2-7-20 - Jet ski scam
/Ok it’s a scheduled sleep-in day. But of course we CANNOT sleep in when we CAN sleep in (well Kyle and Leanne can’t but some of the kids manage to). Yikes! Up around 6:30 am by the auto internal body clock that annoyingly tells us to “Carpe Diem. Carpe Diem. Carpe Diem.”
We head to the free hotel breakfast at 9 am and, after witnessing the world class spread, Leanne jokingly suggests the hotel is so nice that we might not even leave it this weekend. “Well, you might be right?” Kyle shares. “Why?” asks Leanne curiously. “I’ll tell you over breakfast,” Kyle says as they are in a crowded elevator.
Kyle checked out TripAdvisor for things to do in Cartagena and came across the reviews for Cartagena Beach that our hotel is situated on. At breakfast Kyle reveals that, “it was the first time on TripAdvisor that I’ve ever seen a “1” across the board by more than 100 reviews.” Apparently the local beach, while a beauty to view from the safe distance of the 41st floor hotel balcony, has hawkers en mass that are notoriously aggressive with foreign tourists.
We’ve seen some pretty aggressive hawkers over our trip, but the reviews of the hawker tricks here take the global cake. Example 1: hawkers with ceviche (seafood) carts will throw a crab on a tourists lap and demand an exorbitantly high price for the crab while refusing to take it back. The hawker will make such a seen that said tourist forks over money just to make the whole ordeal go away. Example 2: the beach is flooded with masseuses who will come up to a tourist and start massaging his / her shoulders without permission and then demand payment for the full massage since the massage had already started. The reviews said that a tourist sitting on the beach will get approached by 7 hawkers every 60 seconds.
Safe to say we aren’t going to be hanging out on the beach too much. The reviews were so overwhelmingly negative that Leanne decided a weekend sequestered in this nice hotel sounds just superb. However, the problem that arises is that Justin REALLY wants to go jet skiing. Jet skiing in Bali was one of his top 5 activities on the whole trip. Upon inquiring at the concierge, Kyle and Justin learn than there is no water sports store, but rather there are jet ski hawkers up and down the beach that you have to go haggle with. After reading TripAdvisor, Kyle knows this isn’t going to be an easy task.
Kyle has told Leanne that he read that you need to be aware of your surroundings and people so you don’t get ripped off or victimized in other ways when walking outside of your hotel. Not a recipe for success. Next thing Leanne knows, Kyle is texting her “we are going out to the beach to check out jet ski rentals.” What the heck? He and Justin are on a mission to find a fairly negotiated jet ski rental. Seriously? Isn’t this the guy who just sounded the alarm bells on this city? What a dad won’t do for his kids!
Kyle, Justin, Corey & Ashlynn set off to find 4 jet skis to rent for an hour. The concierge at the hotel said that we shouldn’t pay anymore that 60K Colombian Pesos for the rental so Kyle has his negotiating anchor point. The beach has rock jetties that form small alcoves running up and down the beach. There are maybe 10+ of them. So Kyle heads to the first one. Los hawkers hablan espanol solamente – no English here. Kyle offers the first guy we’ll dub the “Master Jet ski (JS) Hawker” the 60K pesos and he counters with 100K. Kyle simply walks away saying we’ll go to the next guy knowing this might be a long process.
Master JS hawker chases us down and says he will give it us for the 60K. “Hmmm…that was way too easy,” a now suspicious Kyle thinks. After a bunch of back in forth in Spanish, we discover the issue is that Master JS only has two jet skis and we need four. Master JS proposes that two of us go out for an hour while the others wait and then we our turn. None of us are thrilled to sit on this beach for an hour after what we’ve read. We could have had two of the kids do the rental here and go find two others to rent buy Kyle doesn’t want to split the group up so we all head out to the next alcove.
We walk about 5 minutes down the sidewalk to the next alcove and just when we arrive, Master JS hawker pops out of the bushes and starts talking fast and animatedly to us. Kyle just ignores him and searches for the jet ski hawkers here. He finds one but Master JS starts talking excitedly in fast Spanish and tells us that he can rent us four jet skis at the same time. I confirm the price of 60K pesos per jet ski or $240 pesos total for all four. He almost laughs when he says no way, it’s 100K per Jet Ski or 400K total. Kyle tries to tell the guy in Spanish that Master JS hawker who is apparently coordinating the deal already agreed to his price. After little progress on either side, Kyle leads the group back to sidewalk. Kyle is expecting the guy to come chasing after him but that doesn’t happen.
The problem is that since the hotel concierge said DON’T pay more than 60K pesos, Kyle only brought 250K pesos so he wouldn’t be carrying around a bunch of excess cash. So Kyle can’t actually go higher in price even if he might have done so just to get this whole jet ski thing moving forward.
Ten more minutes on the sidewalk and we arrive at the third alcove. This time we are entirely unsurprised when Master JS Hawker pops out of the bushes for a second time. Man, this guy is not going to let us out of his sight knowing we have 240K pesos burning a hole in our pocket.
The scene unfolds almost exactly the same way as the last alcove and results in the same Kyle and the kids walking away. Kyle is now seriously questioning the hotel concierge’s counsel on the max price we should pay. We’ve now had two different groups that did not even attempt to counter our 60K. Kyle concludes that 60K is not in their negotiating ZOPA (business school jargon for the Zone of Potential Agreement between the two sides).
