A little excitement

I only spent a few days in Cordoba, I was really disappointed with the city. It is a lot larger than I had expected, with only a few nice buildings that where overshadowed by large billboards and the neon of fast food restaurants. I also seemed to be staying at the "International Smokers Hostel". I´ve never stayed anywhere that allowed smoking EVERYWHERE, I mean in the dorm rooms, in the kitchen, bathroom, everywhere stunk. They also advertised hot water 24/7, but neglected to mention there is no water for most of the day. I booked my bus ticket for Buenos Aires and hit the road. The journey was 11 hours, so I had a light breakfast and thought I´d probably be able to eat on the bus, yes I've become a better traveller, I can actually eat while moving. They served breakfast on the bus at 8am, we had been travelling for half an hour. I started to notice how hungry I was at around 2pm, thinking "um lunch is kind of late", but this is Argentina. Three o´clock rolled by and my stomach had stopped growling but still no food. Six o´clock and we pulled into Buenos Aires´ huge bus terminal and I was REALLY hungry. The bus station is not the best introduction to the city as it's surrounded by a kind of shanty town, children rummaging through bins, buildings that look war torn, packs of dogs. Just around the corner from this is the deluxe apartments of the rich, I guess it´s like a lot of cities.
My hostel is right in the centre of the city and yes difficult to find. I arrived at reception half starved (okay being a little dramatic now) I checked in and had a quick look around. I was shown to my dorm, only to bump into Chris. Chris and I have been bumping into each other since Peru. I caught up with him again on the World´s Most Dangerous Road, then at the Salt Flats, we ended up on the same bus to La Serena, Chile and shared a taxi from the bus station. I said goodbye not expecting to see him again. That is until I practically walked into him on the street in Santiago! I also met him in Mendoza, so you can understand how I now just expect to see him. Chris (from London, Canada) is also going on to Iguassu Falls and Brazil. We chatted for a while and then I excused myself to go and eat, it was 8pm by then.
I needed some cash so I went to the local ATM. It was the type were you swipe your card to enter and there are some 4 or so machines in one brightly lit room. A couple entered behind me, I noticed they didn´t swipe in so straight away I was weary of them. I put my card in the machine and here they display your name before you enter any details. I tried to enter my pin but the screen was frozen. I took out the card and tried again, I was still keeping an eye on the couple behind me. The man came over and offered "help", by taking my card out the machine and putting it back in again. As soon as he did this I took the card out and tried another machine. Again the man came towards the machine I was using and tried to "help". He said something about all the machines being the same all over the city. There was another customer in the room the whole time, she seemed to be having the same trouble.
The second ATM froze on me and I gave up, but as I walked away I noticed how quickly the man and his female companion rushed to my ATM, they seemed to have a bunch of white plastic cards. I did my whole English being ridiculously polite routine, "eh, excuse me," they where shielding the machine. "Excuse me, eh that´s my name on the screen". They obviously realised although incredibly polite I was not going to back down. The woman moved away from the machine and the man allowed me to press cancel. It took a dozen or so tries, but eventually the screen went back to the welcome screen you´d expect to see.
I wandered away, really uncertainly. But when I looked back I noticed they were "helping" the other woman in the room. Luckily I spotted a policeman across the street, I ran across and in Spanish gibberish I explained the problem. A plain clothes guy came out of nowhere and all of a sudden I was being ushered back across the road with a plains clothes officer with a hand on a gun! It was like I was in an episode of NYPD Blue, but in Buenos Aires.
The two policeman stopped the couple from leaving the bank, they were pleading they were completely innocent. All of a sudden I was surrounded by about 10 undercover officers. It was kind of funny, they were all wearing football shirts.
At this point I noticed a man and his son by the side of the bank. In Spanish they asked me what had happened, I started to tell them, but realising they looked like tourists asked if they spoke English. They did, I complimented the father (Ricardo) on his Spanish. He accepted and told he was born in Buenos Aires. In my defence he had a really strong New York accent.
Ricardo and his son Rick became my interpreters for the evening. I was asked to point out the machines I'd used in the bank. To do this I had to walk past the suspects. They both pleaded with me, "por favor, por favor, senorita". I felt really bad, but I was ushered over to the ATM´s. The office didn´t find a card reader on the machine, but the couple had a selection of plastic cards belonging to other people.
I waited back outside on the street with my new friends Ricardo and Rick. The suspects were handcuffed and driven away in a police car. Finally a second police car arrived and drove us to the police station. Ricardo was happy no one knew him, we looked like criminals in the back. The police station was tiny, but really busy. Most of the people stood around looked like criminals, but many were the undercover officers I´d met earlier.
We waited for the statement to be taken, my stomach rumbling. Rick showed me his photo´s of the Iguassu Falls (Helen it looks amazing!) and we chatted about my travels and their holiday. Eventually we were called into a tiny office and I gave a statement. Thankfully Ricardo translated everything, until he got a little confused at one point and "translated" what I said in English.
I think both Ricardo and his son enjoyed being in a police station, it added something they didn´t expect from their holiday!
After the statement was taken, by this time around 10.30pm, we were left to make our own way across the city. I was really grateful to Ricardo and Rick, they escorted me back to my hostel and said goodnight.
Back in my dorm room I relayed what had happened to Chris (he was worried something had happened as I´d been gone so long), and managed to eat about half a bag of crisps before the receptionist knocked on our dorm door. Apparently there was a police officer downstairs, he wanted to escort me to an ATM, to see whether any money had been taken. Ricardo had explained to me earlier the ATM machines are made in Venezuela and Mexico. The criminals follow the machines and can remotely control them. The couple were from Venezuela and the man had prior convictions for extortion.
After I checked my account (everything is fine), the officer who by the way I towered over, escorted me to what I can only describe as a milk float, bubble, police car. He hit the, eh electric and we were being overtaken by pedestrians. I was taken back to the same police station and asked to take a seat! I checked a clock in the station, it was nearly midnight.
Eventually they took a photocopy of my bank mini statement and asked me to sign a second statement to say no money was missing. Thankfully this time I got a lift back to the hostel, I chatted with the tiny officer while we inched our way across town.
By then I was too tired to eat and just collapsed into bed. Not the first night I expected in Buenos Aires, but I feel very lucky that nothing really bad happened. I've checked my account again this morning and plan to keep a close watch on any activity. But I think the couple were just trying their luck.
This afternoon I´m taking a tourist bus tour of the city, hopefully no police stations on route.