Tagged: Oops

VIENTIANE??!?!??!!

For a second there, Hartley and I were proud that we hadn’t fallen prey to the systematic scam machine that is Northern Vietnam, because all the southbound travelers we’d met along the way talked about being ripped off constantly.  Paying for bogus tours, buying tickets for buses and trains that never show up, booking rooms in hotels that don’t exist.  We’d escaped it.  Or so we thought.

Sure, we’d been overcharged here and there.  I’m positive none of the locals shelled out as much for a bowl of pho as we were in the habit of paying.  But we’d managed to stay mostly within our budgets, and hadn’t yet accidentally ended up oh, say, 11 hours and 631 kilometers away from any of our intended destinations.

But there was one last thing to figure out in Vietnam: how to leave.  Our visas were on their dying breaths, so we needed to hurry up and get to Laos.  Upon the suggestion of a friend we knew from Koh Rong, we decided to go to Vieng Xai, an underground cave city just across the northern border.  There was a reason for this: not only would it break up a zillion-hour bus ride to the central city of Luang Prabang, but our friend had listed Vieng Xai up there with the pyramids on the list of amazing things he’d seen.

We tried to book a ticket to Na Meo, the remote northern border town, but the agencies we asked only offered tickets through to Vientiane or Luang Prabang.  Unfazed, we pulled out the map and consulted the lady at the front desk of our hotel, who made a rapid-fire call in Vietnamese for us.  ”Bus leaves at 5 PM,” she told us.  Brilliant.  She scribbled us an unintelligible receipt, promising we’d arrive in Na Meo in the morning.

It seemed easy enough, but we knew it would be an adventure, because we discovered that we were unprepared in just about every way.  We’d been unsuccessful in our search for American dollars (of COURSE this is the only way one can pay for a Lao visa at the border with Vietnam).  I lost my sheet of passport photos.  And we were nursing a worry in the back of our minds that we’d get hassled and overcharged because we’d be overstaying our visas by one day.

5 PM rolled around and a guy came to our hotel to collect us.  The fact that he rode a motorbike and we had to chase him down the street carrying all of our luggage was a precursor to the way the rest of the trip was going to be, though we didn’t know it yet.   We hurried from hostel to hotel to hostel, picking up a few more travelers at each stop for a collective ride to the bus station.  A second guy packed us into a van meant for half as many people (below is where I sat on the floor – he had to physically shove me further back to get the door closed) and drove us to a dusty patch of road near the bus station.

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From there we were treated worse than cattle, shoved along with a fury normally reserved for people with the blood of murdered puppies on their hands.  ”VIENTIANE!” one guy-in-charge screamed, and some of our group went with him.  ”LUANG PRABANG!,” the other shouted, and the rest stayed.  Hartley went over to him.  ”We’re going to Na Meo,” she started to say.  ”YOU!  GO!” he shouted, gesturing towards the Vientiane group.  Pausing, then, to count the number of people in the Luang Prabang group, he pulled one girl from there and pushed the three of us along.  Figuring we’d find our bus in the same area, we hurried after the Vientiane group.  He couldn’t get us through the motions fast enough.  Passports were taken, tickets were torn, and we were breathlessly herded towards the buses parked in back.  We tried to stop our guide.  ”Where is the bus to Vieng Xai?”  Visibly angered by our question, he stormed along, refusing to answer.  By that time we were in front of the Vientiane bus.  ”BAGS!” he screamed, and people started pushing their backpacks forward.

“We’re not going to Vientiane,” I told him, pulling out our map of Laos and pointing at the northern border crossing.  ”We’re going to Na Meo.  Which bus do w-”  ”BAGS!“, he repeated, shoving me aside.  ”THIS BUS!  BAGS!”

“So this is the bus to Na Meo?”

“NA MEO, NA MEO!” he yelled, violently stabbing the air in the direction of the Vientiane bus.

“So you’ll tell us when we need to get off?”

He ignored us.  We got on, stumbling into the sleeper berths he hustled us into, and the bus pulled out of the station.

The misshapen, smelly foot of a big Russian guy was dangling in my face, but apart from that we were fine.  I strategically angled the air conditioner towards it to blow the smell away and settled in for what I was sure would be a long night.

