Payback

Today we awoke with one goal in mind. Like Mel Gibson in Payback, we just wanted our money. First we had to track down Gustavo, the man we bought the tour from.

Unfortunately we bought the trip at what he told us was his mother’s restaurant (smart right?) and not a tour office. We had been told that he would probably be by the restaurant at around 11ish, so by ten, we were scoping the streets and hanging around on the lookout. After about an hour and a half, I headed back to the hostal to get some work done. Noah stayed, and eventually Gustavo, and Fidel (the gentlemen who Gustavo subcontracted the tour through) showed themselves. Noah argued with them for awhile before they agreed to give him the money back for the additional train tickets we had to buy. Of course they needed to get money, so we couldn’t have our money now, but instead would have to come back at three.
We were there at three on the dot, and not to our surprise, there was no sign of Gustavo or Fidel. We were supposed to meet them at Fidel’s tour office, so we at least had a place to start. Fidel’s employees were inside, and so we started questioning them on Fidel’s whereabouts. Of course, they said they had no idea, so we just waited. We stood in the doorway and as English speaking tourists would come in, we would stop them and tell them our story. We figured if they screwed us, we at least weren’t going to let them do it to anybody else. After about an hour, we got bored, so we asked the employees if we had to get the police involved. They called our bluff and said ‘sure’. So Noah went off and to my surprise, returned with not only a policeman, but specifically the tourist police. He demanded that the employees give him Fidel’s cell phone number, which he promptly called and told Fidel to come to his office immediately. After a little while Fidel came around the corner and the policeman made him open his wallet and pay us on the spot. Payback.