Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Being Robbed In Peru

On January 26, 2013 in the city of Chimbote in northern Peru I had been riding with a Polish cycling couple for a couple of days and we were taking a "shortcut" to get back on the Pan American Highway from the city center. We unknowingly entered a bad neighborhood which was only five blocks from the police station and the main square (Plaza de Armas-the central area of all activity).

As we rode into the neighborhood two different taxi drivers signaled to us as if they were telling us to get out of the way but we thought it was because we were going the wrong way on a one way street (not something I do often but it was a super slow street). We even mentioned to each other how weird it was that they were making such a big deal about it since people go the wrong way on one way streets all the time in South America and this street was for sure wide enough and dead slow! In hindsight we realized that they had been signaling us to get out of that neighborhood, to turn around.

I had seen a guy running fast towards me from about 100 feet away. I didn’t know what he was running for until it became apparent as he got closer and I could see he had his eyes locked on me. I reached for my pepper spray which I kept in the outside net pocket of my handlebar bag but it was too late by then. The first assailant ran up and grabbed at my handlebar bag which caused me and Tankita (my bike) to be knocked down. I got up, and while I straddled Tankita, my entire handlebar bag was ripped off of its mounted holder and thrown off to the side.  I managed to hold onto the top map case and map which subsequently ripped away from the handlebar bag while I was struggling to keep the handlebar bag from being taken. I never thought the handlebar bag would release so easily from its mount from just being pulled hard.

The assailant then tried to grab more things like my GPS (hidden under a duck hand puppet made to look like a mascot) but he could not free that as it was attached to a mount and also looped around the handlebars by the strap. I don’t know if he even knew what he was grabbing, he probably just knew that cyclists kept things like that on their handlebars. He then started grabbing at the front pannier (fancy name for a bicycle bag) on the side of the bike that was face up. He couldn’t get a good hold on it fortunately because the quick release handle was tucked under the rain covers which I keep on them all the time to keep them clean. I fought with him punching him, albeit like a girl, but still with force and anger while yelling “no” and screaming obscenities at him and telling him to get the %$!* away from me and calling him a mother f%$!*er and such!! Aldona later said she didn’t know that I was being robbed at first she just all of a sudden heard me yelling obscenities and looked at me at about the time the other assailants got to her and then Marek.  

While I was fighting with the assailant I could see my handlebar bag a mere ten feet away from me where he had thrown it after he ripped it off my handlebars.  I kept everything important in that bag because it was the one thing that never left my sight. When I stopped somewhere I took the handlebar bag with me and it doubled as a backpack on my days off the bike. Because the bag could be transformed into a backpack it had all kinds of secret hiding places and I had money hidden in there. I had recently gone to the ATM to get money to cover the distance where I would be without such banking services so all that local currency and some USD dollars were in that bag. My passport and everything else important like my camera (fortunately I had backed up my photos the night before), credit  and debit cards, phone, journal, among other minor things like my head lamp, purse, riding gloves (I didn’t have them on at the time), and reading glasses were taken in one swoop.  I wanted to go and recover the bag so badly but I could not leave my bike because by now two guys were trying to loosen my front pannier. If I left Tankita I am sure they would have taken her and everything on her.

I managed to save my front panniers because I fought for them with everything I had but I guess a person is never supposed to fight like that and is supposed to just give up what a robber wants but I didn’t think of that, it was just instinct to fight someone trying to grab my stuff. Plus the assailants never tried to strike any of us even when we were striking them. At one point one guy was trying to take Marek’s stuff and Aldona, having lost all her easily grabbed stuff already, had joined Marek in the fight to fend off that assailant; even then the assailants never fought back.

Finally, the assailants just gave up and ran off with what they had managed to rip off of the bikes; which was plenty! I imagined the guy opening up my handlebar bag and realizing he hit the mother lode.

Aldona lost her handlebar bag and both front panniers when they easily "quick released." The attempt made on Marek's handlebar bag failed but he lost the camera that fell out in the scuffle. Neither Marek nor Aldona lost their passports because their passports were hidden in panniers which were more difficult in which to "grab and go."

