Night at the Peruvian Police Station

I don’t have my phone or my wallet. The guy next to me has an AK-47 and a Glock. I have a box of potatoes and rice. And 100 Soles. $27.

I’m at the Miraflores police station in Lima, writing in my head, a thing I do when I don’t have a phone in my hand. I’m waiting for the taxi driver to be done working at 10 o'clock. He has my phone, wallet, and keys. I’d really like them back. They fell out of the pocket of my gym shorts as I exited his taxi. I got out at the Japanese restaurant, walked in, reached in my pocket, and felt nothing. My eyes widened. I rummaged through my pack like a madman. Nothing. I ran outside. Nothing. Only escalating panic.

The manager of the restaurant, Francisco, spoke English and decided to help me. I used Francisco’s phone to log into Find My iPhone. We tracked the driver going deep into Lima, where the gringos don’t go. I set the phone to Lost mode. Francisco wrote a message to appear on the screen. It said, in Spanish, “This phone is lost. Call this number and return to this restaurant for a reward.”

An hour passed. Nothing. 

“Should we get the police involved?” I ask Francisco.

He rubs his face. “We can’t take you to the regular police. They are…whatever the opposite of useful is.”

“Useless.”

“Yes, useless.”

“We need to get the tourism police. They can speak English.”

He tries to call them. They don’t answer.

“We’ll get the regular police to contact the tourism police.”

We walk to the police station. Francisco explains the situation. The woman at the desk asks for my passport, which I happened to have with me. They ask me why I’d been in Peru for so long. I’d like to know as well. It was an effort to dodge the New Hampshire winter and meet more hot girls. Both objectives were successful and now it’s time to leave.

Francisco translates.

“They’re trying to decide if you’re someone important who they need to help.”

Francisco's phone rings. He walks away and answers it. He talks in Spanish.

It’s the taxi driver. The Peruvian cop asks for the phone. Francisco hands it to her. The cop and the taxi driver get into a shouting match. 

“Puedes esucharme?!” The cop yells. Can you listen to me? 

“The driver says he’s working right now,” says Francisco, “so he can’t drop it off until he’s done at 10 pm.”

“Are you serious?”

“He’s scared of the police.”

I’m afraid he’s going to hang up. “Puedo pagar!” I say. I take out the 100 soles which managed to stay in my pocket. The cop tells him that the tourist will pay. 

“We have his phone number,” Francisco says. “It’s over.”

The man agrees to meet at the Miraflores police station at 10 pm.

In Peruvian time that means 10:30, if I’m very lucky. 

It’s 8 pm. The cops put me in a truck and bring me to the Miraflores police station. I have no choice because this is where the cop told the driver to bring my phone and wallet.

So here I am, writing on a scrap piece of paper with a bunch of cops on their phones. I’m finally liberated from my vice, my phone. And my ID and my keys and credit and debit cards. And the address of my Airbnb. 

I feel there is a low probability that this taxi driver will come to this police station. I ask the cops if I can call the taxi driver and order a ride to my hotel, then he can give me my phone and wallet. They start laughing and say no. I need to wait. One more hour. If I am very lucky. 

“Gooooooool!” says the TV in the back.

The Peruvian police have a fish tank. There are other young people here. They have two boogie boards. One doesn’t have a shirt. I guess we’re near the beach, but I really have no idea. They took me from the Barranco station to the one in Miraflores, with the fish tank.

There’s an AK-47 between the tank and the wall. Shouldn’t that be like…secured?

The young people are hugging. I’d like to get up and walk around but I’m mildly worried about any kind of miscommunication. 

It’s 9:25. 

I go over and pick up the AK.

Just kidding. 

It’s 9:26. 

“Sir?” a woman cop says. “Can you come here?”

I obey.

“Sit.”

“How old are you, 25?”

“Yes.”

“I wait the taxi driver.”

“What?”

“I wait the taxi driver.”

“Okay. Did you talk to him?”

“30 minutes.”

“Okay.”

I’m writing the conversation as it happens. 

“What do you write?”

“Uh, a journal?”

“What?”

“Sobre mi vida.”

“What’s your job?”

They’re writing down my answers.

“Writer.”

“What?”

“Soy un escritor.”

“Oh, a writer. Because you write. What’s the name of your hotel?”

“No se. Es en mi telefono.”

She asks me more questions. Her partner asks me the same questions. 

I’m so fucked if I don’t get this phone back. 

“What is the color of the phone?”

“Black.”

“Negro,” she tells her partner. 

“How much was it?”

I’m scribbling notes between their questions. 

We’re in the back room. There are no clocks or AC. The energy is lethargy and corruption. 

I’d like to be in America right now.

I can’t remember the name of the Japanese restaurant where Francisco works. The cop who speaks English is refusing to talk to me. I show the Spanish-only cop the restaurant on the map, on her computer. They’re doing a lot of paperwork. Suddenly, they say a guy at the restaurant has my phone and they’re going to get it. But I need to stay here. 

They’re silent. 

I don’t know what to say. This blows. If Francisco and I hadn’t got the police involved, I’d be in my bed right now. This is fine. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

The cop who yelled at the taxi driver is back now. The three of them talk in Spanish. She looks at me, smiles, and does a shaka sign. I start laughing and do a thumbs-up. What. the. fuck. 

It’s past 10 pm. 

It’s hot in this room. They’re in pants and long-sleeved shirts. The printer is printing the paperwork. I think I’m almost free. Now I know why the taxi driver refused to meet the police, and then dropped the phone at the restaurant. 

“We will go back to the restaurant,” they say. Back to where I started. This was pointless.

I’m in the truck with the three cops. Everyone is on their phones. Except me of course. No one has their seatbelt on. I’m surprised there are seat belts. 

We pull up to the closed restaurant at 10:40. Francisco is standing there. He gives me a thumbs up. The taxi driver is there. He hands over my stuff. It’s all there. I give him 100 soles and tell him, “Un accidente. Muchas gracias. Buenos noches.”

I want the taxi driver to get out there before the police hold him hostage and make him do paperwork. The cops make me sign papers and add my fingerprint. They insist on taking a video of me saying, “Thank you tourism police for helping me.”

They take a photo of Francisco handing my phone to a cop. 

This is so dumb. I’m going home.

Find My iPhone saved me. Remembering my Apple password was the key. Francisco was the key. The message he added to my phone screen got the driver to call him.

I went to my shitty Airbnb on the 15th floor. Exhausted. I called my mom. She’d been worried. She talked for a long time. She said whenever one of us is solo-traveling abroad we should tell each other where we are staying, at least. 

Here’s what I learned. 

Stay calm, wait, and don’t get cops involved. 

If the taxi driver had sold my phone for parts and bought a bunch of shit with my credit card, I would have been okay. I had a backup credit card and cash separate from my wallet. I could have gone to a hotel and paid with my backup card. The following day I could locate my Airbnb and charge up my backup phone. 

When I was trying to recruit the police to help me get my life back, I suddenly spoke better Spanish than ever before. 

What would you do if you were alone in a foreign country with no phone or wallet? Can you log into all your important accounts without your phone or computer? Do you know your passwords?

Got my phone back

Thanks be to Aurora and Matt for feedback on this fun little essay. I have three more Peru-related stories coming soon. They highlight the differences between Peru and America, and how to get out of poverty.

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