Hi Mel,
Thanks for the thoughts...On Ecuador, I think you're right. From the area I was in (Mariscal, aka "Gringoland", you could pretty easily walk to the embassy and police/phones were plentiful. I think I'll take the stand with people they need to simply call their embassy. Maybe I'll give them enough to at least call, in that way if they truly need help, it is available.
Have a good one...
Reply to this I was in Quito until about a week ago and I was mugged in a group of four people right outside our hostel (which was very annoying having a 10 inch knife waved at you within one week of starting your travels). OK it was night and the usual advice is "take a taxi at night". But another person that was staying in my dorm had someone try to climb into her taxi when it was dropping her off. She had to go to another hostel for the night.
It seemed like almost everyone I met in Quito had been robbed at some point (except one guy who had become such good mates with the dealers on the street he had some sort of street immunity). I have now been to Baños and Montañita and they are FAR safer.
I think that there may have been some sort of arrangement between the police and the muggers because when my incident happened there was a policeman on every corner except the one outside my hostel and when we called them afterwards they just didn't seem to care at all.
Reply to this Was that in the old part of Quito Alan? That has a reputation for being dangerous.
Mel
Reply to this Alan, I'm sorry to hear you had these troubles in Quito. That really does concern me and realize that it does happen more than I'd probably like to think, though I'd also like to know what part of Quito. Admittedly, most/all of my walking outside of the Mariscal was during the day, but I did do a lot of it in Quito. I can tell you I also walked a fair amount in the Mariscal at night and never had any real trouble. Maybe the closest I got to anything along the lines of "trouble" would be one guy who saw me walking on Amazonas on a Sunday afternoon. I saw he was talking to another gringo and when done with that one saw me and beelined it to me. It was a cordial conversation, but commonsense tells me that any stranger on the street that suddenly wants to be your friend probably isn't looking just for someone to shoot the **** with. After walking a little ways I pretended I was going to my hotel, the Hilton Colon (I, of course, wasn't staying there but he didn't know that). He then wandered off.
I never really talked with the police, though they didn't seem to be targeting me either. In fact, I got the impression the locals were almost overworried about gringos safety because they wanted to make sure we all go back and tell good stories about Quito to bring more tourist dollars to Ecuador.
I would agree Banos and Montanita are likely safer.
Reply to this Two quick additions...
1) For the record, I do not have any arrangements with dealers, police, or others in Quito to keep me safe! I'm just not that exciting of a person (intentionally...I like sleeping at night in my own bed, or one I voluntarily choose).
2) To the general question "Is Quito as safe as other places in Ecuador?" I would add just like any large city is not likely as safe as other parts of the country (I am far more likely to be mugged in New York City or Minneapolis than Ithaca, NY or St. Cloud, MN), other parts of Ecuador are probably safer. That said, if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. People get mugged in Ithaca and St. Cloud too...
Reply to this It was right in the heart of gringo land.
I have also been mugged within 50 meters of my house before. So i totally agree that being in the wrong place at the wrong time is a factor. Just seems that Quito is the wrong place at this moment in time, for a lot of backpackers.
Reply to this Wow...I'm not sure what to tell you on that, Alan, other than I'm glad to hear you are physically safe. I may have to email a few of the people I met in Quito to get their take on it. That said, take care...
Reply to this Ive just come from Quito. Great city, stayed in the old town and had no problems. Out of everyone I met at my hostel in the week I was there, only one or two had been robbed - one was waving their camera around when someone tried to snatch it at the markets, another was a guy walking alone in mariscal at night who had a gun pointed at him, but no cash - so the muggers took off with his cigarette filters. Not sure its as serious an issue as both the LP and rumours make it out to be. Just exercise usual precautions as you would in any other city in the world. Cheers, Ellen
Reply to this Ellen,
Good to hear from others who have been in Quito. I'm really of two minds on the topic in general...on one hand how do you discount the stories you hear? On the other, in my experience I saw nothing to make me think the city is inherently unsafe at this time. Though I have no idea where I'd find statistics, it would be interesting to see if statistically there are more problems in Quito compared to cities of similar size - or if it's just perception because it's a city we're not familiar with so it seems more dangerous because we're spending time trying to acclimate ourselves.
Though the Irish restaurant half-owner there would have reason to downplay crime in the Mariscal and city, of course, he did say he saw little problems other than when people were doing things that would attract attention such as waving cameras around...and that's probably true of any city.
Yet, again, when you hear about first-hand stories of snatchings or robberies it's still a little disconcerting.
Reply to this I had absolutely no problems when I was in Quito and the only one of my friends to have anything stolen was because she left her phone out on the desk when she was in an internet cafe. I think it is purely bad luck a lot of the time and a lot of trouble can be avoided by just being sensible (in no way suggesting you asked to be robbed!) For all that Quito has a bad reputation the majority of the people I was travelling with had more problems in Cuenca. The worst thefts were those that were almost certainly done by other backpackers - one friend's ipod went missing from a dorm room in Montanita and another friend had both her ipod and camara (at the end of a six month trip with all memory cards in the camara case!) go missing from a dorm room in La Paz, Bolivia.
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