Adventurous travellers embarking on a holiday in Latin America usually arrive at their destination in a state of manic fear, fuelled by tales of cannibal kidnappers who cut off ears and noses to convince reluctant relatives that they mean business.
That kind of kidnapping is rare. Watch out for the poisoned sweets, though, the drugged biscuits and bacchanalian joy-leaf which induces a 12-hour amnesia fit, during which the victim has the irresistible urge to shed clothes and personal possessions. (It was rumoured this month, but probably untrue, that the sight of an oversized oil executive dancing the lambada naked in a guerrilla camp finally forced Marxist rebels to the negotiating table in Colombia).
The region's robbers have suffered negative press lately, as amateurs enter the game, lowering industry standards, as I found out last month on the Mexico City subway system which serves five million people a day, with women-only carriages functioning at peak times - because Mexican men in rush-hour carriages revert to a degenerate Neanderthal condition, compulsively feeling up women.
One morning as I prepared to board a train, a woman brushed up close to me, just as it pulled in. Not considering myself totally unattractive, I thought she might have noticed me on the platform and switched from her all-woman platform. Once the doors opened, however, she put her hand inside my trousers and I realised that something more profound was going on - she was about to help herself to passport and money without so much as a buenos dias cabron.
My reaction was swift and ruthless, so we held hands for a split second, neither one making a move to board the train. She stepped back and glanced at three male accomplices, one of whom had a Guadelupe Virgin tattooed on his neck, the sure sign of a deranged psychopath in Mexico. The thieves ambled off unhurriedly to another part of the platform, looking for an easier prey.
Getting robbed in South America is an occupational hazard, utterly understandable in countries where half-a-dozen billionaires earn as much as 20 million unlucky wretches, for whom free trade means the choice between watching their children starve or poking their hands into the pockets of well-off tourists.
In the shabby streets of Lima, Peru, I wandered with a friend through the market stalls some years ago, until we noticed funny looks and fingers gesturing to our backs. Someone had sprayed our jackets with shaving foam and now the locals wanted to help us clean it off. We walked a few yards more, then followed an old man into his shop, where, curiously enough, he had a bowl of water ready for us to wash the scum we had got off the pavement.
An old woman then wandered in, wearing several layers of skirts, dropping money, pointing at the floor. As soon as I turned around, my backpack was gone, while my friend was tugging at someone else who was trying to get at hers. We grabbed each other and headed for the street, as the whole block was in on the scam.
Just then, a small boy caught my attention, signalling me over to him. You want your bag back, go down there, he said. A lucky break. I took a step forward, then froze in my tracks. It was a dark, foul-smelling alleyway, the piece de resistance of this inspired community development project. It was death. We waded into the traffic, walking between cars, until two minutes later we were back in the tourist zone.
That was 1989 and I wasn't about to be fooled again. I did a course in self-assertiveness, acquiring a freakish hobble and a wardrobe stolen from an elderly vagrant. Everything has gone smoothly since then, apart from days when interviews with politicians are scheduled. You can't turn up for presidential press conferences looking like a Nicaraguan terrorist, although it worked fine for the Contras when Reagan was in office.
The most stylish daylight robbery occurred in Bogota, Colombia, where things have got completely out of hand and the tourist office has taken to supplying insecure tourists with long horsewhips for even the shortest shopping expedition.
Appearances can deceive, however. It was in the exclusive Tequendama hotel car park in Bogota that I was stopped by a perfumed man in an expensive suit, who showed me a secret police credential. We're checking for counterfeit dollars, he said apologetically, as he stopped a Venezuelan tourist, asking to see his cash, too. The Venezuelan took a thick wad of dollars and handed them over for examination, and I produced two twenties, not wanting to show off.
He needed to check the notes at the police station, which was on the other side of the road. I looked around and the Venezuelan was gone, while my secret agent got into a car and disappeared. My first reaction was a spontaneous round of applause.
You develop an instinctive early warning system over time, but while a tough isolationist manner may guarantee a robbery-free holiday, it can also defeat the purpose, turning an exciting encounter with another culture into a battle of wits against invisible enemies.
And, of course, in the bigger scheme of things the camera whipped by local thieves is spare change alongside the expert institutional robbery of resources and income through debt repayments, supervised by people with huge salaries and no visible Virgin of Guadelupe tattoos.