black Book.”
He told us he tore apart and studied slot machines in his apartment, so he had to use a friend’s place as his “official” address so his parole officers wouldn’t find them.
Travelers may encounter three-card monte games anywhere. Players are purposely given a glimpse of the target early in the scramble, a skillful slip is performed by the tosser, and players thereafter carefully track the wrong object with confidence.
I’ve called three-card monte a “game” but, like the three-shell game, they’re games of no chance: tricks and traps. You’ll see other players win and walk away, but they are, in fact, shills. You cannot win. If you win once, it’s at the tosser’s pleasure in hope you, or someone in his audience, will bet big.
Advice from a three-card monte expert
In the words of Rod the Hop
The object of three-card monte is to make money. Each person in the crew gets an equal end. Some days it’s good and—it’s a street game so obviously you can only make as much money as what a person has in their pocket. But if you make two or three hundred dollars apiece a day, then you’ve done what you set out to do. Most of it has to do with grift sense, and your con and your presentation. That’s more than the skill factor, I would say.
It’s just a hustle. I mean, you just do the best you can and you prey on tourists or suckers that don’t know they’re breathing air.
Rod the HopRod the Hop ropes suckers into three-card monte
What I look for in a sucker is, they’ve got money, number one. And that they’re a sucker. I don’t have a conscious thought pattern that goes through my mind when I see a sucker. I know a sucker when I see one. I just do. I’ve been doing it so long, I know a candy bar when I see one. That’s all there is to it.
But by the same token, I know someone that’s not a sucker, or might be a cop, or somebody that knows the game. I can just feel it. I just know a sucker when I see one and my crew does too. You know that when you pick a crew. I don’t go out and say, yeah, he looks like a pretty good thief and has a lot of grift sense, I’ll get him. The deciding factor whether you have a good crew or a bad crew is how much grift sense all your partners have. But most of the time you’re not going to hook up with someone that doesn’t have grift sense.
You’ll find the game in the back of buses, train stations, things like that. Very seldom do you see it in the streets, cause if it’s windy it’ll blow the cards open.
I used to go outside a factory. Believe it or not, all you have to do is set up a box and start throwing cards and people will just stop by to see what you’re doing. You don’t have to say anything. Then you start betting with the shills. And pretty soon people get to realize that it’s a betting game. I’ll keep throwing it, and my shills will be betting, and they’ll be winning and the sucker sees them winning, and so they want to bet. And I might even let the sucker win some if I see other suckers that might have more money.
So, the red card’s on the bottom of the two cards and the black card’s on top. When I throw the cards down, I’ll throw the top card instead of the bottom card, which is the red card. But first, just to get into the rhythm of it, I’ll do it for real. I’ll throw the red card on the bottom, and let them watch where it is, very slowly, and they’re watching and wondering where the red card is. And there’s no question where the red card is.
And they’ll want to bet, so I’ll say, well here, let me do it again. And then I’ll pick them up and they’ll say, oh gosh, I was right. I knew where the red card was. And then I’ll do it again, and now they’ll want to bet. When I don’t want them to win is when I’ll throw the top cards. And then obviously they’ll lose.
You would think that a normal person would think, wait a minute, I knew where the red card was. I bet on it and I lost. Why? Well you’d think a guy would just quit. But no, not suckers. Suckers go, ‘wait, this time I’m really going to watch him.’ And then they’ll bet more money, and it just goes on and on until they don’t have any more money. So I try to entice as many suckers as I can to bet on it. Then, when everybody’s out of money, I take the cards, stick them in my pocket, and walk away. And then we’ll go somewhere else.
I’m where there’s people. Where there’s people there’s money, and where there’s money there’s me. And that’s where you do con games. You can’t do it if there’s no customers. Where there’s people, there’s suckers, and where there’s suckers, there’s people like me.
The reason people try to beat this game is because of the skill of the operator. It’s my presentation. I say, ‘look, I want to show you something.’ First off, I say ‘this isn’t three-card monte.’ Because then you’re thinking, this is not three-card monte. I tell them that you win on the red and you lose on the black. Now watch. Here’s a red card. I’m just going to set it right there. Then here’s a black card and I want to set it right there, and just switch them. Now where’s the red card? Will you bet on something like that? Well sure you would, if you were a betting man. But if you’re not a betting man, you’re not going to do it.
And this is a cliché that everyone uses, that you can’t beat an honest man. Well, you can’t beat someone that’s not trying to win your money. You can remember that. As a hustler, and doing the three-card monte, I cannot get my money from someone that’s not trying to get my money first.
