Danger in beautiful places

February 2013

Last week, around 8 miles from where I am now living, 2 young Finnish girls on holiday were robbed at gunpoint by 5 armed men, two wearing masks. Not content with taking their money, cameras and phones, one of the attackers then decided to rape one of the girls. This happened in broad daylight, at around 1.00pm, about a mile from the archaeological site they had just visited, and one which is visited by thousands of tourists every year.

The girls were accompanied by two local boys, but had ignored the cardinal rule when travelling in South America – do not stray away from the main routes. After leaving the ruins, for some reason they did not take a taxi (very cheap out here) or bus back to the city, but decided to walk some of the way – and ended up in a notoriously dangerous area where they fell victim to this horrific crime. Apparently the police have already arrested 7 suspects, and claimed that they knew there was a gang operating in the area. Local people are up in arms about these, and other, gangs terrorising the area, with the police seemingly unwilling to do much about it.

As I am volunteering at a local charity, along with about 20 other young people from all over the world, the reports concerned me greatly, but trying to find more information about it was difficult in the extreme. Searching international media on the internet revealed nothing, and only two local newspapers seemed to be running the story, and in very little detail (one even claiming initially the girls were German), so I began wondering if there had been a deliberate news blackout to protect the extremely lucrative tourism industry here. I guess that I will never know, but what is abundantly clear is that South America, while beautiful and extremely inviting to travellers from all over the world, can be, and is, also a very dangerous place.