Because of the high value of our things and the amount of money that was lost as well, we were passed higher up from the normal theft office to the First Commissioner, Victor Uceda Irribarren to handle our investigation/report. We struggled to explain everything in Spanish and then Victor’s daughter Lucero was called in to translate for us. 

After we gave our reports we had asked the police if there was a way to look around the pawn shops or some type of a place that sold stolen stuff. They answered that there was not such a place. We asked if there was a chance that maybe some insignificant/personal things would be thrown in a trash dumpster in the neighborhood. Because of this, and because we wanted to show them where the crime took place, they agreed to take us to the neighborhood. I began to think it wasn’t such a good idea when we loaded up in two police pick-up trucks with four fully armored police men in the back of each and the commissioner, Victor, his daughter Lucero and several other cops inside the trucks. The police carried full-on shotguns and wore bullet-proof vests. We proceeded to the neighborhood with me directing the location and once there all the police unloaded from the trucks and took position while Victor went and knocked at the door of one of the homes closest to the corner where  the robbery took place. I didn't like how this could go down. I immediately requested the open truck windows to be closed so that no one could see me inside. The neighborhood was still very busy with lots of people straggling around. At least seven people in the neighborhood watched the entire time we were being accosted and they did nothing and later would not help the police identify who had accosted us. The typical case of "I didn't see anything." The police said that this neighborhood was real tight with each other and they were all bad! In a news article written about the robbery (included below) the neighborhood was identified as “La Selva” in English “The Jungle.”

I don’t know what Victor said to any of the people in this neighborhood but all of a sudden someone fled out of one of the houses and began running away and the police gave chase. The truck I was in moved around a bit to position better and Lucero started to get very nervous for her father because she could no longer see where he was and because he was the only one out there not wearing a bullet-proof vest.  The folks in the neighborhood started to get very agitated and some threw rocks at the other police truck which held Marek and Aldona. That truck then left the neighborhood and I think it was because of the people getting worked up about Marek and Aldona (the accusers) being in the truck because their windows were down and they could be seen from outside.

Nothing was accomplished at that “raid” and it was much more harrowing of an experience than the assault itself. During the assault I was not scared, just angry, very angry. But during this little visit to the neighborhood I was definitely apprehensive (not scared, I’m never scared-smile).

We had mentioned to the police that none of the cyclist specific stuff was of any use to any Peruvians and therefore had no value to the thieves but was extremely valuable to Marek and Aldona. Apparently the police put the pressure on the neighborhood to turn over those invaluable things of ours (which for me wasn't much). Later that day, a policeman walked into the station with Aldona’s handlebar bag and both her side panniers. Inside of her panniers was their water filter, stove, and a few random other loose things including oddly enough my debit card, one of my sunglass lenses (second set for low light riding), one of my riding gloves, and my toothbrush; it was just plain random and weird! Pretty much only the food that had been in Aldona’s panniers was missing. Although most of Marek and Aldona’s stuff was recovered, their camera was not recovered but they said it was old and not of high value anyway (unlike mine). No one in the neighborhood was turning in anyone so the police could not catch the assailants but other members of the neighborhood could say that stuff was "found" strewn around. 

In a day or so I checked back at the police station and I asked Victor if he could somehow offer a reward for the return of my passport. The loss of my passport meant that I would have to return to Lima (255 miles/425 km away), apply for a new one, wait maybe two weeks, and hope that they give me a replacement passport instead of just one to get me home to the USA. I have heard of some embassies issuing a temporary travel passport that can only be used to transit home but not to travel on further. I told Victor I didn't care about anything else but would give $100 for the return of the passport. He responded through Lucero’s translation that he couldn't really do that as it would be bad for the police to condone that (or something like that) but we went again to the neighborhood anyway. This time it was just Victor, one other cop, and I in a taxi. Victor talked to a guy on the street who referred him to another guy whom he then talked to and then we left. I don’t know what was said but when my passport and journal was recovered the next evening Victor and Lucero delivered it to me personally at my hostel, I was so happy I was crying. Victor refused the $100 saying it was not necessary and then they took me out for a fruit shake! 