Rod the Hop throws three-card monte
This is a real old game, this three-card monte. I know it’s at least a hundred years old. It’s in a book a hundred years old, published in 1902. But each generation that’s never seen it before thinks they can beat it. There will always be suckers.
Look, three-card monte is a great little hustle in the street. And frankly, I don’t do it any more because there’s not enough money in it for me. It’s only as good as how much money a person has in their pocket at that time—right now. How many people walk around nowadays with eight hundred dollars in their pocket, or a thousand? Or even three hundred? You know what they got? They got about six dollars and fourteen credit cards. That’s what people have nowadays. They don’t carry around cash. The only people that carry cash nowadays are criminals.
The one good thing about three-card monte and the three-shell game and the short cons like that, is it’s a good training ground for con men, for grifters. It’s a prep school, if you will. Most people grow out of it.
If you’re a tourist and you see a three-card monte, don’t stop and look at it and think, well I know that he throws the top one sometimes and maybe sometimes he throws the bottom one, or whatever. I’m telling you right now. Do not play it. Cause it’s a guarantee, you cannot win. It’s simple as that. And that’s my advice. I can promise you, you cannot beat it. Just go on down the road when you see it.
Like Rod the Hop, Bob Arno, the famous pickpocket, is also known in and has deep knowledge of the worlds of magic and crime. Watching Rod work, Bob was impressed with his coolness, his social-engineering, his roping-in of “suckers.”
I was impressed with his patter. Here are a few of his lines, usually delivered in a rapid-fire drawl while his hands were flying and his mind was sizing up potential marks:
“This here ain’t no three card monte, this here’s the Mexican pitti-pat, where you win on the red and you lose on the black…
“Watch me now, I’m gonna race ’em and chase ’em, so watch where I place ’em…”
“If you gotta lotta nerve and you gotta lotta plenty, five’ll getcha ten and ten’ll getcha twenty…”
“I’ve played this game with Yankees and Southerners, Senators and Governors. Money on the card or no bet, where’s the red? If I can bluff you I can beat you. Come on bet five, bet ten! Ho down now, get your chicken dinner in the center, where’s the red?…”
[Thanks to Paul Chosse, who thought to put these lines in writing back in 2005.]
Carving on a snack cart.Guatemala City corn-on-the-cob with condimentsGuatemala City corn-on-the-cob with condimentsGuatemala City women at Parque CentralWoven cotton for sale at Guatemala City’s Parque CentralTostadas for sale in Parque Central, Guatemala CityTostada-maker, Guatemala CityStrawberry cake, Guatemala CityLet a bird select your destiny in Parque Central, Guatemala City
Parque Central
Before I speak about the horrendous street crime in Guatemala City, I’d like to dwell on the pleasant aspects of the city. We spent Sunday afternoon in Parque Central. It was teeming with people and not a gringo in sight. Lots and lots of children, and women everywhere breastfeeding babies without prudish concerns.
If I felt like a giant among little people, how must Bob have felt, at six feet five? The Mayan women, all under five feet tall, looked so elegant with their long, glossy, black hair and colorful dresses.
I was entranced by the gorgeous woven cotton that all the Mayan women wear. Not dresses, they are sarongs fastened with a belt over tucked-in matching blouses. I wanted to buy a length of the fabric but was shocked that the opening price at each stall I visited was US$150. This was not a credit card type of market and, since our mission was thiefhunting, I had very little cash. It’s just as well—I would have had an impossible time selecting just one of the colorful patterns.
Surrounding the fabric stalls, everything else was for sale, too: bootleg DVDs, heaps of clothes piled on spread-out blankets, hair-do contraptions, inflatable Spidermen, jewelry, toys, underwear, earphones, puppies, remotes, and, thankfully, wallets. Our prop wallet was stolen for good—a rare occurrence, as we almost always manage to get it back after a theft.
And what’s a market without food? Boys at wooden carts worked with giant machetes preparing coconuts to drink. There were mountains of peanuts, trays of white, spiral-peeled oranges, flabby chicken sputtering on charcoal grills, and festive corn-on-the-cob-with-complicated-condiments. The tostadas looked mouth-wateringly good; the fly-specked strawberry cake did not.
A boy sat behind four bathroom scales lined up on a cloth that marked his territory. A few coins were arrayed on the cloth, too. Why four scales? Was the boy often busy with simultaneous customers? Does a customer flip a coin to select one of the scales? Or take an average weight of the four?
