Posted: 04/02/2019 | April 2nd, 2019

Editor’s Note: I wavered on composing about this for a long time since I didn’t want to put people off on Colombia or perpetuate the myth that danger lurks around every corner. As you can tell from my posts here, here, here, and here, I truly like the country. I mean it’s awesome. (And there will be plenty more blog posts about how great it is.) but I blog about all my experiences – good or bad – and this story is a good lesson on travel safety, the importance of always following local advice, and what occurs when you stop doing so.

“Er du ok?”

“Her. sitt ned.”

“Do you need some water?”

A growing crowd had gathered around me, all offering help in one form or another.

“No, no, no, I believe I’ll be OK,” I stated waving them off. “I’m just a bit stunned.”

My arm and back throbbed while I tried to regain my composure. “I’m going to be truly sore in the morning,” I thought.

“Come, come, come. We insist,” stated one girl. She led me back onto the walkway where a security guard provided me his chair. Jeg satte meg ned.

“Hva heter du? Here’s some water. Is there anyone we can call?”

“Jeg klarer meg. I’ll be fine,” I kept replying.

My arm throbbed. “Getting punched sucks,” I stated to myself.

Regaining my composure, I slowly took off the jacket I was wearing. I was as well sore for any quick motions anyways. I needed to see how bad the bruises were.

As I did so, gasps arose from the crowd.

My left arm and shoulder were dripping with blood. My shirt was soaked through.

“Shit,” I stated as I realized what had happened. “I believe I just got stabbed.”

***
There’s a perception that Colombia is unsafe, that despite the heyday of the drug wars being over, danger lurks around most corners and you have to be truly careful here.

It’s not a completely unwarranted perception. Petty crime is extremely common. The 52-year civil war killed 220,000 people — although thankfully this number has significantly dropped since the 2016 peace agreement.

While you are unlikely to be blown up, randomly shot, kidnapped, or ransomed by guerrillas, you are extremely likely to get pickpocketed or mugged. There were over 200,000 armed robberies in Colombia last year. While fierce crimes have been on the decline, petty crime and robbery has been on the upswing.

Before I went to Colombia, I’d heard countless stories of petty theft. While there, I heard even more. A friend of mine had been robbed three times, the last time at gunpoint while on his method to meet me for dinner. Locals and expats alike told me the exact same thing: the rumors of petty theft are true, but if you keep your wits about you, follow the rules, and don’t flash your valuables, you’ll be OK.

There’s even a local expression about it: “No dar papaya” (Don’t give papaya). Essentially, it means that you shouldn’t have something “sweet” out in the open (a phone, computer, watch, etc.) that would make you a target. keep your valuables hidden, don’t roam around locations you shouldn’t at night, don’t flash money around, avoid coming out of nightlife areas alone at night, etc. just put: Don’t put yourself in a position where people can take advantage of you.

I heeded such advice. I didn’t wear headphones in public. I didn’t take my phone out unless I was in a group or a restaurant, or completely sure nobody else was around. I took just enough money for the day with me when I left my hostel. I warned buddies about using fancy fashion jewelry or watches when they visited.

But, the longer you are somewhere, the more you get complacent.

When you see locals on their phones in congested areas, tourists toting thousand-dollar cameras, and youngsters using Airpods and Apple Watches, you begin to think, “OK, during the day, it’s not so bad.”

The more nothing occurs to you, the more indifferent you get.

Suddenly, you step out of a cafe with your phone out without even believing about it.

In your hands is papaya.

And somebody wishes to take it.

***
It was near sunset. I was on a busy street in La Candelaria, the main tourist area of Bogotá. The cafe I had been at was closing, so it was time to find somewhere new. I decided to head to a hostel to finish some work and take advantage of happy hour.

I’d been in Bogotá for a few days now, enjoying a city most people compose off. There was a appeal to it. even in the tourist hotspot of La Candelaria, it didn’t feel as gringofied as Medellín. It felt the most authentic of all the big Colombian cities I had visited. I was loving it.

I exited the cafe with my phone out, completing a text message. It had slipped my mind to put it away. It was still light outside, there were crowds around, and lots of security. After nearly six weeks in Colombia, I had grown contented in circumstances like this.

“What’s truly going to happen? Jeg klarer meg.”

Three steps out of the door, I felt somebody clean up against me. At first, I believed it wassomebody running past me up until I quickly realized that a guy was trying to take my phone out of my hand.

