Scam Team in Centro de Lima

Our last night in Lima we tried to find the bar with the brawl again since it was comfy and cheap and they treated /us/ right at least. We found this bar that was so exactly the same it was hard to tell if we were at the same place or not, but it definitely was different.

At 8pm the nightlife is dead in Peru, the bar was empty except for one Limeno, Marceille, with entirely too much energy. He was all excited because his band was going to be playing in two hours, so he sat us down. He didn´t speak English, but he had one phrase down, ¨In Lima we drinka the Pisco eSour!!!!¨ Pisco´s the national liquor by the way, made from grapes. Seemed like a good idea, we tried to make our own Pisco Sour earlier and it went poorly, so we were game. I thought the scam was going to be to get us drunk so we´d pay a cover charge for his band.

So the drinks took forever to arrive, and meanwhile he´s teaching us all sorts of trendy spanish and building up our egos and stuff. Eventually we each get pitchers of Pisco Sour, but half of it is foam egg whites, and then a shot of Pisco on the side. We´re blown away, and I asked the waitress how much it cost like 3 times, and the answer was, ¨it´s a big drink.¨ There´s also this geezer guy helping with serving, his teeth look blackened in the centers, and I never understood a word he said.

So we learned a toast wiht Marceille,
-Arribar! (upstairs, raise glass)
-Abajo! (downstairs, hit table)
-Al centro (*hit glasses*)
-Al dentro (down the hatch)

We moved inside, I chatted up the cute waitress who wouldn´t answer how much the drinks cost. She was 21, from Trujillo--where we were going in hours. I could have learned a lot from her, but she was the weakest person in the scam, so I was scolded by Marceille for talking to her, and told to sit down and help translate again for my buddies and some heated business going on.

We finished out pitchers and ordered a round of beers, nobody said Pisco Sour not at all, just cerveza, eye-to-eye with cute girl. Despite this, she came back with another three pitchers! It was a first for me, sending drinks back. Then we got our beer and said we had to go. The bill came, 400 soles even!!! $133 is not a legit bar tab for this country.

Our hostal was 50 soles a night for two people, no way I was paying 88 soles per pitcher of pisco sour at a cowboy bar! Good god, if we had accepted that second round, who knows where we´d be.

So the post-consumption bartering began, which is a less traditional form of bartering, kind of like not paying your landlord the rent. We got it down to S/312 since they had a fourth pitcher on there at least. We chugged the rest of our beers and went out to the balcony to smoke, which was a bad move. At least out there I had a minute alone to hide most the cash.

At the same time as all this, there was an amusing subplot happening. He had asked us in the beginning if we were all single, and when we hit the balcony our surprise secret prostitute arrived. Either that or an attractive Peruana girl who was really into us at an empty bar. Marseille hesitated a second introducing her, how would you introduce a prostitute to gringos without hurting anyone´s feelings? So I thought I´d take the chance to make it as awkward as possible and said, ¨hey, is that your girlfriend?!¨

So theres some talking and smoking and the new bill arrives, which was a total buzzkill, along with the geezer, and the cute waitress. Everyone´s shoulder to shoulder in the doorway, so we´re boxed in on the balcony. I´m sure my broken spanish was off the hook here, it was my third day in the country, and I had just learned the word for 80 that morning, so that came in mighty handy. The geezer didn´t say much, and I continued to understand none of it. They showed us a fake menu with the 88 soles price.

So we start pulling out cash. We got up to S/136 or so, and four US dollars. They were nice enough to say, $20 USD more and you´re set, but this was still a ripoff already. I like to leave my mark on things and improve the world as I go, so I don´t want to spoil them and let them think this half assed scam works, especially on their biggest customer of the spring. Also, I wasn´t going to brawl over $20 unless they started it. I´m quite a wuss, but we all are bigger than them. It´d be three on six+, Marseille, the geezer, 100lbs waitress, prostitute (or are they neutral?), and two ten year olds who are really 16. I also saw a sickly looking rastafarian guy and girl in a back hallway earlier.

Anyways, tons of awkward silence, neither side wanted to budge, so I thought I´d follow Tisko´s advice, baseball is the great equalizer. Any two people can set aside their differences and talk about baseball. I noticed the geezer had a White Sox hat! I´m obviously a diehard Brewers fan, so what do we have in common? We both hate the Cubs!! Anything to take a break from this situation. I don´t know the word for hat, so I pointed at the logo, too close for comfort because he grabbed my wrist out of the air and did some shouting. Probably something about the White Sox´ season or something, I dunno.

So after some more awkward silence we were finally allowed to leave. Tailing us about 10 seconds behind on the street was the cute waitress, probably to go change in the four US dollars so they could all split the pot.


Well, I´m still sick but functioning now. Went for a run today, and I might even manage to eat three meals, up from zero four days ago. I´m thinking of taking this microbiology experiment on the road either tomorrow or the next day to Cusco, where I can finally assemble my bike. 20hr bus ride!