Other questions arise for the men whose birds will select your destiny. Are the tiny printed fortunes marked? If you pay more, can you be sure the bird is given only good futures to choose from? Are there any bad ones?
Street Crime in Guatemala City
Parque Central is a quaint and charming sliver of Guatemala City, but violence lurks in its very shadows. I’ve already written of our own experience with pickpockets there; no potential visitor should be unaware of the serious warnings about the country’s crime scene. On February 1, 2014, about the time we visited, Wikitravel’s Guatemala Travel Guide said (among many warnings):
Guatemala has one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world. Guatemala experiences much violence; its citizens live in a world of violence and tourists will be no different. Use extreme caution if traveling to Guatemala. … If you are mugged, carjacked, or approached by armed individuals, cooperate. Do not make any sudden movements, and give whatever belongings or money that are demanded. Citizens and tourists have been shot and killed for resisting muggers. … Do not use buses at night in Guatemala City, as buses are frequently robbed by gangs.
Theft, armed robbery, and carjacking are the most common problems encountered by American citizens. No area is immune to daytime assaults, including the upscale shopping, tourist, and residential areas of zones 10, 14, 15, and 16 in Guatemala City. There have been numerous reported incidents of bank patrons being robbed outside banks after withdrawing large sums of money, suggesting possible complicity of bank personnel on the inside. A particularly troubling trend is the use of motorcycles for armed robbery. Typically, two men on a motorcycle accost the driver of a car and demand the driver’s cell phone. Armed robberies to steal a cell phone have turned violent. In May 2009, a new law mandated that only the operator is allowed on the motorcycle.
The report goes on to describe highway robberies perpetrated by uniformed police or pseudo cops; the rising threat of robberies from occupied vehicles, including those stopped at traffic lights; armed security guards who exist “for decoration only;” violent bus bandits; and carjacking, even on main roads in broad daylight. The report also warns arriving visitors:
Minimize time spent standing outside in the airport passenger pick-up area, and do not walk out of the airport with valuables in plain sight. Carry laptops inconspicuously.
I shudder to think of my mistakes, though they were unavoidable. Our scheduled driver did not show up at the airport. We waited 40 minutes in total “outside in the airport passenger pick-up area.” We were not allowed back inside the airport to look for assistance or official transportation options. Therefore, in full view of many gawkers, I had to take out my laptop “conspicuously”—a massive 17” MacBookPro—to find the phone number of our Guatemala City contact. I should have had it available on paper. Instead, I was forced to flaunt my valuables.
Persons carrying laptop computers and expensive cell phones are often targets for armed robberies. Visitors should avoid using a laptop in a public place, such as a cafe…
…or airport pick-up zone. Had I only read this before my arrival! No, we weren’t robbed, but that might only be due to our very early morning arrival. We got into a hotel shuttle which, according to reports, is just as prone to armed attacks as anything:
Private vehicles, taxis, and shuttle buses have all been targeted. Typically, assailants steal money, passports, and luggage, and in some cases, the vehicle as well.
We were safely dropped at our hotel where, after a nap, we began our research of street crime in Guatemala City. Of course it would have been wiser to read up beforehand, but our hectic travel schedule doesn’t always permit such luxuries (reading about every destination before arrival).
Visitors should avoid using a laptop in a public place, such as a cafe or in wireless zones. Areas that offer wi-fi computer services have been targeted. Several individuals have been killed and their laptops taken upon departure from these establishments after they were seen using their computers in public.
Had our hotel not had decent internet access, it’s very likely that we’d have taken our laptops out to find wifi elsewhere. I can just imagine reading the quote above (from the U.S. Department of State on Guatemala), not to mention the rest of the warnings, most of which I have not mentioned, while sitting in a Guatemala City cafe with wifi. I’d be petrified to leave!
One of the first (horrific) statistic-riddled reports I read, “Guatemala: Violence perpetrated by criminal gangs…” published by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, focused on violence by criminal gangs. 183 bus drivers were assassinated in 2010 for refusing to pay gangsters’ “protection fees,” and these numbers have continued. Ninety-some percent of crime goes unpunished (depending on whose figures you read). There are said to be 14,000 gang members in the country and most communities are affected.
No wonder the police are ineffective. Many are not even high school graduates, their training may be as short as six months, and they get a salary of under $600/month. Bribes are a way of life. Drug cartels have pretty much taken over the country.
We met two 50ish British women in our hotel lobby. They’d come to Guatemala City to learn Spanish, unaware of the crime scene. They learned quickly though, and by following the rules had no incidents. They carried nothing at all of value. No purses or handbags or cameras. They stayed together. They didn’t go out at night. They avoided the known danger zones. They only used taxis from the hotel; they did not flag cabs in the street.
