Of Burglars and Supermarkets....

  Manacor, Mallorca, Spain
Thursday, October 19, 2006

This morning we all decided we weren't going to take things so seriously. We had already gone through the worst part: finding out we had been robbed and all the hassles that came after that. Now we just had to accept it and deal with the rest of the must-do's, such as calling Visa International for an emergency card. And Pat had to go to the National Police to see if she'd be able to get out of the country without a passport.

So most of the morning was spent inside the modern quarters of the National Police in Manacor, where we were kindly taken care of. I had to file a report because of my Argentine Id's that had been robbed, and Pat was assured that she would be able to leave the country with the stamped report stating that her passport was stolen. That plus her passport number inputted in the Interpol database as missing.

It was interesting to learn that if your passport gets stolen, you can travel with an official report stamped and signed by the police until you get your new one. Useful information for travelers.

03

Anyway, after our ordeal with Visa International and the Police was over and done with, we walked around old town Manacor, where the old cathedral stood tall and mighty. Surrounding the cathedral were empty streets filled with closed stores and bars. To take the edge off, I admired the winter shoe collections of the various shops while Ed lingered behind me, taking pictures, trying to cheer each other up.

05

  Hunger started kicking in, so we entered the nearest supermarket. It just so happened this particular supermarket was humongous, with every product one can think of. And since Ed and I are fans of grocery shopping in large supermarkets, we slowly walked around observing the line of products available, in the weird moods we were in.

After selecting our lunch, the four of us jumped in the car and decided to drive back to the scene of the crime in Portocolom to see if we could find any remains of the ID's that Ed's mom so desperately needed. As we drove in silence, I pondered at the bizarre reality of things: after living 10 years in Buenos Aires, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, I had never once been mugged, yet here we are in Europe and in less than a month we get robbed twice. Brilliant.

Once we were back in the vicinity of the supermarket in Portocolom we began scanning the sidewalks. That included gutters, trash bins, plant pots, front yards, etc. Just when I was about to give up and deem all of this a complete and utter waste of time, just when I was about to announce I wanted to go back home, just when I was about to start screaming at the top of my lungs, Ed's dad found two ripped pieces of Pat's argentine ID on the ground, in the middle of the sidewalk.

We continued to follow the trail left behind by the burglars, moving further north away from the supermarket. Step by step, we started to find bits and pieces of the argentine pesos Pat had been carrying in her wallet. We found pieces of 100 and 50 notes scattered around the sidewalk. Obviously not useful to the burglars, they were chopped into little pieces and discarded into the wind.

As gumshoe Hansels and Gretels, we continued to walk uphill block after block, finding small pieces of evidence that only enraged us more. We suddenly began to realize we were being watched by the townspeople: they were all peeking out of their shops or porches. Four people walking in a straight line, looking down into the ground, block after block, coming back and forth, like crazy people. Who wouldn't look? One shopkeeper couldn't contain the curiosity and came out to ask us what in heaven's name we were looking for.

Finally, there were no more trails to find. Miraculously, we had pieced together 100% of Pat's argentine ID and most of the argentine pesos that had been thrown away. No sign of my ID's or credits cards nor of the passports. We had made good enough progress though, so we decided to head back home after a long day of playing detective.

During our light dinner at home, we debated on the correct preventive measures to be taken when guarding your personal belongings, be it when traveling or when in your home city. I agreed that being alert was a good first step, but what real preventive actions could one take? When you safeguard your belongings at home or in a hotel, everything could still get stolen (the Ibiza incident) and when you take everything with you, it all gets stolen aswell....so which is the correct safety measure? I concluded to those present that the only thing I had learned today was that we all lay at the mercy of opportunists, no matter what precautions we take, no matter how careful we are. It's just a matter of fortune or misfortune.