We were doing alright until the bus stopped to pick up the extra people, the ones who paid not for a seat but to sit in the aisle.  Suddenly, under the gentle swinging of the callused Russian foot, I was spooning a middle-aged Vietnamese guy whose sharp elbow had an uncanny ability to connect with the most ticklish part of my back exactly as I was about to drift off to sleep.

The bus was barreling along, and we knew deep down that we were headed to Vientiane, whether we liked it or not.  There was no reasoning with the slave drivers up front; we feared that if we asked about Na Meo again they might take some pliers from the glove compartment and start pulling our fingernails out to prove that we should have shut up when they told us to.

I locked my backpack, hugged my purse, took a couple of the sleeping pills I’d reserved for just such an occasion, and prayed I wouldn’t have to pee badly enough to take advantage of the side-of-the-road toilet stops (which of course only happened on the flat, bush-free stretches of road).  I drifted off.

I woke up to a fresh, cool breeze and the soft dawn light in my window.  My iPod said 6 AM.  We were stopped, but where were we?

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We’d made it to the border – or, at least, we were in the line of trucks waiting to cross the border.  With an hour to kill before the offices even opened, we sat down with Vicky (the girl who was pushed from the Luang Prabang group into ours) and a French couple, and scrapped our Vieng Xai idea over savory bowls of pho.  It was too early for instant noodles, but the beef was tasty and the broth tasted like chicken noodle soup from home.  I had my last cup of Vietnamese coffee there, the thick kind that takes ages to drip through the grounds to mix with condensed milk in a waiting mug.

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Surprisingly, the border crossing was easy.  Our expired visas made me nervous, especially when the border official took his time looking through my passport and checking it against a list of names on a sheet of paper in front of him – but get this – nothing happened.  He stamped us through.  We were in Laos, shiny new visas in hand!

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When we got on the bus, my aisle cuddle-buddy was gone.  The dirt got redder, the air got hotter and we could hear the buzzing of cicadas.  The frantic energy of Vietnam melted away and a calm I hadn’t felt since Cambodia settled over everything, even when the bus broke down and the drivers had to fool around with wrenches and pour water on the engine.  Upon arrival we were asked (nicely!!) if we’d like a taxi, and when we got in the open-back of the pickup, two Lao ladies climbed in with us – not to push us to buy something – but just to say hello (and stroke my hair…though I’m not sure whether this had to do with the color or just how straggly it’s gotten).

So here we are in Vientiane.  Completely by accident.  But Laos, so far, is lovely.

GETTING SHABU-SHABUED

They say one of the best things about travel is getting out of your comfort zone.  That’s supposed to be Where The Magic Happens.  But let’s face it: that zone is also Where You Can Feel Like A Huge Idiot.  Especially when you don’t know you’re out of your depth until it’s too late, it’s particularly easy to keep fucking up and make things continually worse.

It all started when Hartley and I saw a sign that read ”Shabu Shabu and Sushi Buffet”.  We turned to each other with excitement.  “Sushi buffet!?!” we exclaimed, at the same time, drawn to its welcoming, glowing window like moths to a flame.

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The restaurant was massive, with conveyor belts snaking through the long tables.  At each place was a pot of boiling broth.  Little plates of sushi and raw ingredients hummed by on the conveyor belts, up for grabs to be cooked up in the soup.

We started by adding raw chicken and beef and morning glory.  In between bites of potsticker, I added cabbage.  Pasta.  Fish cakes shaped like Angry Birds.  I’d try it all.  This was going to be great!

But there was a small problem.  Armed with only chopsticks, fishing the morsels of food out of the roiling broth proved nearly impossible.  The meat cooked to the consistency of leather.  The pasta swelled to behemoth proportions.  And the broth itself was puzzling.  Was it a soup?  Or merely a cooking agent?

Also, where was the sushi?  Was this the shabu shabu?

Contemplating this, we flagged down the waiter to order some water.  Annoyed, he glared at us and stalked off – and as he returned with our two glasses, we saw a self-serve soda bar across the room.  Oops.  Stupid foreigners.

Little by little, we fished the rest of our meals out of the pots, noticing that rather than eating the potstickers plain, everybody else was cooking them in the broth.  Our ability to play it cool was quickly dissolving.

When we went for a second round of drinks, we were further embarrassed when we noticed the sushi trays on the other side of the restaurant, full of fresh-looking multicolored rolls lined up in appealing rows.  We’d missed the very thing we’d come in for!