Our visit to Guatemala City reminded me of the importance of research before travel, even if you only read a little. Because don’t we all read up on the weather, the restaurants, nightlife and attractions? Let’s not forget to seek out crime and safety reports, too. The U.S. Department of State maintains excellent, current reports.
Some things are better filtered. Water, for one. Do you like unfiltered sake? Apple juice? What about your internet?
I saw this sign in Malta. I didn’t use this free network.
I found Malta to be a pretty unpleasant place. It seems to have evolved as the epitome of cheap package tours touting sun and binge drinking.
Pickpocketing is rampant, especially in the nightclubs of Paceville and of course on the buses. We visited Senglea, Sliema, Paceville, St. Julians, and Valetta. The island has some interesting architecture but otherwise, you don’t have a single positive comment; and my mother taught me: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
Paceville: full of crumbling and never-finished structures. Smells of stale alcohol.
United begs its airport lounge customers to behave
Just wondering: what kind of clientele does United Airlines have? I mean, is it really necessary to place a formal request on each coffee table, telling its airport lounge guests to keep their feet off the furniture?
And the advance explanation, “As a courtesy,” as if anticipating the obvious follow-on question that surely comes from that feet-on-furniture breed, “why not?”—isn’t it a bit subtle?
Does United mean feet or shoes? Does it matter?
Are people really such pigs?
Is this what happens when lounge membership includes everyone who gets the first-year-no-annual-fee United-branded Visa card? (And is that why the lounges are so crowded?)
Survey: Do you put your shoes on the furniture at home?
The Mysterious Case of the Uninvited Hotel Room Night Visitors
“UNBELIEVABLE!” our friend Donny said when we unexpectedly met in the morning. “Bizarre! I must have had ghosts in my hotel room last night!”
Though we hadn’t seen him in more than a year, nothing mattered but last night’s hotel experience. Donny was beside himself. It was twilight zone.
Two of my favorite things when traveling:
1. Being invited to dinner at someone’s home (rare).
2. The unplanned meeting of friends from elsewhere (more common).
Bob and I were staying at an exceptional hotel in Guatemala City, the near-perfect Westin Camino Real. Donny was staying elsewhere. His story tumbled out.
He’d checked into his hotel late the night before after a long flight. He went up to his room and, without much messing around, went soon to sleep.
In the morning, he found:
• A broken glass on the floor;
• One shard of glass in the trashcan;
• A small towel on the floor;
• Two empty soda cans moved from the desk to the bathroom;
• His Kindle still plugged into the extension outlet, but:
• The extension cord now unplugged and stretched across the floor in a perfectly straight line.
Uh, huh, I teased, it was the woman you brought up with you! Donny wasn’t in a humorous mood. He was truly mystified. Ghosts were the only explanation he could think of. He was spooked.
You drank too much, I tried. Did you drink on the plane?
“I had a drink in the lobby,” Donny recalled. A welcome drink. “But I’m a drinker,” he said, “a drink is nothing for me. That’s not it.”
Hmmm, a drink in the lobby. What kind of hotel was it?
I’m going to say that Donny’s drink was drugged. Possibly with scopolamine, aka Devil’s Breath. It was an inside job. After Donny collapsed in bed (without washing up, I note), an employee with a key entered the room and searched for cash. The would-be robber knew how long the drug would take to knock Donny out and when he could safely enter the room.
Donny’s wallet was in his pants pocket, and the pants were on a chair. The wallet was searched and replaced—Donny had traveled without cash. No credit cards were taken. Nothing from his suitcases. His perp was looking for cash, and only cash. In Guatemala, the average monthly salary is less than $300. Had something obvious been taken, Donny’s Kindle, for example, there would have been accusations and immediate trouble. Cash… who’d notice?
Let’s say Donny’s drink was spiked. The thief had done this before and knew how soon he could enter. He rummaged through Donny’s wallet, then bumped into the desk, knocking over the two drink cans and the glass. He glances at Donny, who’s out cold. He picks up the two cans and a big shard of glass and takes them into the bathroom, where he grabs a face towel, intending to sweep up the glass and soda dribbles. But he hears something—Donny stirs, or maybe he hears a colleague in the hall. He freezes, then flees.
The only puzzle remaining is the electric cord. Donny had bent under the desk to plug his Kindle into the multi-outlet extension cord that was on the floor. He stood and placed his Kindle on the desk, and noticed that it wasn’t charging. He bent again and flipped a switch on the extension cord, confirmed that the Kindle was charging, and left it.
