No, not me. Peter. And he actually was robbed but then the guy didn’t get away with it. What happened was that I was walking home today after having lunch out with Peter and our friend Paul (yes, he’s back!) and suddenly Peter wasn’t with us. Turned around and saw he was “chatting” with a touristy-looking young couple we’d passed in the street (wearing touristy hats, looking at a map). Except the man had Peter’s phone in his hand!! OMG.

When the guy saw Paul and I approaching he handed the phone back, insisting that it had fallen out of Peter’s bag. Uh… no. And they kept hovering and “explaining” while Peter was looking through his bag to see if anything else was missing. Finally I shouted at them to GO AWAY.

It was only after they left that it all sunk in. It happened in a flash and If Peter hadn’t felt a slight tug on his bag he wouldn’t have turned around and they would have made off with his phone. I mean, what if Peter had been on his own? What if they were armed? As we started walking again a neighbour told us they were a Romani couple, professionals, and he’d seen them around before.

This happened in Calle Pajaritos (narrow pedestrian street) around 4.30 pm. The street was quiet but Bar Estrella’s terraza on the corner was still full of tourists so I guess this couple was just hanging around waiting for victims. It’s actually my favourite “short cut” route to take home when coming from Barrio Santa Cruz, but now I won’t be doing that on my own any more. Dammit.

So we’re both taking this as a wake up call and making some changes, like leaving wallets, ID, credit cards at home during tours from now on and just carry cash and keys. And I think Peter has finally learned his lesson about not wearing his shoulder bag slung around to his back (I’ve been telling him for years he should wear it at the front). But even though it could have been worse it’s still left a bad feeling.