Next to the actual sushi buffet, we saw the large and varied spread of things that are supposed to go in the soup broth that had confused us so.  Chili, lime, lemongrass, spices, garlic, and other things that we’d also missed.  The sting of our idiocy was momentarily soothed, though, when we noticed a thing nearly as exciting as seeing the sign from the street in the first place: a self-serve ice cream case with little metal parfait bowls and tiny spoons.  We had missed the entire point of the soup, but at least we’d have dessert.

The freezer case had three flavors on offer: pastel pink, pastel purple, and yellow.  Now, unmarked ice cream flavors in Asia should be treated with caution, because they can occasionally give you a surprise you don’t want.  While a purple or red color in America would likely signify a berry flavor, in Asia it’s probably going to be something weird like red bean, because for some reason beans are allowed to sneak into sweet dishes alongside the legitimate dessert ingredients.  I didn’t know what the pink could be, but I assumed strawberry.  I guessed yellow would be pineapple, but Hartley assured me it was lemon.

I took the scoop in my hand and set to work muscling the rocklike ice cream into my little silver dish.  It was harder than it looked.  A line of children was forming behind me, but after my performance at dinner I DESERVED this.  The pink and purple flavors were solidly frozen, but I got a sliver of each.  The yellow scooped more easily, so I got myself a solid ball of it and…immediately dropped it onto the glass freezer cover.  No!  It started sliding downwards, leaving a pastel trail in its wake.  Not knowing what to do, I impulsively grabbed it with my hand.  A split second later, I realized that this was a stupid move when I noticed everyone in line looking at me like I was insane.  The ice cream started to drip through my fingers.  I looked around for a trash can, but since I didn’t see one, I dropped the remains back into the freezer, between the tubs.  I went back to my chair, holding my sticky hand out in front of me, and ate the little bite of pastel pink and purple I’d managed to get.

But that wasn’t satisfying enough.  The dessert line died down and I contemplated a second try.  I deserved a full scoop of ice cream even more than ever now, didn’t I?  Yes.  I did.  I went back over and scooped myself some yellow, and as I walked back to my seat I prided myself on the night’s first success.

I sat down.

I tasted it.

And it wasn’t lemon flavor.  It was durian.  DURIAN.  DURIAN!!!!!

Then we were the last ones in the restaurant.  The waiters were wiping the tables.  Our time had clearly run out.

Fail.

Well?  When was the last time you couldn’t play it cool?  Tell us in the comments!

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TRAVELER’S LUCK.

Occasionally I kick myself for not being better prepared.

This usually happens when, for example, I’m sprinting madly through a parking lot, dragging my flipped-over rolling suitcase behind me as I realize that the day’s last bus to wherever I want to go is pulling out of the station.  Through the window I can usually see other backpackers sitting smugly in their pre-assigned seats and tearing open packets of snacks.  I’ll probably have forgotten to buy snacks, so if I manage to make it on, I’ll jealously watch them eat out of the corner of my eye.

Or when I realize that the forty-five minutes of wandering I’ve just done could have been avoided by simply loading a map of the area on my iPod.

When this happens, I’ll resolve to Get Prepared.  “Sort your life out,” I’ll tell myself.  “Next time I’m going to load the map, buy food, and look up the bus timetable.  No more assuming things will go exactly as I want them to.”

But then, just often enough, the hands of fate swoop in and somehow make the best of things, and sometimes it’s a good story.  And the lesson remains unlearned.

One time in Seattle, one of my friends invited me to meet up with her coworkers for a drink.  A long taxi ride later, I stood before the leather-clad bouncer at the door of the bar, rummaging through my purse and pockets.  He stared me down, arms crossed, as I realized that….my ID wasn’t there.  I looked up at the bouncer.  “Please let me in.  I’m 25.  I just forgot my ID in my other purse, that’s all.  I swear!”

It was then that I realized the bar in question was a gay bar, and my tactics were not going to work on this particular bouncer.  He looked at me skeptically, raised eyebrows suggesting irritation at my attempt.

“I don’t care how old you really are, you’re not getting in here.  Not without an ID.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a line behind you.”