Also, the Kindle had not charged more than 10% or so, meaning the plug had been pulled shortly after Donny fell asleep.
Donny did not wake up groggy or foggy-headed. He noticed the broken glass, missing soda cans, and towel right away. His thought process was as follows: Did I do that? No, I did not do that. Was someone in here? No, I would have woken up. WTF? A ghost?
Since nothing seemed to be missing and he had an early checkout, Donny did not mention the mystery to the hotel staff. Anyway, he’s not a confrontational type. Also, any hotel can find itself with a rogue employee.
My drink-drugging theory was novel to him, but a better hypothesis than ghosts, which had been all he’d come up with. Anyone else have a theory? Or some possible logic about that extension cord?
The pickpocket in Guatemala City who stole our wallet for good.
Almost gone for good, finally. Our lucky wallet, our favorite thief-bait, would have been stolen in Guatemala City by a stone-faced woman backed by two accomplices, had we not, at the last minute, swapped it for a “regular” prop wallet.
Our lucky red leather prop wallet has been stolen more than a hundred times—close to 150 times—and we’ve always gotten it back. Usually we confront the thief and he/she hands it over or drops it on the ground. Sometimes Bob Arno steals it back. The thief who emptied Bob’s pocket in Guatemala City held her ground. We didn’t get the wallet back.
Then again, it wasn’t our lucky wallet. Perhaps if she’d stolen that one, she would have given it back. We’ll never know.
A huge audience surrounding street performers fills the street and creates a bottleneck. Pedestrians must squeeze slowly behind the crowd against the wall.
As we were heading out on a thiefhunting expedition in new territory, we did a little research. Yikes! Guatemala City is dangerous! Crime rates are astronomical (99.5 murders per week! 143,000 cell phones stolen (with force) in 2012!). The Westin Camino Real Hotel staff told us that more than ten of their guests are mugged every month. Presumably, other hotels have similar rates.
So it was with extra caution and trepidation that we ventured out. And we left our lucky wallet in the hotel.
Guatemala City pickpockets
After meandering around Guatemala City’s photogenic Sunday market in Parque Central, we strayed a bit and found ourselves on Calle Real, a busy pedestrian shopping street. Several street performers had gathered huge crowds which filled the street, like the one pictured above. To pass, we had to slither slowly along the green fence, pushing against the spectators.
This boy is an accomplice to our pickpocket. Remember his plaid shirt so you can spot him in other pictures.
That’s a long bottleneck—a choke point—in other words, pickpocket paradise. Why? Your progress is slow, giving the pickpockets all the time they need to get into position, find your valuables, and extract them. You’re experiencing physical contact with strangers on all sides, so you don’t suspect the pickpocket’s touch. The crowd is so tight that no one can witness the thief’s dirty work. And when the steal is complete, the perps can meld invisibly into the crowd.
Bob and I dove into the bottleneck. We let the crowd move us along, bump us left and right, feel us up. Negotiating the long passageway was like burrowing through a two-way tunnel of human bumper-cars. We emerged intact.
As we reached the next block, we saw a similar crowd. It, too, filled the street right up to the buildings. As we approached, this boy (at right) in plaid came around from behind us.
Plaid Boy and his partner, the woman with the black sweater “toreador-style.”
The boy glanced at us, then at his partner, a woman who could be his mother, who came around from the other side of us. The two joined up as they continued slowly along the street.
The pickpocket’s two accomplices get into position.
They were suspects immediately. The boy wore a messenger bag—typical of many pickpockets, but of course not exclusive to them. The woman’s sweater was draped “toreador-style” over one shoulder, also a common pickpocket M.O. The woman also carried a large purse which gaped open in the back. Then there were their frequent furtive glances at us. We were sure they were part of a pickpocket team, but we didn’t know their roles. Either one could have been (and perhaps sometimes is) the “dip.”
The pickpocket’s two accomplices wait for us.
The woman and boy arranged themselves in front of us as we neared the bottleneck. We paused to see what they’d do. They paused. Uh huh. They hung back against the wall, both taking quick glances to see if we were on our way—if their prey was on track.
The woman constantly fiddled with her eyeglass case. A nervous habit? Or a signal?
Bob went forward and the two suspects placed themselves directly in front of him. They were performing as blockers. They would delay their mark—their target—slowing down our progress, allowing the pickpocket time to find and extract our wallet.
