passport
after the galapagos trip the group split up. some like us went on to peru. the rest went home. we were waiting on the plane when our guides reboarded the aircraft. paul had lost the bag containing his passport. oops. we all looked for it. it was gone. later we heard the rest of the story. he spent two days filing police reports and talking to the u.s. embassy. he just wanted to go home. then he gets a call late at night from a "taxi driver" who had "found" his passport and wants to return it. at the hotel's bar. after midnight. ha ha. but what choice does he have? he goes. there are two women and a beefy guy. one woman spoke a little english. he spoke no spanish. they hand him the passport and ask for money. but he's got the passport. which is good. he hands them $20. and the woman gets pissed. a u.s. passport is worth like $5000 in columbia. he said it was all he had. i would have said i would give you more but the rest of my cash was with the passport when it disappeared. anywho, he went home the next day. lesson: don't lose your passport. it's weird. on one hand you want to reward people for returning your passport instead of selling it to the drug lords. but on the other hand you don't want to reward crooks for stealing it in the first place.