Fight or flight set in — and I fought.

“Get the fuck off me!” I yelled as I wrestled with him, keeping an iron grip on my phone. I tried pushing him away.

“Help, help, help!” I shouted into the air.

I keep in mind distinctly the confused look on his deal with as if he had expected an easy mark. That the phone would slip out of my hand and he’d be gone before anyone could catch him.

Without a word, he started punching my left arm, and I continued to resist.

“Gå av meg! Hjelp hjelp!”

We tussled in the street.

I kicked, I screamed, I blocked his punches.

The commotion triggered people to run toward us.

Unable to dislodge the phone from my hand, the mugger turned and ran.

***
After people assisted me sit down and the adrenaline used off, I got lightheaded. My ears rang. I had difficulty focusing for a few moments.

Blood was dripping with my soaked shirt.

“Fuck,” I stated looking at my arm and shoulder.

I tried to compose myself.

Having grown up surrounded by physicians and nurses, I ran with a quick “how bad is this” checklist in my mind.

I made a fist. I could feel my fingers. I could move my arm. “OK, I most likely don’t have nerve or muscle damage.”

I could breathe and was not coughing up blood. “Ok, I most likely don’t have a punctured lung.”

I could still walk and feel my toes.

My light-headedness dissipated.

“OK, there’s most likely not as well much major damage,” I thought.

Words I didn’t comprehend were spoken in Spanish. A doctor shown up and assisted clean and put pressure on my wounds. A young lady in the crowd who spoke English took my phone and voice-texted my only friend in Bogotá to let her know the situation.

As an ambulance would take as well long, the police, who numbered about a dozen by now, packed me onto the back of a truck and took me to a hospital, stopping web traffic on the method like I was an honored dignitary.

Using Google equate to communicate, the police inspected me in at the hospital. They took down as much information as they could, showed me a picture of the attacker (yes, that’s him!), and called my friend to update her about where I was.

As I waited to be seen by the doctors, the owner of my hostel showed up. After having taken my address, the cops had phoned up the hostel to let them know what occurred and she had rushed down.

The hospital personnel saw me quickly. (I suspect being a stabbed gringo got me quicker attention.)

We went into one of the examination rooms. My shirt came off, they cleaned my arm and back, and assessed the damage.

I had five wounds: two on my left arm, two on my shoulder, and one on my back, little cuts that broke the skin, with two appearing like they got into the muscle. If the knife had been longer, I would have been in serious trouble: one cut was right on my collar and another especially close to my spine.

When you believe of the term “stabbing,” you believe of a long blade, a single deep cut into the abdomen or back. You picture somebody with a extending knife being rolled into the hospital on a stretcher.

That was not the case for me. I had been, more colloquially correct, knifed.

Badly knifed.

But just knifed.

There was no blade extending from my gut or back. There would be no surgery. No deep lacerations.

The wounds wouldn’t need any more than antibiotics, stitches, and time to heal. Mye tid. (How much time? This occurred at the end of January and it took two months for the bruising to go down.)

I was stitched up, taken for an X-ray to make sure I didn’t have a punctured lung, and needed to sit around for another six hours as they did a follow-up. My friend and hostel owner stayed a bit.

During that time, I booked a flight home. While my wounds weren’t serious and I could have stayed in Bogotá, I didn’t want to danger it. The hospital refused to give me antibiotics and, being a bit suspicious of their stitching job, I wished to get checked out back home while everything was still fresh. When I was leaving the hospital, I even had to ask them to cover my wounds. They were going to leave them exposed.

It’s better to be risk-free than sorry.

***
Looking back, would I have done anything differently?

It’s easy to say, “Why didn’t you just give him your phone?”

But it’s not as if he led with a weapon. had he done so, I obviously would have surrendered the phone. This kid (and it turned out he was just a kid of about 17) just tried to grab it from my hand, and anyone’s natural instinct would be to pull back.

If somebody stole your purse, took your computer while you were utilizing it, or tried to grab your watch, your initial, primal reaction wouldn’t be, “Oh well!” It would be, “Hey, give me back my stuff!”

And if that stuff were still connected to your hand, you’d pull back, shout for help, and hope the mugger would go away. especially when it’s still daytime and thERE er folkemengder rundt. Du kan ikke alltid anta at en mugger har et våpen.

Basert på informasjonen jeg hadde den gangen, tror jeg ikke at jeg ville ha gjort noe annerledes. Naturen bare satt inn.