I couldn’t decide what to do.  Being cheap, I was unwilling to take a taxi home and back to get my ID, but I also didn’t want to give up.  My friend and I agreed that she would go meet her coworkers and I would walk around for half an hour, after which we’d all meet up and go somewhere nearer to my house (or someplace where I could try my luck sweet-talking a different bouncer).  I wandered aimlessly down the street, watching people getting into bars right and left.  So easily.  Had I really made it to the age of twenty-five without learning to double-check my purse before going out for the night?  Thinking about this, I stood on the corner, taking a picture of some sign I liked on a telephone pole, when a girl and her friends came up to me.

“Oh my god.  Baby girl.  I love you!”

I was confused.  I’d never seen her before in my life.  “Excuse me?”

“Do you know where the block party is?”

“Um, no.  No idea,” I said.

“Wow, sorry,” she replied.  “I didn’t mean to offend you or anything.  I was just asking.”

“Haha, no, I’m not offended,” I told her.  “I don’t know where I’m going.  I’m just waiting for some friends to finish their drinks because I forgot my ID and I’m stuck out here.”

“Oh, you need an ID?  I have an extra.  You can totally have it.  Here you go!”  she said, pulling out her wallet and handing me a card.  It was expired, and from Arizona.  We didn’t look very much alike, and she was a good six inches shorter than me, but still.

I couldn’t believe my luck.  “Really?”

“Definitely!  Have a good night,” she said as she turned and walked the other way with her friends.

Back at the bar, my bouncer nemesis glowered at me as I stood in the doorway, but I triumphantly ignored him, gesturing to my friends to go somewhere else with me.  The ID miraculously worked at three different places, and at the end of the night, munching on a Seattle dog (it had cream cheese, onions and cilantro, and was served to me by a guy who spun the ketchup and mustard bottles like guns in a Western movie), I felt victorious.  Everything had turned out even better than I thought!

I was thinking about this the day I tried to visit the biggest tea plantation in the Cameron Highlands.  The plantation is a bus ride and a walk away from Tanah Rata, the town where I was staying.  I didn’t know where to get off the bus, or where to walk afterwards, for that matter, but I assumed I’d figure it out when I got there (famous last words).  I did see a couple of foreign girls I’d seen in my hostel who I had heard mention going there too.  We didn’t have any languages in common, and it had seemed like they wanted to keep to themselves, so I thought I’d follow them just until I knew where I was going.

They got off at a random path that led up a hill, so I got off there too.  I followed them for a little while, staying far back enough to not seem like a creeper. Suddenly, then. the road got a little confusing, and I stopped a couple of Malaysian ladies walking past me.  “Is this the right way to the tea plantation?”  I asked them.

“Oh, yes, yes,” they said, pointing up the big tall hill. “That way.”

I didn’t see the girls anymore but did see a sign with two arrows pointing in opposite directions.  One said BRINCHANG. The other said G. BRINCHANG.  What was the G?  I had no idea, but I’d come from Brinchang, so I decided to go the other way.  I followed the trail up a steep jungly path.  Sometime around when I was grabbing tree roots to pull myself over the thick mud, I realized that this was probably not the right way to the tea plantation.  But I’d come that far already, so I decided to just go for it.  It was beautiful, and took about 2 hours to hike.  And finally, I came to the end of the path!

And there was…a power station.  And that was it.  A road began at the edge of it, but I had no idea where it headed.  I followed it into the fog, not seeing anyone else.  Then I saw a sign saying BRINCHANG, 11 KM.  Eleven kilometers to get back to where I needed to go?  That would take hours!

I started kicking myself then, going through my series of life-sorting resolutions and swearing that the next time I would read the guidebook, get a map, and bring an extra water bottle.  Why had I taken a random 2-hour detour through the jungle?  Why had I assumed that was the right place to go?  Just as I was sure I’d wasted my only day in the Cameron Highlands, I came around a bend in the road and saw…a couple, a bit younger than my parents, sitting in picnic chairs and drinking wine.

What in the world?

“You’ve been jungle walking, haven’t you!”  they called out.

“Accidentally,” I called back.  “I sort of had a two-hour detour.”

“Ha!  Come have some wine with us,” they said, unfolding another chair and pulling an empty wine glass out of their cooler.

Well, I thought, that’s more like it!

I sat down with them.  As we chatted, they mentioned that they were about to drive to the tea plantation for some lunch, and did I want to join?

