I checked out of my hotel and sat down on some steps to relax and figure out the day.

A girl came walking up the hill towards me with a big smile on her face and steady, unflinching eye contact, like we knew each other or were long lost friends. She was nicely dressed and sporting a smart looking backpack and I couldn’t tell if she was a tourist or a local.

She got right up on me, far past the comfortable, personal-space boundary, and stopped, still smiling, still staring.

I said “Hola” and we talked a couple minutes in broken English, before she explained something in Spanish about her ‘bambina’ at home. She finally cashed in all her chips when her “Don’t I know you, Poppy?” face turned into her “Give me money, Poppy” face, as she pinched some invisible bread to her mouth…

I told her, “No Sénòrita” and waved her on. I held my phone up to my ear as if I was in the middle of a conversation…. looked away… looked down… tried to ignore her… she stood there, not a sound, for 10 minutes… (TEN minutes!!) then walked on past…

A few minutes later, I could hear her walk back in front of me and I pretended not to notice, kept looking down, ignoring her. She stood there for 10 minutes again (not exaggerating, I clocked her, TEN), and kept making a mysterious crinkly, scraping sound that I couldn’t figure out. Each time I snuck a peak, she was freakishly staring at me… and in her mouth was a plastic baggie that she was blowing into, squeezing, blowing, squeezing… it was eerie and David Lynch-ian…

I was curious to see how long this could go on, but my sixth sense was telling me in very clear, colorful words that I should pick up my bags and slowly back away without any sudden moves…

I am pretty sure she was some kind of Pam Huffer, or glue sniffer, hitting off her homemade huffing device… or she was casting a voodoo spell on me… or both… it was spooky and very sad knowing her brain must be mush… either way, I know my sixth sense was correct… and I split the scene, man.