8/14/2005

One Scam For The Road [AUGUST 14, 2005]

You can see them no matter what city you live in. If there’s a museum or some landmark in your neck of the woods, then you’re no stranger to their clicking cameras and comments in some language you can’t quite place your finger on. And even though they may annoy us every now and then, all of us, in fact, have been in their shoes at one time or another. Horror of horrors, you may even be one at this very moment – a tourist.


Tourists on the prowl for the perfect postcard

But it’s nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it’s something to revel in. You’re in a strange country, experiencing new sights and smells and tasting exotic food every moment you step out of the hotel. And, best of all, you have off from work. I myself used to be a tourist here in Cádiz, but then I got a job. Working is what differentiates a carefree tourist from an homesick expat.

I still remember my tourist days here in Spain very well. There are some things that every tourist experiences and I was no exception. The confusion of entering a shop and finding that the local behind the register doesn’t speak a word of English and you don’t know a word of Spanish except for "Adios" and "Por favor." Speaking with your hands is the one language every well-traveled tourist is fluent in. The food also struck me, especially when I first saw those greasy hind legs of some disgusting pig hanging from the ceiling. I never thought I’d have touched the stuff, but one taste of that delicious Jamón Serrano and I was hooked. Finally, the one thing every tourist experiences, whether they realize it or not, is getting ripped off. Scammers and tourists go hand in hand and, as a service to my readers, I’ve decided to classify them into three distinct categories.


Jamón Serrano:
A first-time tourist's disgust, A seasoned expat's delight

Entire economies have been founded on milking tourists out of every last penny and some sharks have amassed enormous private fortunes from their dubious deeds. Most of the time we never realize we’ve been ripped off until it’s well too late. In fact, I didn’t realize I was paying more for most of the things I was buying until I stopped being an tourist and assumed my expat identity. But that was just as far as paying a few extra cents here and there or "accidentally" being handed back the wrong change was concerned. Such petty thievery earns the perpetrator two extra quarters to rub together once in a blue moon and they go home at night donning a big, dirty grin acting as if they’ve just captured Gibraltar back from the British. These are the smalltime scammers and they’re the most prevalent.

Then there are the outrageous scammers. Many of them get caught due to their outlandish bravado and consequently enter the annals of Urban Legends – Globetrotter’s Edition. Have you heard about the Japanese tourist visiting Istanbul, for example, who ended up paying over six hundred dollars for a Turkish rug that should have cost no more than twenty? Or the friendly Parisian street-performer who offered to help the lost Australian lass, who had just given him a handful of change, while his accomplice emptied her pocketbook? Or, my personal favorite, the Englishman who flew into Athens and hired a taxi to take him over five hundred kilometers to a city in the north called Thessaloníki? The taxi-driver ended up driving in circles throughout the Greek capital, until the passenger doze off in the overwhelming heat, and then woke him up three hours later charging the full fare and informing his prey that they had arrived at their destination when they had in fact only gone as far as the Athenian suburbs. But these of course are the exceptions. The ones we hear about. The ones that often get caught and travel guides warn us to keep an eye out for.

The smalltime scammers and outrageous scammers, though, are just petty crooks and end up using all their wit and fast talk for nothing but a few extra pennies. They make maybe one or two big catches per year... but that’s it. Think about it. Taxi-drivers, those most infamous of highway robbers, can’t really be all that good at milking tourists out of their vacation money. If they were, they wouldn’t still be driving taxi cabs around in the searing summer heat, now would they? If you want to make real money out of tourists, you need to get them in herds and make it look legit. You need a company.

The smallest number of swindlers but, by far the most profitable, are what I call the syndicate scammers. These guys live off of tourists. They make mountains of money during peak tourist season (the summer months here in Andalucía), and then sit on their asses or in their villas during the rest of the year sipping sherry or sangria. As far as I’ve been able to discover, there are only three syndicate scammers here in Cádiz and they’re all in the same business.


TOUR DE CÁDIZ offers you the best view of the back of the Cathedral around!

The two that are at most at each other’s throats, because they do exactly the same thing, are the ones that run the tour bus swindle. Cádiz Tour has the red buses and Tour Por Cádiz has the green and yellow. These massive double-decker buses offer to take you around the city and show you the sights while saving your feet from all the walking and your head from hours of overexposure to the sun. How can that be a scam, right? They’re providing a useful service for the tourists, aren’t they? Well, normally I would say yes. A city like Madrid needs such a service and I’m sure it enhances the tourist’s holiday experience. But here in Cádiz, it’s a different story. This city is over three thousand years old – the oldest in Europe. People probably didn’t even know how to use a horse and carriage when the Phoenicians first settled here and you can see it in the city’s street plan. Most of the inhabitants either walk to their destination or drive around in mopeds because that’s the only thing that can steer through the maze of narrow and winding streets. You do see a car every now and then, but they crawl along at a mind-numbingly slow pace while offering you a chance to closely examine the many dents on the body and missing side-view mirror, both telltale battle wounds of how difficult it actually is to navigate a vehicle through these streets. The only large, two way street that cars dare to use is the one that goes around Cádiz... the one the tour buses use but, of course, there aren’t any monuments or sights of interest on that street. They’re all in the center.

I can just imagine how a tour on one of those buses would run: "Ladies and gentlemen, If we were to go down that street, you would see the Cathedral which is a beautiful example of 17th Century architecture. In front of the Cathedral you would see a beautiful square with an intricate marble pattern carefully laid into to stone. The narrow street leading off of that square leads to the beautiful flower market and the always popular fish market, which we, of course, can’t see from here. I would be more than happy to describe it for you though. Imagine... As you enter the market, you would probably see a number of fish to either side including octopus, prawns, and actual swordfish in their entirety. If you were to walk to the..." When the guide finally finishes talking, the bus just goes around the city once more and the tourists finally get off, having seen nothing from the bus except for the ocean to one side and the decaying buildings that line the city’s only two-way street to the other. Tourist milking verdict? Complete success!


Map of the tour route - Just follow the blue line around the city

The other syndicate scammer is a bit different but also offers tours. This one is always popular with the kids and the Germans. They can’t get enough of it. El Tren De Cádiz provides the same service as the tour buses, and exclusively uses the same two-way, ocean front street... but these Spanish Shylocks do it in style. Who needs an oversized double-decker bus when you can use an oversized, tacky white train? Just make sure you keep you hands inside the moving vehicle at all times, whether you’re a local or not.


Here come the Krauts... Make way for the tacky white train!

Come to think of it, if you ever find yourself zipping through the streets, I mean the street, of Cádiz one day in a white train, then you’re probably not a local anyway. You’re not even an expat. Face the facts... you’re just another tourist.

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