That Pisco was Sour

Last night was the worst night of my travelling life. Everything is allright now, we´re fine (well, Dylan is actually sick.. but he´s alive) and from now on it will hopefully just be a story and a lesson to be more careful in the future. But it was pretty horrible. Here´s what happened.

We had bought bread, cheese and olives at the market and decided to just stay in our room and have a cheap, simple kind of dinner to ourselves. At about 8, we decided to go for a walk around the block to maybe grab some dessert or a drink somewhere. As we walked by this kind of shady looking bar on the seccond floor of a building, two men standing on the balcony yelled at us to come upstairs and check out their place, said they had specials, live music and what not. We decided to give it a chance and walked in and up the stairs. The two dudes, one really skinny, gay looking fellow and one older, more stocky guy, came half way down the stairs and practically dragged us up and sat us down at a table. They both spoke decent English, enough to be understod, and were soooo excited we were there. We were the only foregneirs in the place, also (as we realized later) the only guests in the place. The stocky guy asked what we wanted to drink, when we hesitated he said we had to try the Pisco Sour, the Peruvian national drink and the best the bar had to offer. We agreed and Dylan said to order two. Then the gay dude tilted his head and gave Dylan this akward puppy-eyed look and asked if he would "pleeeease order me one too?" That right there was strange enough to get the hell out, but we didn´t. Dylan said "fine, 3 drinks" and the stocky friend jumped up and ran to the bar to order. While we waited, they offered us to buy drugs and even though we were pretty clear about not being interested they were really presistent. They said it was ok, that they had closed the doors downstairs and that nobody would come into the bar for the rest of the night. At this point I was pretty freaked out and really just wanted to leave. But right then the drinks came and they stopped talking about drugs, the waitress brought glasses for everyone and a big pitcher of Pisco Sour. I realized that wasn´t what we ordered, but figured maybe that´s just how they serve them when you order more than two..... but no. Tow more pitchers came in, together with three shots of pure pisco. They wanted us to drink them, we said no and started asking who had orderd them and how much it would all cost. Dylan got up and went to the bar to pay "our" bill, the two guys went after him and since I was too scared to sit alone I went after them too.

Sure enough, it was just one bill, our bill and it was at 300 soles (about 100 US dollars). Dylan was pissed and kept saying how unreasonable it was, that we had ordered 3 drinks not 3 pitchers and that no way in hell was he going to pay. The stocky dude kept giving him these pats on the back, repeating lines from some frat movie like "come on man, it aint that bad", "you gotta pay that shit man" and "just pay up bro´, no biggie" his gay friend who had begged for a drink offered to pay his part, a third of the bill, saying "listen, that´s fair even though you said you´d pay, I pay my drink and you pay your two". It was such an obvious scam and the waitress was pissed, yelling that someone had to pay, in Spanish...she spoke no English. Finally Dylan offered to pay 40 soles, which is more than enough for 3 actual drinks but they weren´t having it. The waitress started talking about the police, which me and D thought was a great idea, but that freked the two guys out and they blocked the way to the stairs so we couldn´t leave. I took the 40 out of my purse and handed it to the waitress who got even more mad, screamed NOOO and grabbed me by the arm so I wouldn´t try to run. Dylan pushed the guys out of the way and headed down the stairs so I pulled loose from the arm grip and went after him, but then one of the guys (I couldn´t see who) grabbed my purse that I had around my shoulders and pulled me down so I fell on my back on the stairs. I screamed, the waitress screamed and they let me go long enough to run away. Out on the street though, I was crying and just wanted to run back to the hotel, we ran into two older men. One was the owner of our hotel, he had recognized us and they stopped a police man for us. Appearantly the same thing had happened to some other of his guests the night before and he was just out to keep an eye on that bar. So there started a long night of questioning, very poor translating and numerous incidents that made loose all faith I ever had in the Peruvian police system. For example, when driving us to the police station they almost put the waitress in the back seat with us. They let a bunch of her friends come along (the two men were unfortunatly long gone) and they waited out side the police station. The poilce men kep coming and going and we had to repeat our story probably ten times to a bunch of people who spoke no English. When they were finally done with us, they weren´t going to drive us back across midnight Lima to out hotel, instead we had to take a cab. I forced a police woman to walk out with us though, and wait till we had gotten into a car since one of the guys waiting for the waitress looked like he ate gringos like us for breakfast.

So all I wanted to do today was get the hell out of Lima. But Dylan woke up puking this morning, so it looks like we are here for at least one more night. Staying in tonight though.... and never again are we going to local bars alone, never again am I ordering something at shady places without knowing what it costs first and hopefully will I sleep without nightmares tonight and Dylan will wake up feeling better tomorrow and we can go on with our travellings in nicer, safer places.