How I Ever Ended Up in the Back of a Bolivian Police Jeep

Sometimes travel just throws you some unexpected curves. In La Paz it came in the form of riding in the back of a Bolivian police cruisers with my friend Becky. I swear, we were innocent. =)

Becky had met up with Sam, Amanda, and I in La Paz and was another volunteer from Santa Cruz. One morning, after having locked some belongings in her locker the night before, Becky went to her locked locker located in a continually staffed office and found that her camera and all her money in her locker had been stolen. Peculiar, considering it was a locked locker in a continually staffed office, with a lock bought from the hostel itself. Needless to say the implications were obvious, though we didn't say as much, but the staff became very unhelpful in the whole process.

We went to the Tourist Police office in La Paz to file a report. They sent two detectives to investigate. The staff was so helpful in showing them how the locker couldn't have been forced into, and basically made their own implications that our story was a bunch of rubbish. Yet they seemed to be missing our main point: Becky's camera and money were missing (gone, vanished, i.e. not there anymore) from a locked locker in a continually staffed office. Somehow this didn't seemed to register with them.

After the tourist police came we had to go to the main police office to file a report. A long few hours later we saw a detective who wanted to go see the locker as well. So Becky and I jumped in the back of the Bolivian Police's cruiser and went back to the hostel. The staff wasn't so happy to see us again, bringing with us a new set of police detectives. It basically went the same. Try to discredit us despite the fact that it was clear things were gone. The police didn't really listen to them, though there wasn't much they could do to get anything back. They were just there to file a report anyway. They did demonstrate the fact though that the locks we had could be opened with any other set of keys with the same brand...quite easily in fact. That was a jaw dropper. I had the same kind of lock. That basically settled how the locker was broken into.

So after a bit more questioning the police left and we stayed a few more awkward days at our hostel. Becky got her police report and all that taken care of, but lost all her photos of her travels down here. She was a trooper through the whole ordeal though, very calm and not letting her emotions get the best of her, which I thought was impressive. She bought a new lock the next day, although I am pretty sure she didn't put anything of value into that locked locker in a continually staffed office.