Pickpocket positions
Preparing for action, Ms. Accomplice removed her black sweater. I fell into place behind Bob, allowing a little distance between us. If there were a pickpocket in the vicinity, and we felt certain there was, Bob’s pocket would have to be accessible—not protected by me.
These two women are also pickpockets. Here they check the pocket of our plaid boy, not realizing that he’s part of another pickpocket team.
Bob paused in the middle of the narrow passage, forcing the accomplices also to stop and wait innocently. The boy pretended to watch the street performer. The woman fiddled with her glass case.
Two women squeezed past from the opposite direction. Surprise, they were also pickpockets! They didn’t recognize our team as thieves. You can see the first woman brush the hip pocket of our boy. The second woman bent her head low to look at his pocket as she passed.
The short female pickpocket gets in position behind Bob. The accomplice is ahead of them, her gapey purse ready for a deposit.
Now our pickpocket took up her position behind Bob. I got behind her with my video camera running. She’s very short—her face not much higher than Bob’s waist. In the photo below, notice the parade of actors in this perfect choreography: the victim (Bob) is sandwiched between the pickpocket and accomplices, one of whom can “hold” (the stolen goods) and one or both can “block” (impede the victim’s progress, slow him down). Classic!
In front of the pickpocket, who clutches a striped shirt to cover her moves, you can see Bob’s white shirt, the plaid boy accomplice’s shirt, and the woman accomplice’s big white satchel.
The pickpocket unfurled a wadded shirt she carried, which we consider a tool. The purpose of the shirt (striped) was to hide what her hands were doing. She worked very slowly on Bob’s wallet. While Bob walked and filmed, he concentrated his attention on the sensitive skin over his right gluteus maximus. The pickpocket gently rocked the wallet, zigzagging it up and out of Bob’s pocket.
Bob feels for his missing wallet while holding his camera high and aimed at the perp. You can see Bambi following behind, also filming.
As soon as she got the wallet, she scooted away from the scene of the crime and hurried to catch up with the female accomplice. Bob had to feel his pocket to be sure the wallet was really gone.
With the wadded shirt as a shield, the pickpocket drops the plunder into the waiting bag of her accomplice.
The pickpocket darted straight to her partner, again using the striped shirt as a cover to conceal Bob’s red wallet. She slipped the wallet into her partner’s shoulder bag, which gaped open, ready to accept the loot.
The pickpocket and her accomplice revamp after a successful steal.
Wallet stolen and stowed, the two women rearranged their props. The pickpocket folded her spare shirt and wrapped it around the strap of her shoulder bag. The shoulder bag was replaced and adjusted. The accomplice re-covered her satchel with her big black sweater.
Pickpocket plays dumb: “Who me? What did I do?”
Bob stepped in with his usual courtesy, asking madame if he could please have his wallet back. The thief gave him a dumb stare. He tried a mixture of languages to no avail. He invoked “policia,” hoping that the accomplice would drop the wallet onto the ground. Nope.
Indignant pickpocket: “Unhand me, sir!” The accomplice madly flips her glass case, which contains some sort of papers.
Bob grabbed the pickpocket as she turned to go. Strangely, the accomplice, who stayed close, opened her big purse as if to produce the wallet, but didn’t remove anything. She did this over and over, sometimes alternating with glass case fiddling. Again: nerves, or signals? The boy accomplice disappeared. Perhaps to get assistance? We don’t think the female accomplice passed the wallet to the boy, but it’s remotely possible.
Bob blatantly films the pickpocket encounter.
Bob and I continued to film openly as our confrontation escalated. Bob’s tiny camera, the fabulous GoPro Hero3+ Black Edition, doesn’t really look like a camera. Its wide angle lens is fantastic up close, though of course there’s a bit of distortion. But even frame grabs are sharp—sharper than those from my Sony RX100. All these images are frame grabs from our videos.
The stonefaced pickpocket is adamant. Her accomplice seems to be a nervous wreck, opening and closing her bag, then her glass case.
We stood on the edge of the street entertainers’ crowd on the opposite side of the street, where there was another bottleneck passageway between audience and buildings. Quickly, a crowd gathered around our encounter. Our show was better than the street dancers’.
Done with us, the pickpocket pushes her way through the crows.
The crowd found something amusing. Was it that we made an issue of an everyday occurrence? Was it the futility of accusing the thief? Something someone said in Spanish? Or simply Bob’s height? Bob’s height was amusing—he was a giant in a land of short people.
The fed-up pickpocket whacks Bambi’s camera.
