Mugged, travelers checks and our new home!!!! What a day!!!

Friday, October 8

We took a bus early to Calle Larga to shop for furniture.  This is a long street on the south edge of the colonial city running well above and parallel with the Rio Tomebamba.  We were out just to window shop for furniture as we had seen many furniture stores there when passing in earlier bus rides.  We also had seen hat shops with Panama hats being made and there was a barber shop there and I needed a haircut.  At the end of our walk after about an hour and a half we decided we need refreshment and we were almost to Kookaburra Cafe which we had been too in the past and we liked.

                                   Di's fireplace when we are ready to buy it.

We stopped on the sidewalk across the street from Kookaburra Cafe waiting for the traffic to ease and cross over, when it happened.

In broad daylight with literally dozens of people around, in front of open shops you don’t expect to get mugged.  We debated for a long time just how much we wanted to tell on our blog about this but we decided that it was information that everyone who may come here needed to know.  We were warned to treat Cuenca like any other very big city.  It can happen here as easily as it can happen in any big city in the world.

As we stood at the curb with Di at my right side I suddenly heard a scream that I recognized immediately as Di.  I spun to my right and caught a blur out of the corner of my eye.  I looked down and Di was sitting on the ground with here hand at her chest and she said to me that someone tried to grab her necklace.  She had the broken chain but no medallion.  I asked her if she was OK.  She said yes.  A crowd began to gather around her.

I immediately identified the man who mugged Di and took off running after him.  The whole time as I ran down the middle of Calle Larga I was hollering at him all of the most distasteful things I was going to do to him when I caught him.  All commerce on that block of Calle Larga came to a halt including the traffic.  It only took half a block down the road to realize that I was running at full speed at 8,250 feet give or take a bit and that I was at least a hundred and sixty two years old.  I stopped and he didn’t.  I went back to Di.  Needless to say I was dejected but very happy to find Di in good hands and only a bit bruised.

We got her up and took her into Kookaburra Cafe.  As we were getting her settled in, someone came in and said in Spanish that the Police caught the guy down at the corner.  I checked with Di and she was OK and off I went to do everything to that guy that the Police would allow including those distasteful things I was hollering in the street.  As I walked down the street it was obvious to everyone that this was one very mad Gringo.

I rounded the corner and there he was.  He was handcuffed to the back of a Police bike.  A young strapping motorcycle officer had the bad guy's pockets emptied onto the bike seat.  I walked up directly to the thief and shoved my finger within an inch of his face and in my best English I told him I wanted to kick his A$$ right there and then.  Nobody understood me.  What a deflating moment.  But they all knew that I was hot.  I told the officer the best I could that I saw him with my own eyes and chased him down the street.

The officer and the thief and I walked the street all the way back to the scene of the crime.  I found the medallion on the sidewalk very close to where Di went down.  I gave it to the officer.  Then I went into Kookaburra and got the broken necklace from Di and went out and gave it to the officer.  Then Manuel was at my side and he spoke broken but passable English.  What a help he was.  They loaded the thief and an officer in the back of a police truck and me and the police officer driver into the front and off to the police station we went.  They loaded Manuel into another police car and brought him to help me.

I won’t go into all the details that happened at the police station.  I dealt with the prosecutor, the defense attorney that they assigned to the thief, the arresting officer who had the evidence and about four other people that were there.  It was a big deal and I was very impressed with it all.  They asked me to bring Di back down on Friday or Monday to get her statement.  Manuel and I left and took a taxi back to Kookaburra Cafe.  There Di and I got lunch and Manuel only wanted a beer with me.  He gave us his name and his telephone number and we parted ways.

It was getting late in the day and we needed to get back.  We decided that we would walk back down the length of Calle Larga if for no other reason than to show the people there that this was our town too and we were not going to be intimidated.  We walked to the barber shop and I got my haircut.  Then we walked down the steps to Avenue Doce De Abril and took a bus to Ortorongo apartments.

Di took a siesta.  And I took off by taxi to get travelers checks cashed.  We needed cash to pay for 6 months of rent at our new home if by chance we closed the deal this afternoon.  Now here is a real adventure.  You can’t get travelers checks cashed at the banks.  I went from bank to bank by taxi.  No luck.  I was getting worried.  I was running out of time.  Our appointment was at 5PM and it was quarter to 4.  All I could see was a missed opportunity for a beautiful apartment.  Then a nice bank guard gave me directions to a money exchange house downtown.  Another taxi ride and it was done.  Now I had to get all that cash back to Ortorongo apartments without getting mugged.  I got a taxi immediately outside the exchange and went straight back to the apartment.

Juan picked us up just before 5PM to go to talk to owners about the new apartment.  We all went up to see it again.  Di and I were just as impressed and told them we wanted it.  We offered six months worth of rent and security up front.  Money talks.  The other person was still making up their mind.  We paid and got our receipts and keys.  We were in!!!!!  Juan left us there, his job well done.  We went up and just spent time planning what to do with enough space to raise an entire family in.  These photos are all that turned out.  Di had the new home excitement shakes for most of them.  We will post many more photos of the condo soon.

We walked back to Ortorongo apartments just before dark and crashed.  We have found our new home.  So ended another day in our adventure and an unbelievable day it was.