Santa Cruz, Bolivia

After checking into room number 168 of my travels it was time to get down to the real pleasures of travelling. Getting some of and understanding the local money. Finding and deciphering the local delicacies. Getting washing done. Planning the next journey etc. etc. Fun and games, huh?

For a change in my daily activities I decided it was time for a hair cut. The last one had been sometime in New Zealand and I was starting to look like a unshaven Llama.

I picked the most old fashioned barbers I could find, where the men were all decked out in white coats and looked like they had been cutting hair for centuries. Actually I'm sure one of them HAD been cutting hair for centuries. I luckily got a young ´un (mid thirties). He sat me down in one of those old fashioned reclining chairs. The games commenced.

¨Grble gusutla mmmmhrum usted?¨ he says in a Bolivian mumble.

I'm prepared and reckon he´s asking "How would you like it cut sir".

Now, not being a TOTAL fool, I had rehearsed this one and already knew the words. "Here", "There", "Short" "More" and "A little". I pointed to the back and sides and said "Aqui corto".
He nodded dutifully. "Y aqui un poco mas corto", I continued, pointing to the top. He gave me a reassuring nod and I breathed a sigh of relief. Job done. Piece of piss compared to Vietnam where I had to resort to Extreme Sign language.

He started by getting out what looked like one of those old perfume sprayers - a round looking thing with a nozzle and a rubber hose attached with a ball on the end to be squeezed. I reckoned I must have the good old traveller´s smell and he wanted to neutralise my odours first...
I was wrong, as I soon found out when he removed a lighter from his pocket, squeezed the ball and proceeded to set fire to the liquid coming out of the contraption. A flame the size of my arm shot out and nearly singed my eyebrows. Yes, this weird looking thing was a portable flame-thrower. Some light was shone on the matter when he took all his scissors out of the cupboard and char-grilled every one of them with this weapon of medium destruction.

Eyebrows intact he started to chop. It was all going wonderfully well until towards the end when he started to give me a right parting and brushed my hair back. I thought he was just doing some clever barber stuff (I mean he had seen me come in and seen the way I normally wear my hair?), so I left him go. Mistake.

Before I knew it, he had the blowdryer set to stun and was turning my lovely locks into something that would have made even the Fonz blush. I was stunned, too frightened to scream out "Stop". Before too long it was all over, my reflection stared back at me and I had to grin. I thought the ordeal was all over, but no, the barber of Seville Santa Cruz had it in for me and in the blink of an eye he whipped out a can of super, super, mega, extra strong hair spray and sprayed enough of it in my hair to turn it into lacquer. I was transformed into an extra from Grease. It was so hard that meteorites would have bounced off my bonce.

I paid my money, even gave him a tip (sucker), ran home in case I happened to meet anybody I knew in downtown Santa Cruz and sat sobbing under the shower for 20 minutes. I vowed to use sign language the next time.