28. Ridin' with the man (B.A, Argentina)

The other night I was walking along in the pouring rain huddled under my tiny Kathmandu traveller's umbrella, when I heard the sound of a car window breaking across the road from me. The breaker of the window was some tall lanky guy, and he stepped away from the car and watched as his smaller companion reached in through the broken window and tried to remove something from the car - probably the stereo.

Random pic: A man with a snake in the street in San Telmo. Dunno why.

What was I to do? Stop them? Yell something? I kept walking, not wanting to draw attention to myself as who knows what piece of hardware they used to break the window. When I got to the corner about 30 metres away I saw a cop car cruising along so I flagged it down and told them what I'd seen in my broken Spanish. When? They asked me. Ahora! (Now!). I replied. Get in, they said. So I hopped in the back of the VW Passat cop car and we drove down the street where 30 seconds earlier I'd seen the ladrones break the window. We stopped to see if I could recognise the thieves but I couldn't see anything through the rain, as I could neither wind down the window nor open the rear door. We drove around a few blocks in a circle but didn't see them - I suspect they had lookouts standing on the corner who'd signalled as soon as I'd gone to the cop car. I left my details with the cops and they said I might have to go to the station to make a statement. I asked if I could get a pancho (hot dog) first as I was hungry and it was 1 in the morning, and they said no, you don't need to go now, we'll call you if you need to.