Help Climbers Attacked in Peru

Michael Dupont wrote: Not sure what this means. Eat at Taco Bell and foul their water supply?

From a thread titled: Climbing Mag Doesn't Pay

By john strand
From southern colo
Dec 27, 2012

"I have tried tha t for several months... how about-

Pay Me

This is complete bullshit.. i have worked in the print media for many years.. pay for print is what we said .. end of disussion

I'm originally from the east coast.. the deal is pay me..

if not, then we have an issue.. not good

Maybe I'll go taco"

they should call in the A team ! an get some revenge ! third world toilets....? who cares about an I POD wen you have lost some teeth! sounds like a nightmare... wen south of the border you have to be extra careful!!!

Yep, first thing I thought of. US Travel Advisory to Guatemala still mentions that stuff...

Avoid close contact with local children, including taking photographs, especially in rural areas. Such contact can be viewed with deep suspicion and may provoke panic and violence.

Makes you wonder what the story is from the Peru side. Weird deal.

yeah, running over people and starting to shoot would've really controlled the situation....i'd put a grand that these folks would be dead had they started shooting or run some people over. seems they were outnumbered 50 to 3 or so? so unless they had a gun and a ton of ammo and were prepared to shoot dozens of people (how many guns did the locals have? how many did they have that went unseen?) or were going to run over a dozen people (would they have gotten out? barricades?), they probably would've been killed.

i'm not sure trying to out-shoot or run over 40 or more people would've worked. but hey, you're an american male, with a keyboard, so chest-pounding and bravado are de rigueur, right?

hope you guys heal up and get back to the States all right. sorry to hear of all this....spooky.

Maybe next time they will have travelers insurance, lesson learned. Maybe they should get a job instead of traveling abroad to pay for all their non essential material possessions.

As having been through the rioting random flare up roadblocks and South America shit its seriously how ya handle yourself. React calmly, respectively and assertively you're going to be ok most of the time. Carrying a weapon is not a good idea in sa IMHO unless you have an ARMY. And that's from my experiences down there...

Highlander wrote:Maybe they should get a job instead of traveling abroad to pay for all their non essential material possessions.

Empathy not your strong suit? I don't think they're looking for a handout to replace their I-pad or some shit, it's just a list of things they lost. They have to pay to get home, to replace their papers. It sounds like they have medical bills they have to pay.

Medic741 wrote:As having been through the rioting random flare up roadblocks and South America shit its seriously how ya handle yourself. React calmly, respectively and assertively you're going to be ok most of the time. Carrying a weapon is not a good idea in sa IMHO unless you have an ARMY. And that's from my experiences down there...

My BF, and I rented a car in Argentina to get around, and go climbing, and it was a little unnerving having to go through so many surprise police checkpoints/roadblocks. Some military police even called us Gringos when showing our passports. : ( Anyway, I would not have felt comfortable having anything I wasn't supposed to have in our vehicle, and I would never dream of having a loaded gun when I'm "visiting" another country, that's for sure. That's just inviting trouble, and ill feelings, IMO. And yes, your body language, attitude, demeanor, and how you handle yourself in potentially volatile situations can make things better, or worse in an instant. We made the mistake of doing a quick turnaround drive into Chile from Argentina, and were detained by police as we were under suspicion when entering back into Argentina. We remained calm, and polite, and they ended up letting us through eventually. We weren't going to try, and piss them off. We'd lose. : )

Safe travels, everyone!

I did a self-supported trek in Peru ~4 years ago and it was standard practice that you pay the locals to sleep on their land, "por la protección" as one of the local women put it. It is unfortunate what happened, but if you can afford the items (previously) mentioned in the blog post you can also afford travel insurance.

fossana wrote:I did a self-supported trek in Peru ~4 years ago and it was standard practice that you pay the locals to sleep on their land, "por la protección" as one of the local women put it. It is unfortunate what happened, but if you can afford the items (previously) mentioned in the blog post you can also afford travel insurance.

Michelle pretty much cut to the chase on this...and as already alluded to previously...a whole village does not just go nuts for the hell of it...no question there is more to this story...I have spent time in much more volatile/war torn areas (East Africa)....if you want to make camp on folks land...share with them/hang out with them...MAKE THEM WHOLE like you are asking to be made on your $4000 laptop (what is a $4K laptop????) and iphones. This generation has lived on the dole with their parents far to long. 18yrs old should be a gov mandated weaning age.

jmeizis wrote: Empathy not your strong suit? I don't think they're looking for a handout to replace their I-pad or some shit, it's just a list of things they lost. They have to pay to get home, to replace their papers. It sounds like they have medical bills they have to pay.

I think the problem some of us have is this: If they have enough money to drive across two continents with thousands of dollars worth of the newest flashiest gear, then they have enough money to take care of their flights home and some medical bills. Sure it will add up to a lot (especially getting the teeth fixed) but like others have said, insurance for a trip like this one costs less than an iPhone 5. If you are that worried about your material things, then pay for an insurance policy.

