Brazilian tourist Paula Sibov dies tragically in Colca Canyon

Southamerican Explorer Travel Agency from Arequipa sold tour to Paula Sibov

Illegal guide was a student of Elmer Faucett Institute from Arequipa

by The Colca Specialist

The dead student Ciro Castillo has already a companion and this time I am writing about the brazilian Paula Sibov,a 24 year-old medicine student in Brazil who died tragically on Sunday 22 when she was doing a trekking tour in Colca Canyon.

Paula Sibov bought a trekking tour to Colca Canyon with a travel agency from Arequipa called Southamerican Explorer .The travel agency where Paula bought the tour was identified by the police officers thanks to the receipt they found in her pockets.According to the tourists Paula was not informed properly about the physical requirements needed to do a trekking tour in Colca Canyon and besides the travel agency endorse the tourists to a cheaper tour operator whose tour guides are not profesional.

Many travel agencies in Arequipa offer their clients the same circuit and the problem is that they don´t really care about their clients security. They just care about the money and they don´t inform their clients about the reality of this touristic circuit.

The main characteristic of these informal and cheap travel agencies is that they work with non-profesional guides but with informal tour guides who are exploited by travel agencies from Arequipa whose main concern is to increase their profits without caring about the security and physical integrity of their clients.

¿How it is possible that a conventional 2day tour to the Colca Canyon costs 16 US dollars and a 2day trekking tour with Peru Andes Expedition 90 soles? For that price be sure that something is wrong.

According to the investigations done the second day Paula Sibov had to go from Sangalle or Oasis to Cabanaconde. On the way she felt really sick and weak. The informal guide Sabino which is a student of the worst tourism institute of Arequipa: Elmer Faucett Institute suggested her to ride a mule which was already carrying cargo on the sides.

On a narrow point of the way the mule couldn´t continue anymore and it lost balance falling down in the depths of Colca Canyon with Paula Sibov who died after hitting the rocks on the way.

Paula Sibov is just another name in the long list of tourists that have died in Colca Canyon victims of the informality of the touristic services in Arequipa and because of the lack of professionalism of tour guides of Arequipa and the carelessness of AUTOCOLCA ,an entity whose main concern is to increase the price of the touristic tickets for visiting a place whose touristic services are CHAOTIC, a place that turned itself into the kingdom of informality.

As somebody asked me before about the difference between hotels. All hotels have beds, but they are not the same.Some of them have luxury rooms others not. The same happens with travel agencies of Arequipa so you should check carefully your trip choice before making a decision because this could be the last decision of your life.

Mule that falls down survives to the accident

According to the police officers the mule Pula was riding on fell down on a part of the path and stayed there but Paula was not so lucky and continue falling down.

Paula Sibov dies because of severe brain damage

Paula Sibov was about to finish the trekking when the accident happened. She fell down and she crashed against rocks in different points.The tourists that saw the accident were in state of shock and they couldn´t avoid crying. “We felt useless,we saw her falling and we couldn´t do anything to save her life. I am not going to come back to Colca Canyon again,definetively.These holidays are the worst of my life.I figured out that the authorities here in Colca Canyon don´t care about the tourists”.-These are the comments of the one of the visitors that arrived from Colca Canyon after the accident.

Peru Andes Expedition EIRL is one of the worst travel agencies in Arequipa

Incredibly the cheapest tour operator after the accident started to send emails to the different travel agencies in Arequipa saying that “they are the only ones in Arequipa that work with profesional tour guides”. These barefaced bastards believe that nobody knows that the guides they work with are NOT PROFESSIONAL. Peru Andes Expedition EIRL is the branch office of Santa Catalina Tours and Peru Andes survives thanks to the other irresponsible travel agencies like SOUTHAMERICAN EXPLORER that send them “victims” to take to Colca Canyon like Paula Sibov who died tragically because of the irresponsability of a travel agency of Arequipa.

James Posso the corrupted touristic promoter from AUTOCOLCA guilty of Paula Sibov´s death

The corrupted touristic promoter of AUTOCOLCA James Posso presented in a press conference a photo álbum with pictures of Colca Canyon .The death of Paula Sibov shows the reality of tourism in Arequipa and the kind of touristic promoters it has ,promoters that do nothing to improve the quality of the touristic services in Arequipa and Colca Canyon.

A real touristic promoter has to organize courses and seminars in order to improve the quality of the services offered.

The death of the brazilian tourist provoked by the irresponsability of a travel agency which sent the tourist with a ilegal tour guide who is a student of Elmer Faucett institute in Arequipa is something terrible. Colca Canyon is not a touristic marvel.

