Snakes on a train

In what was becoming a characteristic move, our day started late.

We had enjoyed a busy few days and nights in Medellin and were in no rush to get out of bed. A late but great breakfast of papaya, pineapple, dragonfruit, melon, watermelon (Colombian fruits are supermodels) with an omelette and a bowl of granola. Breakfast like a King, lunch like a Queen, dinner like a pauper. Or Breakfast like a King, lunch like a King and dinner like a King, as we had modified it.

Decision made, we landed on taking the excellent Medellin Metro system eight stops to Universidad, where we could choose between Parque Explora (Science Museum) or the Joaquín Antonio Uribe Botanical Garden (Botanical Garden) for the afternoon’s fun.

Fate made that decision easy for us – we set out so late that the Parque Explora was due to close about thirty minutes after we were due to arrive. Botanical Gardens it was to be and we had a really lovely time there – we ate chorizo and chips from a disused railway carriage, we saw ducks with Russian hats and witnessed an intriguingly high number of photoshoots.

But this tale takes place on the way to the Gardens…

We met our friend Aime who was having an equally listless start to her day and walked from hostel to Poblado Metro station. The short walk is not a particularly picturesque one – you trundle along a dual carriageway for half a mile or so, then it starts to bustle up in the area outside the station. Vendors of empanadas, papas rellenas (fried balls of potato & meat – immense) and football shirts compete for ground space and the business of tourists and locals alike in the busy El Poblado area.

Advised by most travel blogs that the metro system is a hive for robbers, I adopted the advice of said blogs and 180’d the backpack to a frontpack. Fears of looking like a wally gently subsided as I saw plenty of locals taking the same sensible approach. The platforms are long on the Metro and despite the frequency of the trains, they’re usually pretty busy. Poblado itself has tons of tourists pushing up the numbers too, meaning that we were shuffling on to the train when it approached.

As a group of about fifteen strangers, we boarded the train like those tides of tiny crabs, moving as a collective, scuttling over our own toes and heels. Colombians seem to set different parameters when it comes to acceptable personal space. It’s something we’ve chatted about recently – it is definitely different to the UK and the people that proposed this theory to us were Canadian, so definitely different to there too. The bloke that got on behind me however, pushed even these parameters to breaking point.

He and I were among the final few to board the train and we did so in plenty of time but he hustled us on, chest and groin. Feeling at first rather taken with this display of affection, the still-very-green part of my brain pinged into action. PICKPOCKET!

A second later, my rational, relaxed, ‘woke’ part of my brain parried the attack. Come on Jon. He can’t be older than 20 – he’s probably on his way home from college, desperate to get home and continue his studies and doesn’t want to miss his train because of some gringo wearing his backpack the wrong way.

I moved forward to give him more space. If he isn’t a college kid, he’s probably been volunteering on the construction site of that new orphanage – the least I could do was offer him some breathing room on the packed train.

Whaddayaknow it turns out it wasn’t personal space he after at all. He stuck to me like a shadow.

The still-very-green part of my brain wrestled control of the wheel and was driving into lashing raindrops of panic. Not worried for my cash, I didn’t have much on me. Not for my phone, that was zipped up in a pocket on my other side. But for the incoming awkwardness I could feel hurtling towards this Metro carriage. I knew he was going to attempt to pick my pocket, I knew I was going to catch him but what would happen then was a known unknown.

Preparing as best I could, I let my left arm dangle by my pocket: not touching, but close. I knew I had about 12,000 Colombian Pesos in there (£3) and my meaty thighs can often nudge the contents of my pockets into the tempting view of wandering eyes. Sammy and Aime were chatting away, oblivious to my dread. Couldn’t drag them into this, best to keep it contained.

Contact.

If it were any lighter a touch, it would not have existed at all. I was however hyper-sensitive and the trigger hairs of my pickpocket-flytrap were twitching. His fingers probed around the edge of my pocket, and he slowly but definitively, slid them inside, seeking out the speculative treasure within.

CLAMP!

I snapped my hand around his fingers from the outside of my pocket. Like a mousetrap, I grabbed through the soft material of my shorts the thieving little mouse and felt his digits stiffen with panic. As quickly as I had seized them, the little tea leaf retracted them and stared straight ahead, nostrils flaring, betraying his pathetic attempt at nonchalance. You messed with the wrong gringo, amigo.

I slowly turned my head to face his reddening cheek while he desperately avoided my burning gaze.

“Hijo de puta” I snarled.

Jumping up, I grabbed hold of the two parallel bars running along the ceiling of the train and swung a huge two footed kick into his chest. The Failed Pickpocket staggered backwards and I kept up the momentum. Stepping forward, I grabbed the back of his collar and swiped two big rear hooks across his shocked face. He parried the third then using my momentum against me, wrestled me into a rear naked choke hold.

His grip was strong around my larynx so I threw all of my weight back into him, striding backwards two steps to slam us both into the train doors. The doors opened a little with the impact, causing the screaming crowd to scatter where it could but the tightly packed bodies formed a natural arena for the two gladiators.

The impact from my slam shocked the Failed Pickpocket into loosening his grip for half a second – a window of opportunity I seized to piston my elbow back into his nose. I felt it splinter on impact, his meringue of a nose spreading across his face and the warm red compote of his blood drenching the elbow of my shirt.

Fuelled no doubt by pain and fury, the Failed Pickpocket grabbed the back of my neck, slamming it into a vertical train pole. Fortunately, my frontpack absorbed some of the impact but I bounced back, my head straight into his hand again which he pitched like a baseball into the immovable pole.

My world whirled around me whilst the hurtling train showed signs of slowing and pulling into the next stop. It must have been seconds but my dazed mind processed the time as minutes, my mouth hanging open, drooling in injury. This wasn’t going to be a fight we’d both walk away from, little wounded but our pride. This was going to cost us both, dearly.

As I tried to break the surface of the world I was drowning in, I saw Sammy. My buoyancy aid. My constant. My wife. Her face was a solar system of emotions. The fear she had was almost hidden by her fierce determined jaw and her proud eyes. She opened her perfect mouth that pushed her cheeks up to catch the tears forming in her eyes.

“Finish this prick babe”

The carriage went silent, and my world stopped spinning. I straightened my spine and brought my hands up to my temples like I’d learnt in my kickboxercise classes. I spat – blood – rolled my shoulders and readied myself.

Failed Pickpocket ran at me, straight into a pair of swift kicks to his mid-section, bringing him to his knees. I grabbed his baggy, filthy t-shirt, wrapping the hem once around my bloodied hand and then around his neck. I put my knee into his back and forced his head and neck into the guillotine that had now formed from the closing doors. Checkmate.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP sounded above the doors and shook me out of my complete and utter fantasy.

The Failed Pickpocket was still staring ahead, his cheeks a little flush from embarrassment but otherwise unharmed and hurriedly exited the carriage.

I didn’t do anything after stopping him in his thieving tracks. I looked at him as he stared ahead but left it there. I could have made a scene, performed a citizen’s arrest (lol) or report him to the police. I’m glad I didn’t though. If the kid is down enough on his luck that he has to go pickpocketing people, then any other reaction would have likely worsened his lot in life and pushed him further into a place where he has to pursue crime to get by. Hopefully the ‘justice’ served today was that he would rethink this part of his life and choose a better path.

…also I was a bit frightened and just felt lucky there wasn’t a huge scene.