The police in Peru are notorious for being corrupt but I sincerely feel at least Victor was on the up and up. Victor and Lucero were both very helpful through all of this and Lucero doesn't even work for the police so she had come to the station on her own time. When all of us cyclists decided to leave town by bus Victor arranged the tickets (free) and arranged for us and our bikes to be transported to the bus station in two police trucks.

Of course I was kicking myself after the robbery for having everything important in one bag. But that seemed like the safest place at the time. I had not really anticipated this kind of robbery and I never thought the bag would come off the handlebar mount so easily. I had actually anticipated being robbed at knife point or worse and having an assailant make me give him things out of the bag. I figured that I could empty the whole bag in front of him and he should be satisfied with seeing an empty bag and not knowing of the other place where my money belt was hidden. I played the robbery over and over in my head wondering what I could have done differently. 

Peru is notorious for thefts/robberies. Lucero told me she has had at least three cell phones ripped out of her hands and stolen. Nadia had told me that someone once tried to rip both of her earrings out of her ears from behind but she saved them by grabbing them in time. There is no perfect way to be completely safe but I have taken some additional precautions since the robbery.  I now keep my passport along with some money and a debit card on my person again (as I had stopped doing that halfway through Chile because it was too friggin' hot to wear a money belt). I have always had a photograph of my photo page of my passport but I have since photographed each of my passport pages too because they are good memory/souvenir stamps and I would have been sad to have lost those. I attach the photos to an email to myself and update it each time I get new stamps. I have done that with each journal page as well. And I have now figured out a way to use a cable lock to lock the front panniers to my pannier rack to at least protect against this type of theft again.
 

I was discombobulated after the robbery. I had to figure out where to put the things I would normally have easy access to in my handlebar bag. It is like being used to having pockets or a purse and then going without. I had to repurchase a lot of little things as well as a new camera. I had to construct a “pouch” in which to attach my passport to my body because money belts weren't something I saw for sale in Peru. I no longer had my pepper spray but Aldona and Marek very graciously gave me one of their two pepper sprays which I made an attachment for so I could keep it on my person at my hip from that point forward.

My first night of walking outside alone after the robbery I was pretty tense. I looked at people in a different more suspicious way. Although I have always been cautious when walking around I felt like I needed to be more so. It crossed my mind that the raid of the neighborhood earlier that day would make the assailants angry at us and therefore a target for possibly a personal assault.

After spending a couple of days at the Ecuadorian border Jorge, a Swiss cyclist we had met after the robbery and one who took the bus with us, rode with me for about a day and a half while the Polish couple stayed behind for a couple of extra rest days. I felt a little comfort in having Jorge ride with me but it was obvious I was holding him up as he liked riding much faster. I knew I had to eventually get on the road by myself again so I told Jorge to ride on without me. For probably about two weeks I was very suspicious about people in general and I hated feeling like that, I hated not trusting anyone. I finally got over it and began to relax some more and I got back to normal.

I believe the robbery happened for a reason. In 25 years of traveling overseas in 50+ countries I have only had a traveler's check stolen once from a hotel room and nothing more. Maybe there was something further along in the trip that would have been more dangerous for me had I not experienced the robbery and subsequently "amped" up my awareness and precautions for theft and worse. Because of the heightened awareness I will avoid the other worse things . In the end it was only things I lost, there was no violence (except me punching them). It could have been a lot worse. I look at it kind of like the time I was attacked by Tigre' the ocelot I was caring for in Bolivia on another trip. She attacked me on the first day which showed me how potentially dangerous she was. That was a lesson I needed to learn in order to respect her and not get hurt worse. This robbery was perhaps a lesson I had to learn before anything worse happened.

The following are the photos of my time in Peru from my return to Lima (from the break in the USA) until the robbery. 

At Rico's and Nadia's place, I went through all my stuff and cleaned everything and prepared to roll on. Can you believe all of this fits on Tankita???