The pickpocket finally had enough of our accusations and stormed off through the crowd. We followed her through the bottleneck and out the other side. Bob continued to demand his wallet back, trying to provoke a response. When she turned down a side street, Bob lingered a moment with a couple of police officers. I followed along beside the escaping thief, my camera still running. I’d been filming the entire time—which was actually only a few minutes.
Suddenly, the woman whacked my camera! It flew out of my hand but luckily, I had it on a tight strap around my wrist so it swung wildly but didn’t fall. I abandoned the chase to look at my camera. It was dead. Dark screen. I’d never stopped recording, so the footage was never saved to the chip. I turned it off, then on, and lo! It gave me an option to recover unsaved video! Yes!
It recovered about the first two-thirds of the shoot. Nothing after I turned the corner. Not the potentially great shot of the pickpocket attacking my camera and ending the scene with a dramatic blackout. But I got enough. Great camera, this Sony RX100.
Two armed police officers take up the chase.
Meanwhile, Bob had snagged two armed police officers who seemed excited to take up the chase. Together, we ran down the street. But the pickpocket had disappeared. She could have ducked into any of the little bars or bodegas lining the street. Chuckling silently about the thieves’ disappointment when they found our wallet totally empty, we gave up. We needed to return to the scene to shoot a little more video. We had only another half hour of daylight, and this was one city we knew not to linger in after dark.
An American soldier assigned to protect the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City told us just how rough the city is. He said that no new embassy personnel are allowed to go out at all until they have been briefed. They’re told how to behave, how to dress, what not to carry: wear no jewelry, no branded hats or clothing, dress down. Flashing an iPhone or iPad definitely invites mugging. Some zones of the city can only be visited in groups of two or more persons. Other zones are not to be visited at all. Curfew is midnight.
Guatemala City is a place where security must be taken seriously. Be certain your hotel is reputable. (We believe our friend was drugged at his hotel, and his room ransacked while he slept. Story coming soon.) Use taxis from your hotel, and arrange for the drivers to wait or return for you. Do not flag down a taxi in the street. If you go exploring, use all Thiefhunters’ advice in Pocketology 101 and Purseology 101.
8+ hotel room gripes that shouldn’t exist but are all too common.
The Hong Kong Novotel—a spectacular room.
As a hotel-dweller (some 200+ nights per year for the past 20 years), I can tell you: there’s a lot wrong with the hotel industry. From the frivolous, like inept service staff, to the serious, like the insecurity of guests’ physical belongings and personal data. Today (while dwelling in a hotel room), I’m going to dwell on my personal hotel room gripes. That is, things that bug me inside the hotel room. For the most part, fixable things. Things that should not exist.
1. Thievery hangers
Thief hangers
Yeah, those hangers that don’t come off the closet rod, or that you have to fiddle to get the little hookless tops into sliding brackets. Those tell me, from the first moment, what the hotel thinks of me, its clientele: Aha! thought you’d steal these hangers, did you? Haha! We’re a step ahead of you, you thief! I’m offended by the very inference. Of course I understand that the hotel is trying to limit the appeal of its hangers and therefore shrinkage. A better solution, one that is not troublesome for us guests, is the little-hook hangers—the ones that only fit on a narrow rod. While I get the same offensive message from those, they do not punish me with fiddly inconvenience.
2. Dysfunctional design
For security, the hotel name and room number should never be attached to your room key, like this Egyptian hotel room key.
Sometimes I’ll accept form over function for the sheer delight and novelty of the design. Dysfunctional details can be due to a lack of foresight, planning, or funds. Shower knobs too smooth to turn with soft-water-wet hands. Sink faucets too close to the edge of the sink. Tub drains easy to accidentally close while showering. Lighting and accessible electrical outlets can fall into the bad design category, but they’re more likely due to lack of thought and lack of funds.
3. Housekeeping oversights
Start with dead lightbulbs. In most cases, housekeeping could have and should have caught these. Dead tv remotes. Same thing, and way too common. Slow sink and tub drains. Housekeeping: how could you not notice? Sticky or unclean furniture. Well, lack of cleanliness is a total turnoff, but even in otherwise clean rooms I often find sticky bedside tables.
4. Alarm clock that goes off
This could have gone into Section 3, Housekeeping oversights, but it’s egregious enough for a category of its own. I do not want to be awakened at the previous occupant’s time. Hotel staff should be sure that every clock’s alarm is turned off. And by the way, make sure the clocks are set to the correct time.