Absolutely.  As I shut the car door, the skies opened up and it started pouring rain.

They bought me a pot of tea and a slice of lemon cake.  Sitting on the balcony of the tea plantation’s restaurant and admiring the gorgeous view, I couldn’t believe that just half an hour earlier I’d been lost, sweaty and bracing myself to walk eleven kilometers home.

Afterwards, they dropped me off back at Brinchang, wishing me luck on the rest of my trip.

And that was it.  I’ll have to pay this one forward to some other backpacker one day.

Do you consider yourself lucky?  Do you plan everything, or take your chances and see where you end up?

street in piura, peru

THE SCARIEST THING THAT’S EVER HAPPENED TO ME

There has only been one time on my travels when I thought I might actually die, and this is it.

I almost hesitate to post this story because I feel foolish in hindsight.  Sometimes when you’re traveling, though, you just get stuck in a bad situation – so I’m going to write it anyway, and if it helps anybody else avoids something like this, then it’s worth posting.

SO.  I was crossing the border between Ecuador and Peru, going from Cuenca (Ecuador) to the border town of Huaquillas (Ecuador) and then across to Tumbes (Peruvian border town) and on to Piura (Peru).  I’d actually been warned back in Canoa that this was a difficult border crossing, but I didn’t pay too much attention – after all, I’d been living in South America for more than a year and a half, spoke Spanish, and had been traveling solo for a few months.  I was sure I could handle it, but just to be safe I knew I should do it in daylight.

This is what I was expecting, but not what I got.  (img: blmurch)

I left Cuenca in the morning.

But the bus was delayed.  I waited until noon…1….2…and then it stopped umpteen million times between there and Huaquillas.  The strange thing was, there weren’t any other foreigners on the bus.  The one thing you can usually count on, just about 100%, is that you won’t be the only foreigner in a given place.  I didn’t see any other travelers, nobody else with a backpack, nobody else to make the trip with…but when I got off at dusk in Huaquillas, I heard a guy ask the driver (in Spanish) where he might continue on to Peru.

Great.  I went over to listen to their conversation.  The driver said the bus to Peru left at 9 PM, and I assumed I was all set.  The guy who’d asked the question went over to the luggage compartment then and pulled out two enormous, ungainly white metal things.  “What are those?”  I asked, and he explained that they were cake stands.  We chatted for a minute and I said I was also going to Peru.

The place where we’d gotten off the bus was dark and rough-looking, and I didn’t see any people around, but it seemed like there was a busier street a few blocks over, so we went that way.  I was relieved to see that the main street of Huaquillas was pretty lively, despite being the sort of place you wouldn’t stay in if you were given the chance.

Street in Piura.  (img: blmurch)

I sat down for some dinner at a hole in the wall restaurant, and for a while I was having a good time.  I watched the bustle on the street and listened to all the regulars chat to each other from their places in plastic deck chairs on the sidewalk.  An old grandpa-type guy even came up with a guitar and sat at my table, asking where I was from.  I told him I was American but that I’d been living in Argentina, and he started playing tango songs.  Not for money, just for the hell of it – and he was good.

8:45 came along and he wished me buen viaje as I went over to the bus stop, which was a few blocks away on a darker street, away from the activity and lights where I had been.  I saw Cake Stand Guy there and knew I was in the right place.  The bus came and we went to get on it, but the driver hollered that it was full.

Full.  And that was the last bus of the night.  Shit.  I didn’t know if there were any hotels in Huaquillas – there certainly wouldn’t have been any hostels.  I didn’t know what to do, but Cake Stand Guy suggested we take a taxi.  I was in a hurry to get this crossing done with before Huaquillas shut down and went to sleep, since I did not want to get stuck there at night without anybody else around.

There were a row of taxis parked along the curb, and we went over to one.  Now, I say taxis, but what I mean is old, creepy, unmarked cars, each with two drivers.  Cake Stand Guy haggled a price with the drivers of one ancient beater practically held together with duct tape.  I knew I should be negotiating the price myself and not letting him do all the talking, but I reasoned that since he was Peruvian, he’d get a much better price than I would as a foreigner.  They settled on something, we got in, and they dropped us off at the Peruvian entry office.  Cake Stand Guy was stamped in with no problem, but they told me I’d have to get my exit stamp from the Ecuadorian office before they could give me the entry stamp.

