bikes stolen

stupidly, i have to say we were very responsible for having our bikes stolen several weeks ago. we took off for a quick trip to the grocery store and left our two bicycles together on the same cable lock. did we use all the locks we had? no of course not. we ended up taking two of the locks with us into the store instead of throwing them on separate bikes. we also parked them a little further away from the store than we should have.

when we came out probably 2 hours later (pretty big shopping spree), they were gone. scott found the cut lock in the garbage nearby. we talked with a barber shop owner who i had noticed standing close-by, outside, smoking a cig. no he hadn't seen anything, but he confirmed it was a pretty rough area (you know, what the hell are you doing here kind of statement). we asked him about the carabineros and whether they would be willing, whether it would be worth it to report it. he directed us to a carabinero station (which we couldn't find) so we went to the one we knew was close to our house.

it was quite an experience... the carabinero we had was kind of like barney rubble. he didn't listen to anything we said and was kind of talking to himself a lot. quite notable was the fact that there is no basic form to fill out in this situation. our officer took about an hour to draft a letter about my missing bicycle. i told him several times how to spell the street name and he refused to listen, electing to get his information from his friend at another station. i told him several times throughout that two bikes were stolen but he only really allowed himself to listen at the end. i could hear him talking to his supervisor, accusing us of not telling him about it until the end. it was funny though, as he was selecting our nationality in the system, i could see there was no option for a person from the united states. we ended being "other american" in their system.

the system was quite interesting. it was like ms-dos and reports were printed on that paper that was around in printers in the late 80s, early 90s. you know, the kind with the edges that you need to rip off and you have a carbon copy underneath? anyway, it wouldn't let him file the report until he had entered my mother's appellido. i thought that was great.

as a follow-up, the other day i got a letter from the carabineros stating that my case was going to be "archivada provisionalmente" due to a lack of leads... in fact, we didn't follow up as much as we could have. later on the day our bikes were taken, we met a guy who worked in that same grocery store. he gave us the number to the store and assistance if we needed it. we also never checked in with the store to see if they had anything on their cameras.

no, we decided to be renegades. we looked for our bikes at a feria the next day but, to no avail, they were not there. but, we saw we could buy bikes for 15mil (compared to the 50mil my bike cost). benefit from someone else's misfortune and buy a stolen bike? well, at least we'd be in good company...

this is the letter i got from the carabineros about a week after i filed the incident report. it states both of my "apellidos" and says that the case will be archived unless any new evidence comes to light.