Rico and Nadia took me out to a traditional Peruvian dinner which included a nice cultural performance.

Nadia, her dad, Rico, and I

At the dinner, the waiter attached my camera bag and Nadia's purse to the back of our chairs so that we wouldn't have to worry about theft from someone casually walking by.

The dances included those influenced from the black Caribbean immigrants.

Rico and I were brought up on stage to join in one of the dances.

This little dance was so cute. Each person of the couple takes a turn trying to light (yes with fire) the piece of tissue that is attached like a little tail on the back of the skirt/pants while their partner is moving around dancing. Here the guy is re-lighting the candle he will use to try to set her booty afire!

Of course, I was pulled onto the stage for a try at the fire lighting dance.

At the finale the dancers went out into the audience for photos with attendees. Rico's eyes look as big as the eyes in the mask!

Party at Rico and Nadia's place with the theme being margaritas since that is my favorite drink!!

The not so big shoulder on the road getting out of Lima.

A typical beach town. This one is probably the closest one to Lima to the north.

I ignored this sign of course!

Another great camping spot. Except this one had indications of people going off the highway and driving into this little vista of the beach so I placed rocks around the tent and put my reflective things on the tent in strategic places in case someone at night decided to pull off where I was camping.

View from my camp.

The hand puppet duck I purchased in the US to cover my GPS. I later lost it :(. And the bike bell was a gift from my South Pole friend Marco.

Your guess is as good as mine.

It looks like sex sells no matter what country! In Peru I guess all farmers employ girls that spray pesticides while wearing a thong bikini.

I stumbled upon this reserve and it looked like a good place to camp since I wasn't finding anything off the main road in this stark desertscape.  

I was scoping out a place just off of the dirt road and a ranger stopped to ask me my intentions and told me I couldn't camp there. So I had to climb up to the official reserve on a dirt road for about 5 km/3 miles.

I was the only one camping in the reserve for the night.

I was in my tent in the reserve when I awakened to this guy bouncing around near my food pannier. I don't know what woke me up, his noise or that he was on my legs. Either way, I was in a fog when I woke up and only saw that there was something bouncing around outside of my sleeping bag on my legs.  I seriously thought it was a frog by the way it was jumping. I got my headlamp out and saw this little guy all stressed out at the foot of my sleeping bag. I couldn't figure out how he had gotten in until I saw the big hole in the tent screen (see next photo)! He then proceeded to try to jump out of that hole. It was hilarious! He kept jumping straight up into the air like a jumping bean. He was running up and down the length of the tent trying to figure out what to do. I grabbed my camera and snapped some photos then I unzipped the tent all the way and laid the unzipped flap down as low as it would go. The next time he jumped he made it out.
I stuffed a cloth in the hole and tried to think of what I should do with my food. I really didn't want to put it outside and have him gnaw a hole in my pannier. I didn't want to put the food outside without it being in the panniers because then he would get all my food! So I decided to see if maybe he was scared enough from our encounter that he wouldn't come back. NOPE, that little sucker was a brave one! He proceeded to try to come back in and I was “laying there with one eye open” and scaring him away any time I heard him. Finally, one time when I turned on the headlamp again I noticed the start of two more holes in my tent!!! This time they weren't in the screen but in the fabric! Well this had to end before I was left with scraps of tent in which to sleep.
So, I removed all the food from my food pannier and put the food in a bag outside of the tent. I went and got out my mosquito repellent and sprayed it all around the bag of food and in front of the tent. No, I was not thinking the mosquito repellent would repel him, I just thought it might make the food smell yucky. I took one bag of cereal and a banana and tossed it away from the rest of the food as a token offering to the Rat Gods.
I swear it sounded like he was dragging away a dead body when he grabbed the cereal and then it sounded like a couple of them fought over it. It seemed to appease them because I eventually got to sleep once I tuned out their noise (munching which seemed to be really close to me). When I awoke there weren't any new holes in my tent.

The rats must have tried to get at my bike seat too! 

The falcons seemed to be everywhere but apparently they weren't too successful on their hunts or else those rats were just one or two crafty buggers!!!

