I was just party to one of the shadiest attempted currency exchanges I have ever seen, experienced or heard of.
As I usually do on weekends, I was out wandering around. I was told of a shwarma place somewhere in the not-so-immediate vicinity of my apartment. And, not having had a decent gyro since mid June at Falafel King in Uptown, I set out to find this place. All I knew was that it was somewhere near the bar I was at last night. And find it I did. It was good, a tasty gyro, albeit with a slight Latin American twist. The fries were another story entirely, the greasiest potatoes I've ever had. Yuck.
And so, feeling several pounds heavier and expecting an imminent acne bloom, I attempted to leave the restaurant. However, I was waylaid at the exit by one of the employees scrambling into the shop with a patio umbrella. After dodging the jousting lance, I was again stopped at the door. This time by Mother Nature herself. And it seems down here she has that fiery latina temper that Penelope Cruz does so well. Blissful, charming and seductive one minute, and the next minute, all hell is breaking loose. It had rained once earlier in the day today, but I was in a cafe reading and didn't take any mind. In fact I used it to my advantage and snapped a few really pretty pictures of a rain-soaked Casa Rosada you'll have to see to believe. As I went to leave the second time, I discovered the reason for my near-impalement. The sky had opened up and it was pouring outside. I waited a few minutes for a break in the bipolar downpour cycle and made a break for it.
Alas, that was not to be. Not 30 yards out of the door, I had to duck under an awning to avoid another downpour. It was here I was joined by Jesus. No, not that Jesus. (Sorry, I couldn't resist the joke.) Or his name was Jose, I'm not sure. I can't be sure, not because I don't remember, but because during the course of the next 20 minutes he used both names. Not immediately, but well after I had my guard up and was looking for the exit. Let me explain.
Jose/Jesus came running up to me under the awning, looking for shelter same as I. And, as people are wont to do, we struck up a halting conversation about the crappy weather. It was halting because his English sucked as much as my Spanish, but we were able to chat amiably for a minute or two. At which point he came to the conclusion that the rain wasn't about to quit and that I should accompany him into the bar for a beer. Everything seemed ok and normal up to this point, so why not? We turned and went in to the bar we were standing in front of where we had a rather lengthy debate about what we should drink. He seemed wildly insistent on either expensive mixed drinks or expensive liquor, while I insisted a beer would do just fine. My suspicions were starting to tingle at his determination to drink something unnecessarily expensive, but I managed to haggle him down to a bottle of Warsteiner at AR$20 (US$4.50) each.
He paid, in pesos, and we went and sat at a booth as the rain began to calm down. The conversation, already rocky enough because of our mutual ignorance regarding the other's language, took a turn for the bizarre at this point. Jesus/Jose kept repeating the same 4 or 5 lines of dialogue or questions, which really got my hackles up. I can see this red warning light flashing in my head. And the klaxon finally went off when he brought up American dollars and insisted I pay him for the beer in dollars. I always assumed I would pay for the beer, its just easier to pay the bartender together and then pay the payor separately. But the part that really drove home my suspicions was the amount of cheers-ing and handshakes and fist bumps that were occurring. That and his amazing insistence that we were best friends because we were both from out of town (he claimed to be from Peru).
He asked me what was I doing tonight? Where are your friends? Where are your friends from? We should go meet them! I will come with you to meet them and we can have drinks together! I will pay! It will be fun! It was about here that he switched from Jesus to Jose. And that did it for me. I may be American but I'm not an idiot. Fortunately at this point the rain had stopped, I thanked him for the beer and threw 20 pesos on the table and booked it out the door looking over my shoulder the whole way back to my apartment.
But think about it. It's a damn smart hustle. Make an American friend, show them a good time, buy drinks and insist on being paid later. Meet the American's American friends, buy them drinks and have a good time. Drink your beer slowly and be the most charming and engaging foreign friend you can, get them drunker and drunker and at the end of the night ask to be paid in dollars for the drinks that you buy the American. By the time they stumble home (having had a great and memorable night) they may even accidentally give you some extra dollars for being such an awesome local tour guide or because they lost track of how much you spent and you give them a nice round (large) figure. Then you take all those dollars they gave you (at least enough to cover the drinks you paid for in pesos) and you sell those dollars on the alternative (black) market for a 30% return on your investment. Think about it, the standard government rate is 4.5 pesos to the dollar, but people want dollars so badly that they pay a premium for them, as much as 6.75 pesos per dollar. That's a 30% or more rate of return. Not bad for a nights work. Spend no money, drink with some fun people, and then get paid 30% of the total bar tab at the end of the night. Pretty slick.
If it wasn't so obvious I was being gamed.
No comments:
Post a Comment