Authorities of Colca Canyon avoid the press because of the death of Paula Sibov

Authorities of Colca Canyon Elmer Caceres Llica and the other representatives of Arequipa are runing away from the press because of the death of the brazilian student.

Paula Sibov payed a touristic ticket of 70 soles in order to visit a touristic area. Paula died because of the irresponsability of the travel agency SOUTHAMERICAN EXPLORER from Arequipa which sent the tourist to do a trekking tour with an ilegal tour guide.
AUTOCOLCA is the entity in charge of the administration of this touristic circuit so they are the direct responsable ones of the death of the tourist because they are in charge of the administration of the touristic circuit and they are the ones in charge of the certification of the services provided by travel agencies of Arequipa.

No more dead tourists !

The Colca Specialist is a vitual magazine that denounces all the time the abuse of the travel agencies and corrupted authorities against the tourists.

We would like to send Greetings to all our friends in Brazil and at the same time we would like you to join us in the protest against the corrupted authorities of Colca Canyon who don´t care about the visitors but just about the money.
Send us your comments that gladly we will publish them. If you want to get more active please elaborate blogs or facebook fan pages protesting for the death of Paula Sibov. Thank you very much.

The Colca Specialist

Turista brasilera muere en el Cañón del Colca

Turista Brasilera Paula Sibov muere en el Cañon del Colca

Agencia de Viajes Southamerican Explorer vendió tour a la muerte.

Guia pirata era de Arequipa y es estudiante del Instituto Elmer Faucett de Arequipa

Ciro Castillo ya tiene compañía y esta vez se trata de la turista brasilera Paula Sibov de 24 años de edad la misma que en su país era estudiante de medicina de la Universidad PUC de Campinas la misma que se iba a graduar en el 2014.
Paula Sibov había tomado un tour de trekking de dos días una noche al Cañón del Colca la misma que según sus compañeros no había sido informada adecuadamente por la agencia de viajes en la que compró el paquete acerca del grado de dificultad de este paseo que acabó con su vida.

Las agencias de viajes de Arequipa no se interesan en la seguridad de sus clientes y en muchos casos a fin de vender los paseos mienten a los turistas y no les informan a sus clientes acerca del grado de dificultad de los circuitos de caminatas o de trekking en el Cañón del Colca dando como resultado situaciones lamentables como esta.

Para colmo de males estas agencias tour operadoras de circuitos de trekking como es el caso de Peru Andes no trabajan con guias profesionales a quienes explotan a sus anchas pagándoles salarios miserables,siendo la mayoría de estos jovencitos quienes en su afán de ganar algo de dinero incursionan en el guiado turístico sin tener ningún tipo de conocimientos de primeros auxilios ni nada por el estilo que garantice la seguridad de los turistas ni el éxito de dicho paseo.No sólo explotan a los guias locales,arrieros entre otros sino también a los dueños de albergues en el Cañón del Colca a los que pagan dos soles por cama.

Las agencias de porquería de Arequipa como Peru Andes Expedition ,Andina Travel, Colonial Tours contratan a estos improvisados pseudo guias de turismo a fin de incrementar sus ganancias y abaratar costos. De ahí que un tour al Cañón del Colca le pueda costar la irrisoria suma de 16 dolares (tour convencional) y un tour de trekking le puede costar 90 soles.Lo barato sale caro.Si el tour cuesta tan barato eso significa que el servicio que me darán será una porquería organizada.

Nosotros nos preguntamos ¿Qué hacen las autoridades parásito del sector turismo en Arequipa?¿Qué hace el gerente de AUTOCOLCA? ¿Cuál es la labor del promotor parásito de AUTOCOLCA James Posso? Acaso este delincuente no sabe que primero se necesita poner fin a la informalidad existente para luego promocionar el Cañón del Colca como se debe? ¿Qué hace el bueno para nada de Elmer Cáceres Llica? Al parecer se ha dedicado a promocionar el Cañón del Colca haciendo esculturas de los turistas muertos.

El presidente del directorio de Autocolca Elmer Cáceres Llica ha demostrado una vez más su incapacidad para dirigir a esta institución llamada AUTOCOLCA a la que maneja como le viene en gana, contratando a quien le venga en gana y rodeado de una sarta de peleles sin opinión ni decisión propia.

El hecho de que hasta la fecha no haya podido dar solución a la terrible crisis en la que se encuentra el Cañón del Colca,un destino turístico afectado por la informalidad, cuyas consecuencias lamentables estamos viendo en la actualidad, es un claro indicador de la ineptitud que tiene para ocupar el cargo que tiene dentro de AUTOCOLCA, institución a la que dirige como si estuviera sentado en el baño.