A ruin I passed on the highway. I didn't enter it,

There are always roadblocks where police question cars randomly. A Chilean cyclist I had met in Colombia had worked  as a driver for a traveling German/gringa woman in Peru. He was stopped often at these road blocks and the German woman always had to pay a fine/bribe to the police. He said he has never been stopped as a cyclist. I was stopped by Peruvian policemen more than in any other country and they always just wanted to know about me and my trip. This guy requested a photo with me and his partner took the photo with his phone so I decided to get one too.

Purple corn was popular in Peru. They also made a drink out of it that was yummy.

There was a guy by this sign who was kind of acting as a guard. He flagged me over to this yet unopened road and directed that I could ride on it. It was so beautiful. I didn't have to worry about any vehicles and it was so smooth. It went on for about 42 miles/70 km.

I met this Brazilian cyclist. He was drafting behind a truck going very fast down hill the opposite way when he saw me. He slowed down and crossed over to the unopened road where I was riding to say hello and share stories.  His journey was quite a bit shorter than mine and his load was significantly less than mine but he said he wouldn't trade in the air horn he had on his handlebars for anything.

Marek and Aldona met me on the closed road while I was stopped to eat a snack. We rode together for about a day and a half before the robbery.

The Brazilian cyclist had told me about a restaurant where I should stop for sure.  It was the only one for 18 miles/30km in any direction. The gentleman in the photo with us is the owner of the restaurant and he provided us with a fish lunch for free (shown below). He had a scrap book of all of the cyclists he had hosted in the 12 or so years he had the restaurant.

In Bolivia and Peru and even further north until Colombia all food plates seemed to consist of at least two or more starches and a meat. There was hardly ever any salad or if salad was offered, it was in the form of the onions shown above or maybe two slices of tomatoes.

Aldona and Marek pushing their bikes up this massive hill. As mentioned in other posts, I hate pushing Tankita, it seems like more work than riding. Instead I rest a lot but continue to ride. 

Peru is famous for its ceviche which comes with the orange spicy sauce typical in Peru. It was kind of expensive but I had to have it at least a few times while I was there.

As usual this is the map of my route so far up to the border of Ecuador. The last photo for this blog posting is just before Chimbote, Peru where my camera was stolen. The orange lines indicate where I rode and the black lines indicate where I used other means of transport.

This blog brings you up to date on my travels until January 26th, 2013. I am in Puerto Escondido, Mexico now as of this posting on July 31st, 2013.

Photos and blog posts to come:

Ecuador

Colombia and Stats from South America
Panama

Costa Rica-a.k.a. Gringolandia.
Nicaragua
Honduras
El Salvador
Guatemala and Stats from Central America
Mexico
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Inaccuracies in online article below; Holly (not Hally), female American (not male), the date of robbery was January 26th, and the assailants did not have knives. Gotta love the press!!

Translated article:

Three cyclists foreigners were looted YESTERDAY IN "THE JUNGLE"
Tuesday January 29, 2013 00:39

Three foreign cyclists were assaulted in a place known as "La Selva", fortunately the police managed to recover their valuable documents.

An American and two Poles, three days came to our town in doing cross bike several months ago, however, left them bitter experience from our port.

And is that as he passed near the village young "Manuel Arevalo" in the area known as "La Selva", four criminals were intercepted with knives, were immediately stripped of their cameras, high-tech items such as phones, and purifying water, and most importantly their passports and calendar to their phones Peruvian friends.

Foreigners identified as Hally Lee Allin (47), Ochalek Aldana (34) and Marek Lemieszek (39), were assisted and transferred to the First Commissioner of Chimbote, where the effective commissioner got a translator to support them to express their complaint.

Thanks to the intervention of the translator, the staff of the Commissioner were able to determine the whereabouts of offenders and managed to recover some belongings of foreigners, including their passports.

Before going their way, foreigners, who had the opportunity to speak to the media, said that despite this have happened in our city, they spent a very enjoyable time in Chimbote, very hospitable people, also thanked the police for have done everything possible to recover their belongings.