5. Noisy refrigerator
Maddening. I pull their plugs
6. Linen issues
I’m very picky about bed linen. I detest poor quality sheets, but that’s a function of the quality (and cost) of the hotel. So, skipping over linen quality, let’s go to How to Make a Bed. I don’t want the bottom sheet to come untucked when I first open the bed by pulling out a tucked-in top sheet. I don’t want sheets that are tucked in so tight at the feet that they are hard to loosen. I definitely don’t want short sheets, where I feel the bare mattress or blanket at the foot end because the sheets aren’t the right size for the bed. Sheets should not loosen and get all wrinkly after one night’s sleep.
Slippery pillow material makes pillowcases slide off. Too-small pillowcases are just as bad.
And my number one bed linen gripe: pillowcases that aren’t long enough for the pillow, or that slip off. Lately I’ve run into some awful type of pillow covered in a slippery paper-like case, like a non-tearable Tyvek envelope. Pillowcases start slipping off these immediately, and you end up sleeping with your face on the bare pillow that 2,000 people have already used in ways we don’t want to know about. One of the worst pillows is made of something called Technology Fabric, made by the English Trading Co. Pillowcases do not stay on them; not even the pillowcases that have tuck-in ends. They’re disgusting. Unhygienic.
7. Signage
Some signs are probably a good idea, like this one on a Turkish hotel bathroom mirror.
I’ve previously made myself clear on those towel-on-the-floor signs. I don’t want to see them. Neither do I like an overabundance of CYA signage: “watch your step,” “check water temp,” “don’t flush this/that,” “use safe at your own risk”… Not to mention inhouse ads, intimate tips, and personal suggestions.
8. Hopeless hotel room gripes
Windows that don’t open. Shower water without flow control. Low water pressure. Noisy air conditioning and heat.
No, I would not be happy with cookie-cutter hotels. I enjoy the quirks and surprises of hotels, most of which are delights. Did I miss any important complaints? What are your hotel room gripes?
This unattended purse could disappear in a second.
You can hardly call it bag-snatching when a handbag is left hanging on the back of a chair, free for the taking. We regularly warn people about this unsafe habit. Worse yet are bags placed under chairs. These appeal to opportunists who operate on stealth, rather than speed.
We met the Hansons in Barcelona’s American Express office. They were reporting their loss when Bob and I popped in for our irregular count of stolen credit cards, a useful barometer and an excellent excuse to visit the nearby Il Caffe di Francesco on Consell de Cent for superb cappuccino.
The Hansons had been enjoying a lesser brand of coffee and watching the passing people parade at Tapa-Tapa, a popular sidewalk café near Antoni Gaudi’s innovative Casa Mila apartment house.
“We were in the corner and felt safe,” Mrs. Hanson said. “There was no apparent risk. Our carry-all was on the ground between us as we sat side by side. The bag contained my purse, our camera, and some small purchases.”
A thief briefly drapes his jacket over a purse hanging on the back of a chair; then walks away with it.
Bag Snatch Cafe
Bob and I went directly over to Tapa-Tapa, just a few blocks away. Umbrellaed tables were grouped invitingly on the sidewalk. Surrounding them on three sides, a row of potted ficus trees lent an air of privacy and coziness to the setting. The Hansons had been sitting in a corner, where the dense foliage gave the impression of walls and a sense of security. Rather, gave a false sense of security.
Behind the potted plants traffic buzzed on Passeig Gracia, and a dim stairway descended to the subway. Can you see the risk now? A person crouching behind the planters might not be noticed. He could simply reach through the “wall,” possibly with the aid of a crude hook, snag the bag, and disappear into the subway.
“About five a day,” the manager of Tapas-Tapas said, when we asked him how often patrons complained of stolen bags. Five a day! Yet management saw no need to change the set-up, and police paid no extra attention to the area.
The chained trees won’t be stolen, but the bags under the chair will be.Cafe plants with chicken wire to protect customers’ bags.An outdoor cafe with a little more protection from bag snatchers.
Many an outdoor dining area is bordered with potted plants—it’s a typical arrangement. The close proximity of a subway entrance makes Tapas-Tapas particularly attractive to thieves, but the risk is universal. The solution is to maintain physical contact with belongings. Then you can relax, enjoy your meal, people watch, and appreciate your surroundings without worry. You can tuck a strap under your thigh, put your foot or the chair leg through it, or keep your bag between your feet. Most thieves would rather work on a less-vigilant mark.
As much as we love the city, there’s no denying that street thievery is rampant in Barcelona. Yet, bag-snatching, in one form or another, is a universal crime.
Bag-snatchers, like pickpockets, can be divided into two categories: the opportunists, who include desperate novices like my bag-snatcher, and the strategists, who create their own advantages.