I know plenty of people who would be offended if they were asked to donate money to someone who wrote a story like this. It would have nothing to do with empathy, or a lack there of, and everything to do with the fact that these people seem pretty out of touch with what most of the world are going through right now. The world is in shambles and it's not getting better. Many of you probably live in areas where you don't really see the worst of it, but in the UK it's getting bad and in mainland Europe it's a lot worse. To think that a bunch of young Americans are vacationing around with cameras and laptops that are worth more than what most people have to their name - it's all fine and good until they go and get it all stolen and expect people to donate money to them afterwards. It's kind of a slap in the face. We know they need money for more important things like flights and med bills but like I said, they obviously have the money for that stuff or they wouldn't have bought all the other non essentials.

I agree though that there seems to be more to this story than just some people getting beaten and robbed. I can't imagine what could cause a whole village to get crazy like this but I hope that we find out someday so I don't do it.

Regardless of how the call for donations rubs me the wrong way, I do completely support these folks and like I said, I wish them all a full recovery. If someone really needs money to get home, I'm sure the members of MP would get together and buy a place ticket. In that case I'll be the first to donate.

Well put, Ryan!

Yeah, I was thinking some of the same stuff as RW. It really sucks that they were attacked, robbed, and so badly beaten. I feel very bad for them. But I suspect they have the means to pay their bills and get home. Still, I hope they are able to recover mentally and physically. Really sucks that the guy lost some teeth. Hope he got on antibiotics in time, if not that could have consequences later in life.

Werner from Supertopo has a better handle on the Peruvian reactions to Americans. They have a lot of deep seated hatred because of the war on drugs and soldiers burning their cocoa fields. His trip down there for work educated him on the scene. They have the same thread over there of course. It's on all of the climbing sites.

A few things to think about:

1. The support fund was set up by friends and relatives back in the US, not by the three travelers. They're pretty embarrassed by it (as you can read in Meg's most recent post).

2. The list of possessions and their value at the end of the original post was not intended as a plea for money. Meg didn't have time to write a full post herself, so she pasted in a letter that Jenny had written for a Peruvian agency that asked for an account in writing. It's exactly the kind of account I had to write many years back when my car was robbed in Oaxaca: what happened, what did you lose, what was it worth (before someone makes any more comments about "third world countries"--my car was also broken into a few months later in Vancouver, BC). Meg has since removed that list because they were getting so much flak about it.

3. If you've ever done a long, self-sufficient road trip, you know you carry a lot of stuff. All you dirt bag climbers, add up ropes, rack, crampons, ice tools, camera, that nice patagonia jacket. And so on. You get the idea. They were on the road for a year. They weren't waving their stuff around, it was in their truck. The villagers smashed out the windows and took everything. Please, no more comments about pampered rich kids.

4. Read the earlier blog posts from their trip. These guys are legit. Nice people, too.

Who knows why the villagers attacked them? Sounds like they were on edge about something. I'm sure there's an interesting back story here. Perhaps Jed, Meg and Jenny could have handled the situation better. Perhaps not. Either way, they didn't deserve to be beaten, robbed and have their teeth smashed out.

Amazing, I am glad to hear they made it out alive because that is all that matters. It sucks they lost all of their stuff but they are going to live. They are young and in 30 years they won't care about the material things they lost but will be happy they have lived 30 years past that event.

I am finishing up a book called Two Wheels Through Terror. Motorcyclist riding from Palm Springs to the southern tip of S. Amer gets kidnapped by the ELN in Columbia...scary stuff.

Personally, I can't bag on these travelers for the choices they made. They are out doing something that many dream of and few do. I am sure they did a lot of planning for the trip and even planned for something going wrong.

However, how can anybody plan for having your teeth knocked out by a rock while somebody levels a shotgun at your face?

wankel7 wrote: Personally, I can't bag on these travelers for the choices they made. They are out doing something that many dream of and few do. I am sure they did a lot of planning for the trip and even planned for something going wrong. However, how can anybody plan for having your teeth knocked out by a rock while somebody levels a shotgun at your face?

If they spent as much time reading international news(guns,killing,more guns, more killing) as they did planning for this trip they might have flown down there.

Even in peaceful third world countries it feels a bit strange and unsafe, especially in rural areas, to be on a "vacation" among people that have never heard of the word "vacation".

TRmasta wrote: If they spent as much time reading international news(guns,killing,more guns, more killing) as they did planning for this trip they might have flown down there. Even in peaceful third world countries it feels a bit strange and unsafe, especially in rural areas, to be on a "vacation" among people that have never heard of the word "vacation".

After reading through all of their posts before the attack there is no way there would have flown instead.

Here is an account in a Peruvian newspaper of the incident,

elcomercio.pe/actualidad/15…

"Al parecer, los turistas ingresaron a la comunidad, no se identificaron y hubo problemas con el idioma. Los campesinos los habrían confundido con abigeos."

It appears the tourists entered the community, didn't identify themselves and there were problems with the language. The villagers had confused them with abiegos.

Does anyone know what abiegos means? I think it is a slang term specific to Peru denoting a group of people possibly white? I have never been to Peru.

Many of the comments below the article reflect what has been said here, some are surprised, some think the story is unbelievable, and some say this region is known for violence.

-Patrick

Does anyone know what abiegos means?

Using Google Translate, it went:
"Apparently, tourists entered the community, were not identified and there were problems with the language. Farmers have mistaken the rustlers."

But the article is pretty much just recounting from the report made by the written statement that we have seen posted. There is no official word from the local police or embassy.