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I met Javier yesterday, he came right up to me on the street and struck up a conversation. His English was extremely broken but that didn´t hinder him in the least in speaking a mile a minute. It took me about 45 minutes of me speaking in spanish before he gave it up and spoke in spanish himself. I didn't have anything important to do, so I hung out with him for a few hours, good spanish practice and got to see some parts of the city I wouldn´t have otherwise. It was obvious that he saw some dollar signs in my 6 foot choco and backpack wearing figure, so I tried (quite unsuccessfully) to make it clear that there was no money to be made from me, but I´d still be happy to hang out and maybe go on a hike. He tried to sell me everything from pot to guided tours, enticing me with his two amigas that he just happened to have a date with--this magically turned to 3 ladies when we saw my friend Ronney later on. I paid for a lunch on the promise that he would by dinner (part of the culture, right?), and lent him 5 soles for something else. It should be apparent that I didn't get the best vibe from him, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, he seemed like a nice guy, and I don´t like to prejudge people; he kept insisting that we were just friends, that was all. Later on, back at the couchsurfing crashpad, he suggested we (meaning me) buy some beer. I really had no craving to drink at that point so I told him he could buy it himself, or use the money he owed me already. Javier did not like this idea at all. After unsuccessful pleading in his barely intelligible english, he grabbed the 2 empty bottles left in a huff. He returned 5 minutes later asking for money again, though the price of beer had magically gone down. Still getting no luck, he disappeared again, this time for good. With our 2 bottles. This may not seem like a big deal at first, but at least here in Huaraz, it is nearly impossible to buy beer without returning the same number of empty bottles. There is a fabled store somewhere where you can just put down a deposit on the bottle, which is quite expensive, about half the price of the beer. But at all the corner shops, anywhere remotely near where I´m staying, they just won´t sell without getting a bottle.

I fumed for a long time, trying to quench my righteous indignation with the thought that this is just a part of my white privilege. In a world where some people can work for a month or two then travel for 8 months or a year through countries where a third of the population lives on less than $2 a day, this sort of parasitic relationship is bound to develop . This point was driven home when I blithely told Javier that I had 6 weeks left in Peru, no time at all. He replied that Peruvians would love to have a 6 week holiday. So really, I should be angry at the system, not at this pinche weon. But really, stealing our empties? That´s fucking low.