Soy la Denunciante

soy la denunciante, originally uploaded by sammarin.

OK - So I haven´t written about this because I didn´t want to admit it - but I got ripped off.

Before we went to Cusco, I went to a travel agency here, which sold me bus tickets from Puno to Cusco, a hotel room for one night in Cusco, and train tickets from Cusco to Machu Picchu and back. But when we arrived in Puno... none of the things I had paid for were actually there. So we had to buy everything AGAIN.

When I returned to Arequipa, I went to the agency to demand my money back. The guy who sold everything to me said, "I am not the boss, so I cannot give you your money back. Come back on Saturday." So I came back Saturday, and guess what!? The boss was not there then either. Or the next TWO TIMES I returned, when I was told the boss would be there.

So today I had to go to the tourist police and make what they call here a DENUNCIA. First, let me explain that Peruvian institutions seem to relish carbon copies, each page of which is violently stamped with great officiality. The whole process took three hours, because I had to tell the story, little by little, to a woman who wrote everything by hand in one of several giant old ledgers that are full of denuncias. Then, as you can see, I had to sign and give my fingerprint that everything was true and correct.

Then, I had to go to a different desk in the same office, and tell the same story ALL OVER AGAIN (and let me tell you, it was painful enough to relive the buying process, the showing-up-in-depressing-hole-of-a-town-puno to find out that there were NO BUS TICKETS, the showing up in cusco at 3am to find out there was NO HOTEL RESERVATION made, and also NO TRAIN TICKETS to pick up, the waking up at 5:30am that same day to go to the train station to see if we could even buy tickets, the paying for everything again, and the returning to try to pin this creep down to get my money back... but I had to go through it all AGAIN with a policeman who repeated everything I said aloud, followed by a ¿no? ("Is that correct?"), while he hunted and pecked on his computer to record my manifiesto).

After he had written the report, I sat for 15 minutes while the dot-matrix printer produced the report, on two pages - one was carbon copied! - and then I had to sign and put my fingerprint on every page. And I had to return with all of my receipts from buying things a second time.

Tomorrow at 3pm I go back to the police station to meet with the officers and with "Carlos" - the guy who sold me everything - and who has told me several times that he simply works there and so cannot resolve my issue... But it turns out HE IS THE OWNER OF THE PLACE!!!

So this guy is what they call here a "sinvergüenza." That literally means he is:

"sin" (without)
"vergüenza" (shame)

... Wish me luck in getting my money back!!