Some people think seeing and experiencing some of the world’s greatest wonders is what travel is all about. It’s hard to argue with that logic, since visiting places like Macchu Picchu, Iguazu Falls, and the Angkor Wat are travel highlights I will remember for the rest of my life. But another aspect of travel, especially long term travel, is meeting new and interesting people. We have met people on the road who we will remain friends with forever, and we have met some who we hope to never see again. The crazy falafel guy from Rurrenabaque falls in the latter category.
If you’ve read the Rurrenabaque page, you’d know that we had some incredible falafel from a street cart in town. Seriously, it may have been the best falafel I’ve ever had. Nice and crunchy on the outside, with a batter that was perfect, and wonderfully creamy in the center with perfectly crushed and seasoned garbanzo beans, and served in a nice, fluffy, warm, pita with fresh, crunchy veggies and all the fixins. It was a spectacular sandwich.
But getting a falafel sandwich from this particular street cart came with a price. Let me start from the beginning. We stumbled across said street cart while sauntering around town, and it was surrounded by a fairly large group of backpackers. Being the curious folks we are, we mosied up to notice a white, western looking man running the cart with a few younger, teenage girls, and they were selling some yummy looking falafel sandwiches. We came to find out they were American, and they had lived in Rurre for 10 years, home schooling their TEN children. “Cool,” we thought, what an interesting way to live. We loved talking to people like this, so we were curious about his story. That’s where things took a turn for the worse.
We struck up a conversation with him. Bad idea. At first, he was just a bit talkative with a few interesting views on life and world politics. No big deal, right? But then, as the other travelers slowly backpedaled away while finishing their sandwiches, we were firmly stuck in the discussion, with no way out.
Initial intrigue suddenly turned to eye-rolling and panic as we desperately searched for a way to get out of this predicament. Before long, crazy falafel guy was preaching. About the dreaded they. You know the ones, the they who run the world, the they who purposely started the current financial crisis. The they who created the AIDS virus to control the out of control world population. The they who created vaccines they knew would cause autism. The they who knew about and had a hand in 9/11.
Now I’m all for a good conspiracy theory here and there. They can be somewhat interesting at times, but crazy ranting to complete strangers on a street corner in a small town in Bolivia, by a guy who sells falafel sandwiches to tourists, was a bit much. And he was relentless. Once crazy falafel guy got on a roll, there was no stopping him. We must have feigned interest too much at the beginning when we though he was a normal guy because before long, not only was he waxing poetic about all these crazy conspiracy theories, but he was inviting us back to his house to watch DVD’s that proved all his hypotheses.
We had to find a way out, but this guy wouldn’t let us get a word in edgewise. It was constant talking by him with polite nodding by both of us, at first. After about 20 minutes, we became distressed. We tried to catch each other’s eye to find a way out. There was never a break in the conversation, though, and before long, as the day turned to night, I contemplated just simply walking away with crazy falafel guy in mid-sentence.
Finally, after a half hour of an evangelical like diatribe, we had a small opening. He stopped, ever so briefly, and I jumped on the chance to escape. I quickly, frantically, in a high-pitched voice, in a near scream, yelled, “So sorry we have to get up early for a pampas tour tomorrow so we really should get going back to our room it was so nice talking to you thanks for the delicious falafel.”
So we high-tailed it out of there as quickly as we possibly could, not looking back, feeling as though we narrowly escaped from prison and the guards were following closely behind. Neither of us said much on the walk back to the room as we each pondered what just happened. Only after our narrow escape, once we were safely back in the confines of our own room, could we reflect and laugh at the absurdity of what just took place.
What started out as an intriguing conversation about a family doing something totally against the norm became a frightening look into the world of the crazy Rurrenabaque falafel guy. We left Rurre the next morning to go on our Pampas tour, and we returned a few days later for one more night before flying back to La Paz. Back in Rurre, we both joked about going to his house to watch some DVD’s, about his crazy rantings, and about the odd and perplexing experience the whole thing was.
Then we took off to find dinner, neither one of wanting to admit that we were secretly looking for crazy falafel guy’s cart, cause goddamn, that falafel was mighty scrumptious.
