Beware that the road between the Mojanda Lakes (located between Otavalo and Quito) and Tabacundo / Cayambe is not safe. We are writing this message to warn other travellers about the current problems in this area and hopefully encourage the police and others to take actions to reduce the problems in travelling in Ecuador.

In the early afternoon, on the 11th June 2006, my partner, our driver and I were robbed. We were travelling down from Lake Mojanda on our way to Quito on the dirt road to Tabacundo when we came across rocks blocking the road. Three men with guns came out of the bushes and got into our car and forced the driver with a knife to his neck to drive off the road into the bushes along a short dirt track so no one could see us from the road. They then proceeded to go through everything we had and took anything valuable including camera, watches, money, mobile phones, MP3 players etc. They patted us down to see if we had any more hidden items under our clothes. They did not take our passports, credit cards or the car we were in. The robbers had a car that we could not see waiting for them to make their escape. We were aware of the dangers in travelling in Ecuador and left as much of our stuff in Quito to avoid losing it in a robbery.

This road between Lake Mojanda and Tabacundo is a rough, lonely road (it is national park and no one lives along this road) and it looked like from the tracks in the road that no one had travelled on the road all day until we got there. We had only decided less than a couple hours earlier to travel back to Quito via Lagunas Mojanda. It was therefore surprising that these bandits would have had the patience to wait all day for someone to come by. We have therefore concluded that someone higher up the mountain tips them off that there is someone coming by mobile phone. We considered the possibility that our driver was somehow involved but concluded as we had only decided to travel via Lake Mojanda a couple of hours earlier that it was not possible for him to be. We had heard the warnings about robberies in this area but had also read one of the well known travel guides that stated that it was safe now since the area became a national park.

It was a scary experience, however the robbers did not hurt any of us and we decided to get on with our holiday without letting it worry us. We reported the incident to the police and the hotel where we hired the car from in Quito. There was little way to identify the robbers other than what they stole from us as they had covered there faces during the robbery. The only way to identify them probably is by the things they stole from us.

We went along many lonely roads in Ecuador and would do it again and won’t let an experience like this stop us from exploring the remote regions of the world, though we will take measures to reduce the likely hood of it happening again. Leaving as much of your stuff in a safe place while you travel is highly recommended. The only place that the robbers did not search was in the pockets of our clothes and we therefore conclude this is a good place to leave some of your valuables. Keeping valuables with your passport, in a money belt or whatever, is not necessary a good idea as this is the first thing they ask for.

We otherwise had a great 5 week trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos islands with many highlights and exciting times.