Are you paying attention? I guess not ey.

From a wonderful last day in Lima into a state of total confusion.
I visit the embassy in the morning and go wandering about in Miraflores after. I pass stores and coffee places asking around for a photo camera place where they might be able to fix my camera. In the first place not even my SD card seems to work, but I´m stubborn enough not to give up after my first try. So when I come to the second store.. it DOES work and I can rejoice about the fact that my photo's have not gone to the same place where Jesus lost his sandals once.

I bumb into a T-shirt of Socrates and decide to buy it on the scene. 20 soles equals around 7 dollars, cheap enough. Even though Lima is slightly more expensive than Northern Peru, it´s still all very affordable. After asking some more people I get the directions to a technician that might be able, please pretty please to fix my machine I´ve come to miss. Not having the camera present is like being nude almost at some point. Or you pass by a beautiful scene or moment grab for your pocket and.. empty. So when I found out that they couldn´t fix it, I bought a new one. I mean, I have so much travel ahead still.

I say goodbye to the Acuña family. They radiate lots of positive loving energy and when I close the door I felt a touch of beauty right there. I make it by taxi to el bar ingles in one of the most fancy hotels in Lima. I have a date with Irina. We met in Huanchaco at the beach and we proved our suspicion to be able to have a good conversation to be true. We jump a cab to the center and take a last strawl before keeping it on a see you again rather than a goodbye.

I hurry to the starbucks where Herless and his girlfriend and Gabriela are already waiting. We grab a chai and a chai tea latte before running around hyper actively through the Mal and finding a spot to eat dinner. What a weird concept we walk into: Hooters and food. Would the girls that work there actually have their asses and boobies measured at the job interview? I don't get the concept though. We go there to eat food. Why would anybody want to be served by taste distracting girls wearing clothes that accentuate all there features with such intensity, it get´s hard to have a normal conversation or enjoy your meal. Who would combine a strip joint with a restaurant? I mean, really. You either eat or you focus on girls but the two together.. weird match. Strangely enough the girl who took our order keeps coming back to ask us whether we wish to have anything else: well, how about our food we ordered half an hour ago? She forgot, we paid our drinks and were out of there.

The next place served better food so it seemed, so maybe it worked in our benefit after all. Though I committed another stupidity after our meal. I had to take out money form the ATM.
They work just the other way around as in the Netherlands. WHY? WHY?!? WHYYYYY?!?!
They gave me my money before they gave me my card back and being in the middle of a goodbye operation I act to fast and leave my freakin' card in the machine! I only find out when I am about to board my plane later that night around 05:15 a.m. MIERcoles!

I get off in Cusco and haste to make a call in order to block the card. I have not slept all night. I put my wallet on the phone and when the Norwegian number doesn't work I ask the lady of the phone shop for any possible explanations. AS I turned away, somebody must have thought that wallet belonged to him/her and took it. That was BANG number two. Confused checking the phones and my pockets I realize I have now no money whatsoever, not even to take a cab to the hostel let alone pay for staying there. So I grab for my Spanish bankcard and slide it into another bankmachine. I give in the pin of my other bank account but realize it before trying anything. I get my card out and slide it back in again to give in the correct number this time. It didn't bother: it swallowed my card all the same. BANG number three. Now I`m at the point of nervous breakdown. Breath Kaj, breath. I find my credit card and take out 500 soles from a machine just like the one in Lima. I don't forget my card but see how I can just perform another operation without having to give my personal pin code a second time!!! Ogmog. That would mean that anyone that found my card stuck in Lima could have just run off with 2900 dollars. Ok, now I´m upset.

I call Anitra in Norway, since the phone number of the bank is not correct even though I have it on a business card printed out. And she, thank goodness gets the card blocked. According to my account the money was still there. However there is a slight possibility that it has been taken, though has n´t come through to the bank yet. Would I need to stay here and find a job or what?
the woman in the second phone shop tries to calm my down.

I find a taxi and explain the driver what happened and ask him if he can be nice to me and charge me the normal 3,50 they would charge a local (the phone shop lady just explained that that´s the normal price, but foreigners are always overpriced for 4, or 5 soles. Now this Jerk was from another level. I plead for his goodness and explain him my conditions and he STILL is interested in ripping me off and having me pay 20 soles! Es la tarife he says showing a card with different numbers for different places. Yeah right, A card he printed out himself probably. Usted esta loco! I tell him. Que maltratado. Dejame salir, ya. I take my bags and get off the taxi and command him to take my bag from the back. Son of a bitch. I think that in my humanity, even though I would be trained to rip off tourists, when I guy that already lost two bankcards and his wallet would come to my cab, I wouldn´t even charge the poor bugger the one dollar fee.

Now which characteristic is more genuine to human nature? His or mine?

Depending on conditioning and state of well being, all is relative. I was flabbergasted yet again with how people can act. I decide to drink a mate de coca first and calm down. I do so in a restaurant where a woman treats the waitress like a piece of shit. In my mind I walk up to her and tell her as a gentle man: good morning miss, how art thou today? Do you feel good? Had a nice morning? I just observed your way of addressing the waitress and I wondered how you would feel if I would have addressed you in that manner. I wish God will give you the double of what you wish me, miss, have a nice day. In real life I merely think these thoughts and lack to perform.