Picture this, but at night, without any other establishments nearby (img: grayblogger)

I realized with a sinking feeling that Cake Stand Guy had gotten his exit stamp while I was eating dinner, and I’d assumed that stopping by both offices would naturally be part of the trip we’d both take.  We’d have to double back to the Ecuadorian office.

“Look, I don’t want to leave you alone here, but I already have my ticket from Piura to Lima, and I’m going to miss my bus if I don’t go now,” Cake Stand Guy told me.  I hated the thought of losing the only company I had (however tenuous the connection), and I hated the thought of getting in this unofficial taxi where the drivers outnumbered me.  But what could I do?  There was nobody else around, it was dark, and we were on the edge of town.  I got back in and they took me back to the Ecuadorian office, where I got my stamp.

After we passed by the Peruvian office again, I asked them to take me back to the bus station (which I could only assume was back in town in the direction we’d come from), thinking I’d just wait it out until daylight.  Which was going to suck, but at least it was a public place.

But before I knew what was happening, the driver stepped on the gas and we were heading out of town at breakneck speed in the pitch darkness, tearing down the highway through empty fields towards…well, seemingly nothing.  I saw the lights of Huaquillas grow dimmer behind us.

I was terrified.  “I wanted to go to the bus station,” I told them.  “Where are we going?”

“We are going to the bus station,” they told me.

“We’re obviously not going there, I’m not stupid, I wanted to go to the one back in Huaquillas, where are you taking me?  Tell me where we’re going, NOW!”

“To the bus station,” they repeated.

I was crying silently then, wondering how in the world I was going to get out of this mess.  An unmarked, unofficial taxi.  Speeding out into the middle of nowhere.  In a sketchy border town.  At night.  With two men in the front seat who refused to tell me where we were going.  This was bad.  Really bad.  Probably the dumbest place one could possibly be.  And yet there I was, wishing I could rewind my life back to the point when my only worry was whether I’d get food poisoning from eating shrimp and drinking tap water from a slightly questionable restaurant.

After what felt like hours (though it was actually about 20 minutes), after converting to just about every religion there is, I saw lights ahead of us and felt a glimmer of hope.  We kept going…to…could it be?  The bus station.  But not the Huaquillas bus station.  They’d taken it upon themselves to drive me to the bus station in Tumbes!

Those.  Assholes. 

This had surely been a plan to multiply the cab fare by a zillion times.  And sure enough, when they pulled up beside the bus station, they asked for a fare I knew was outrageous.

I was mad at them for overcharging me, but absolutely furious that they’d scared me.  So I argued with the rage of someone who’s been made a fool of, even storming in to ask the guy at the bus ticket counter what the fare should be.  Now that I knew I wasn’t going to be killed, I was going to give them hell for as long as I could.

The drivers and I went round and round, me yelling that it wasn’t fair, that I knew how much it should cost, them saying they’d ‘lost business’ by having to drive me back to the Ecuador office.  I wasn’t giving up and neither were they.  Then one of them leaned close, whispering:

“Listen to me.  We had you in our car.  We had all your stuff.  You were out in the middle of nowhere, nobody knew where you were, and we could have done anything we wanted.  But here you are, safe at the bus station, and you won’t pay us what we’re asking for?”

Jesus.

I paid them and hustled inside, glad to be done with the whole situation (I lost $35, but it could have been way worse).

I bought my onward ticket and asked the same ticket guy where I might find an ATM (since the drivers had cleaned out all my cash).

“Across the street, but you have to wait until daylight.”

“Until daylight?  Why?”

“There are thieves that hang out all night by the ATM, waiting for people to withdraw money.  They’ll jump on you and steal everything.”

And that was my warm welcome to Peru.  I spent the next few hours waiting for daylight, huddled in the corner, hugging my suitcase.  It makes me laugh now that people were concerned about me going to Colombia, which was a cake walk compared to this!

Luckily in terms of Peru travel I got the worst out of the way at the beginning – I found most of Peru to be fantastic (even loving Lima when everybody else hated it).

OK, your turn.  Scariest travel story?

jail bars

I’M GLAD I DIDN’T GO TO ECUADORIAN JAIL

The thing I love about hostels is that you can be sitting there blogging away in the computer room, minding your own business, and the hostel’s front desk people will come in and invite you to go clubbing.  It’s especially awesome when you’re in Latacunga, Ecuador, and ‘clubbing’ means dancing to pop merengue and bachata on a neon-lit, fog-machined dance floor.