We walk another ten minutes and find ourselves at alcove four. Master JS hawker is not even bothering to hide behind the bushes as he follows us, now he’s just flat walking next to us chattering away in Spanish about the beach, the weather and God knows what else.
At the fourth alcove, the head guy actually speaks English. Kyle offers 60K and the guy tells us that we are not going to find anyone on the beach who will give us four jet skis for an hour for 240K which Kyle has pretty much already conceded at this point. Looking out at the ocean Kyle notices that every single jet ski has two people on it. Ah-ha! That must be the problem he figures out. Maybe the hotel concierge assumed two people to a jet ski and therefore didn’t say 60K per person. Given Kyle only has 250K, he offers the same 240K for two jet skis with two people each for an hour which the guy accepts. Finally!
Justin and Corey go out on one jet ski and Kyle and Ashlynn go out on the other. The waves offshore and beyond are pretty rough. Kyle and Ashlynn’s jet ski keeps tipping from side to side and Kyle can’t quite get the thing balanced and going straight. Jet skis are more stable at higher speeds so Kyle guns the thing right into a breaking wave. Ashlynn goes flying through the air in one direction while Kyle flies through the air in a different direction and the jet ski shoots off in a third direction.
Master JS hawker is now on a jet ski and comes over to shake us head and laugh at us as we attempt to get back on the jet ski in the rough waters and fall off. Kyle finally manages to get on the jet ski when Master JS shouts out to Ashlynn in Spanish, “hey muchacha, how about you come ride on my jet ski.” This prompts Ashley to madly scramble and climb back up onto the jet ski while Kyle contemplates ways he can make this guy disappear without arousing suspicion. Realizing Ashlynn’s not going to come on his jet ski, he now tells us that we are sitting too far back on the jet ski.
We move all the way forward and sure enough this does the trick as the jet ski becomes stable. We ride off and although we aren’t tipping over, the ocean is still rough. Even going slower, the jet ski gets air every time it hits into a wave. Kyle offers Ashlynn a turn but she wants no part of it.
After a little, Kyle sees Master JS hawker again chasing them down. He starts waving us back in. “What????” Kyle screams. It has only been 25 minutes and not even close to an hour. Kyle figures he must have something wrong and shoots off in another direction. Kyle reaches the boundary and must turn around and head back towards where Master JS hawker was last spotted.
Sure enough, he spots them and takes off after them in hot pursuit. Kyle flees in another direction, but after a while, realizes this guy is not going to give up so he stops. Kyle is telling him in Spanish that the hour is not over while he’s yelling back something Kyle can’t understand. Ashlynn tells Kyle that she thinks he was saying something about the fuel. Kyle looks down and sees the fuel tank is on empty. “Crap, there is no way to avoid going back in now.”
As Kyle heads back in with Ashlynn, he realizes a fatal flaw in the whole process. Because the reviews said anything left on the beach would be stolen and because we weren’t sure there would anyplace to secure our iPhones on the jet ski, we left them back in the hotel. Without any iPhones or watches, we have no way of knowing what time we started. Of course, Master JS hawker also has figured this out which is why is he is bring them in after 30 minutes. Well of course, Kyle doesn’t actually know it’s been 30 minutes but the internal body clock can clearly tell its closer to 30 mins than 60 mins. Much closer.
As Kyle pulls back in, Justin and Corey are on the beach looking dejected knowing full well they got ripped off. At some point, it just becomes a matter of principle. Kyle spent an hour finding and negotiating a fair price and then the hawkers find another way to rip him off. Add to that, the Master JS hawker trying to pick-up Ashlynn, and Kyle is beyond livid. At first, he firmly states in Spanish that he paid for an hour and it’s only been 30 minutes (although under the duress of the situation, his Spanish devolves into a mix of Spanglish with English substituting for the Spanish words he can’t remember).
They respond that the ride is over. Kyle responds no, it’s not. This goes on for a good five minutes. Kyle knows full well they aren’t going to let him go back out so his new strategy is to sit on the jet ski until the 60 minutes are up so they can’t re-rent it back out. Of course, they have figured his strategy out and know full well, he isn’t voluntarily getting off the jet ski so five guys surround him, grab him and toss him off the jet ski.
Kyle stalks off with the kids fuming mad grumbling that the Master Jet Ski Scammer can go to hell. Score: Colombian Scammers 1, Huebner Touristos 0. Well, deciding that was more than enough drama for one day, they make a beeline back to the hotel to meet up with Leanne and the other kids. Leanne was fully content staying within the four walls of the hotel. She can see enough of Cartagena from the 41st floor.
Happy Hour is from 5 to 7 pm which means there will be appetizers, salads and wine at the club lounge. Read: Free! Leanne instructs the kids to eat up right here. We do not get many opportunities for a free dinner on this trip — this is certainty one to grab! Only problem is that she played this same “free dinner at happy hour” card last night so the teens contemplate a revolt.
Of course, as Kyle recounts the big the story, Leanne is not pleased. “OMG, are you completely out of your mind? Do you want to end up in a Colombian prison?” Leanne gasps horrified. “Hmmm…how is it different than you refusing to get out of the taxi in Tibet and the driver actually did bring the police over?” Kyle counters back. Ok, score Leanne 1, Kyle 1. With that settled, we head back to the room for a good night’s sleep.
