Being a Tourist

I knew it would happen at least one time during our trip - and I am glad that it didn't turn out worse than it did.

We were walking down a busy street in Buenos Aires with some friends from Melanie's Spanish class. We were talking, having a good time, not paying attention to anything else than each other. When we stopped for a stop light, I felt a tug on my backpack, and looked back to see a woman quickly turn away from us. She was flanked by two men. I quickly checked my backpack and saw that the front pocket had been opened. Luckily, nothing was gone (nothing of importance was in that pocket anyway).

At first, I was mad. I didn't do anything right away - just told everyone to check their belongings. We crossed the street. The group of people stopped at a kiosk another half a block down to buy something. I was still feeling angry, so I ran into the woman with my shoulder. Looking back on it, that was a pretty stupid thing to do. But sometimes emotions take over being smart. She shouted "Ay, estupido". We kept walking down the street.

When we stopped at the next light, they came up from behind us and the woman spat something on me. I think it was just water, but whatever it was, I didn't really want it spat onto me.

And that's where it ended. We are lucky that we didn't have anything stolen in the first place and the two hoods that were with the woman didn't decide to do something in retaliation for me being dumb.

Travelling Tip From Dave-O: When you're travelling and someone tries to rip your stuff off and you catch them don't get mad and try to eke out some sort of street justice.