I like merengue because it’s easy.  Definitely the easiest dance to bullshit your way through – if you mess up, nobody can really tell.  Bachata is more fun to dance to, I think, but Ecuadorian buses have a way of ruining it (because however many hours your bus ride is, that’s how many hours you’ll listen to the same bachata CD on repeat).

Anyway, there I was, dancing in the fog, when I remembered I’d forgotten my ID.  So far in all of South America, I’d never needed it to buy a drink, so I’d gotten a little lax about carrying it around – but Ecuadorians seemed a bit paranoid about always having their IDs on them.  Ironically, though, the guys from the hostel didn’t have theirs either, so I didn’t worry about it.

Our next stop was a karaoke bar that made me quickly forget all about the ID issue.  We settled in and everyone picked their songs…and at this place you could pick about five and perform them one after the other (is that the case everywhere?  This was the only time I’ve ever gone).

Our first singer must have just had his heart broken, poor guy, because he picked five sad, slow ballads about failed love.  It looked like we’d be there for a while – so as much as I love depressing, off-key karaoke ;) , I cabbed it home after the third song.

The next morning, I didn’t see either of the front desk guys in the office.  I thought they’d managed to get the morning off, but the other foreign girl who’d gone out with us told me that about ten minutes after I left, the police showed up and checked everyone’s IDs…and because they’d forgotten theirs, they both had to spend the night in jail!

It was a close call.  Ecuadorian jail is NOT on my bucket list (and neither is bribing the cops)…

To the comments!  Has anybody else (or, ahem, anybody else’s friend) had a near miss with foreign jail?

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Lechon

MY MOST EMBARRASSING SPANISH MOMENT EVER

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For a while, my most embarrassing Spanish-language experience was the solid week in which I went around chatting with people about “my owner” when I meant “my landlord.”

I had been looking for a new place to live in Buenos Aires.  My current landlord was a quirky guy who I got along well with, so in everyday conversation (usually with strangers whose apartments I was looking to rent a room in), I’d drop a reference to something “my owner” had said or done.  When I finally realized my mistake, I cringed at the number of people probably wondering just what sort of relationship I was in, anyway.

A few months after learning that lesson, I worked as an admin at a Spanish school for foreigners.  Before each day’s classes would start, one of the teachers and I would stand in the hallway and chat.  Our conversations were mostly about cats and subway strikes and what we planned to do over the weekend, but one day we got into a debate about lechón, which is a sort of roasted suckling pig.  A fan of the dish, he described how it was tender enough that one could actually slice through the bones and eat them.

“No,” I said.  “I would never eat bones.”

“Why not?  They’re small and soft, it doesn’t seem like you’re eating bones at all.”

It became sort of a running joke after that – from time to time he’d ask if I’d tried it yet, and I’d always say hell no.

I should add at this point that I shared an office with a very serious coworker.  Sometimes I’d try and make him laugh, and it never worked – he’d just shake his head and type faster or straighten some papers on his desk.  I always got the distinct impression that he thought I was a little crazy or a little obnoxious, or possibly a bit of both.

I should also add that the suckling pig dish is “el lechón,” and that the gender assigned to any given Spanish noun is usually important.

“Te gusta la lechón?”  I asked casually.

My coworker seemed taken aback.  He looked up at me, a surprised and disgusted look on his face.

“Excuse me?”

“I know.  Gross, right?”

“Do you have any idea what that means?”

“What?  I don’t like it.  Do you?  You know, the little roasted pig where you can eat the bones.”

At that point he started laughing, explaining that EL lechón refers to the suckling pig, and LA lechón is a slang word for….semen.

Shit.

“That’s not what I meant,” I gasped, as he laughed harder.

My coworker waved to the doorman, who stood down the hall.  “Come over here!  Listen to this!”

“Ugh!” said our doorman, determined to give me a hard time.  “Some things we just don’t want to hear about!”

“No!  Shut up!  I didn’t mean it!” I protested, as they called to one of the teachers walking out of a classroom.

“Hey, guess what Callie just said!”

If nothing else, it taught me to care about the genders of words in foreign languages!

What’s your most embarrassing foreign-language story?