Time for a little travel warning for those headed towards Vilcabamba: do not stay at the hostel Las Ruinas de Quinara, also known as La Casa de Mauricio. The place gets nothing but bad reports from those who stay there, and currently a petition has been made to LibertadLatina.org to do something about the situation.

If you look up Las Ruinas de Quinara almost all the reviews (we’re talking 99.9%) are bad. I have never stayed there personally, but around town no one speaks kindly of the owner (except maybe the hostel staff) and many travelers avoid the place because of his reputation of making unwanted advances on female guests.

Because of the hype Vilcabamba receives as being a modern day Garden of Eden of sorts, many who have invested there feel that this is not the kind of bad press that Vilcabamba needs. However, something has to be done. In Ecuador the police protection is minimal, at best, and there is little or no respect for harassment or rape charges. With no strong forensic science, a witness is required to even being to do anything against a sexual offender, and even then many of the police can be bought for the right price.

One person interviewed and quoted on LibertadLatina.org states:

This one guy that owns a hotel hostel and he is from a rich family who pays the cops off whenever he gets in trouble and though he has been in jail several times for rapes he pays his way out And the people fear him and let him do whatever he wants. He is known to be a sexual predator and a bully with a temper. He waits at the bus station and preys on young traveling girls and lies to them about other places being full and offers them very cheap rooms because he does not need the money. I have heard possibly because he is from a Colombian drug king family or some other country but I think Colombia. He is famous for getting the ladies into the hot tub and drugging their drinks and manipulating them into sex while under the influence of drugs and alcohol and offers them a rent free room for sex which locals view as not really rape and even the police say technically sexual manipulation is not rape so he pays the cops off and is out in a few days… plus most ladies flee embarrassed and do not report it… And even more ladies do not speak of it or admit it at all… those that do are on vacation and do not want to waste so much of their time to press charges and those that do report it to the corrupt cops the reports fall on deaf ears.

The reports go on from there, some talking about how because he comes from a rich family he is able to pay off the police, and how he has avoided sentences for various crimes (some even claim murder) by hopping from country to country, and staying in the US for several years.

These are the reports I have heard from locals and other travelers, and they are common on the internet. Although I have never stayed there, nor have I met Mauricio, the owner, I think it’s better to be safe than sorry, and I feel it is my responsibility to pass these warning along to you.

In the same regard, women should use extra caution when traveling though Ecuador, and traveling through the country as a solo female traveler is just asking for problems. Be smart, and you shouldn’t have any problems.

Ecuador, Vilcabamba in particular, is a beautiful place and it is sad to see such horrible crimes happening there, but the fact of the matter is, no matter where you go in the world you are going to find bad people doing bad things. The best way to avoid them is to stay informed and use common sense.

I don’t in any way wish to discourage travel to Ecuador, this beautiful country deserves to be visited; I just think it is important that those coming down here have a realistic image in their mind of what the country is like.