Ting kunne ha vært mye verre: kniven kunne ha vært lengre. Han kunne hatt en pistol. Jeg kunne ha snudd feil vei, og det lille bladet kunne ha truffet en stor arterie eller nakken min. Kniven var så lite at jeg ikke en gang følte det under angrepet. Et lengre blad kan ha utløst meg til å rekyle mer og slippe telefonen min. Jeg vet ikke. Hvis han hadde vært en bedre mugger, ville han ha holdt seg fremover, og jeg ville ikke vært i stand til å ta igjen da fremoverbevegelsen fikk telefonen til å forlate hånden min.

Permutasjonene er uendelige.

Dette var også bare et spørsmål om å være uheldig. En feil situasjon og feil sted. Dette kunne ha skjedd for meg hvor som helst. Du kan være på feil sted og feil tid på en million steder og i en million situasjoner.

Livet er risiko. Du er ikke i stand til hva som skjer for deg det andre du går ut av døren. Du tror du er. Du tror du har et håndtak på omstendighetene – men så går du ut av en kafé og blir knivet. Du kommer i en bil som ulykker eller et helikopter som går ned, spiser mat som sykehus deg, eller til tross for din fineste helseinnsats, slipper død fra et hjerteinfarkt.

Alt kan skje med deg når som helst.

Vi legger planer som om vi har kontroll.

Men vi klarer ikke noe.

Alt vi kan gjøre er å håndtere reaksjonen og svarene våre.

Jeg liker virkelig Bogotá. Jeg liker virkelig Colombia. Maten var velsmakende og naturen fantastisk. Gjennom hele mitt sted var folk nysgjerrige, vennlige og glade.

Og da dette skjedde, undret jeg meg over alle menneskene som hjalp meg, som bodde hos meg til politiet kom, de mange politifolkene som hjalp meg på mange måter, legene som dro til meg, vandrerhjemseieren som endte opp Å være min oversetter, og vennen min som kjørte en time for å være sammen med meg.

Alle ba om unnskyldning. Alle forsto at dette var det Colombia forstås for. De ønsket å gi meg beskjed om at dette ikke var Colombia. Jeg tror de følte seg verre med angrepet enn jeg gjorde.

Men denne opplevelsen minnet meg om hvorfor du ikke kan bli selvtilfreds. Jeg ga Papaya. Jeg burde ikke hatt telefonen min ut. Da jeg forlot kafeen, burde jeg ha lagt den bort. Det spilte ingen rolle tiden på dagen. Det er regelen i Colombia. Hold verdisakene skjult. Spesielt i Bogota, som har en høyere rate av småkriminalitet enn andre steder i landet. Jeg fulgte ikke rådene.

Og jeg ble uheldig på grunn av det. Jeg hadde hatt telefonen min også ofte, og med hver ikke-hendelse ble jeg mer og mer avslappet. Jeg fortsatte å slippe vakten ned mer.

Det som skjedde var uheldig, men det trengte ikke å skje hvis jeg hadde overholdt reglene.

Dette er grunnen til at folk alltid advarte meg om å være forsiktig.

Fordi du aldri vet det. Du har det bra før du ikke har det.

Når det er sagt, er det fortsatt lite sannsynlig at du vil ha et problem. Alle de forekomstene jeg snakket om? Alle involverte mennesker som bryter den jernkledde “No Dar Papaya” -regelen og enten har noe verdifullt eller går alene sent på kvelden i områder de ikke burde ha. Ikke bryte regelen! Dette kunne ha skjedd for meg hvor som helst i verden der jeg ikke fulgte sikkerhetsreglene du antok å hjelpe deg med å minimere risikoen.

Men, også, hvis du kommer i trøbbel, vil colombianere hjelpe deg. Fra vandrerhjemseieren min til politiet til menneskene som satt med meg da det skjedde for den tilfeldige fyren på sykehuset som ga meg sjokolade, viser det seg, du kan alltid avhenge av fremmede av fremmede. De gjorde en opprivende opplevelse mye lettere å takle.

Jeg har ikke tenkt å la denne freak -hendelsen endre mitt syn på et så fantastisk land. Jeg ville gått tilbake til Colombia nøyaktig den samme metoden jeg ville få i en bil etter en bilulykke. Jeg var faktisk veldig opprørt over å forlate. Jeg hadde en fantastisk tid