Paula Sibov viajaba con un grupo de turistas con un guia pirata,estudiante del peor instituto de turismo de Arequipa y me refiero al instituto Elmer Faucett de Arequipa.El nombre del guia pirata es Sabino cuyo apellido ignoramos y publicaremos en su momento.. Estos pseudo guias turísticos de medio tiempo no tienen ningún tipo de conocimiento ni la más mínima noción de primeros auxilios entre otros cursos especializados necesarios que puedan garantizar en este caso la seguridad asi como la integridad física de los turistas.

Dado el desinterés por parte de las autoridades es que hasta la fecha vienen dándose sucesos lamentables como este provocados por las agencias de viajes de arequipa y la terrible informalidad que se viene dando en el Cañón del Colca.
Según las investigaciones hechas el accidente ocurrió el segundo día cuando Paula Sibov después de haber pernoctado en Sangalle u Oasis se dirigía por el angosto camino de herradura que va desde Sangalle hasta Cabanaconde.

En el trayecto la turista se encontraba bastante débil y su guia le sugirió montar una mula la misma que se encontraba ya cargada con varios equipos. En el trayecto la mula ,bastante agotada por el esfuerzo y por la excesiva carga que llevaba perdió el equilibrio y se precipitó al vacio con todo lo que llevaba encima incluyendo a la turista que acabó por estrellarse entre las rocas, muriendo instantáneamente.

Mulas de carga sufren maltratos en Cabanaconde

Asimismo se ha podido comprobar que el maltrato a los animales por parte de los arrieros es realmente terrible.
No sólo patean y golpean a los animales sino que también los cargan con cargas cuyo peso es excesivo provocando situaciones lamentables como esta.
Es por esa razón que los turistas que hacen este tipo de actividades deben gozar de una optima condición física y mental para hacer este tipo de travesías para asi poder realizar este tipo de actividades sin problema alguno sin perjudicar a los animales que son víctimas e maltratos por parte de sus propietarios inescrupulosos y de los guias comisionistas de turismo de Arequipa que hacen lo que les viene en gana.

Mula sobrevive milagrosamente a accidente

La mula en la que montaba la turista brasilera Paula Sibov sobrevivió milagrosamente al accidente. Al caer esta se precipitó al vacío cayendo directamente en una parte del camino pero la turista brasilera no tuvo la misma suerte y continuo cayendo estrellándose contra las rocas muriendo debido a las severas lesiones y pérdida de masa encefálica.

AUTOCOLCA es la responsable de la muerte de la turista brasilera

La Autoridad Autónoma del Colca es la responsable directa de la muerte de la estudiante brasilera ya que es la entidad encargada de la administración directa del circuito turístico ,entidad a la que se le paga un ticket turístico con un costo de 70 soles.
Dado que es la entidad encargada de la administración del circuito turístico son los responsables directos de la presencia de los guías informales en el Cañón del Colca asi como de las agencias piratas que vienen operando este circuito.Se ha comprobado que el guia encargado de dicho grupo de turistas no tenia carnet de guia profesional de turismo,no era guia de montaña y ni siquiera era orientador turístico afiliado a alguna asociación de guias locales.El guia pirata era de Arequipa y en la actualidad estudia en el Instituto Elmer Faucett de Arequipa.

Paula Sibov compró el tour a la muerte en la agencia SOUTHAMERICAN EXPLORER de Arequipa

La turista Paula Sibov de 24 años de edad compró el tour en la agencia Southamerican Explorer de Arequipa ubicada en la calle Jerusalén. La policía de alta montaña encargada de hacer el rescate de la estudiante muerta encontró en uno de sus bolsillos el contrato de la mencionada agencia en donde ella compró el tour.
Curiosamente la policía indico que esta mala agencia de viajes y turismo de Arequipa al igual que las demás agencias de viajes y turismo de Arequipa no le entregó a la turista la boleta de venta o factura como debería ser sino un simple contrato lo que viene a ser una clara muestra de la terrible informalidad de las agencias de viajes y turismo de Arequipa asi como la escandalosa evasión de impuestos en el sector turismo en Arequipa.
Las agencias de viajes evaden impuestos de una forma escandalosa en Arequipa y sólo les entregan boletas o facturas a los turistas peruanos pero con los extranjeros hacen lo que les viene en su regalada gana ante la mirada triste e inútil del presidente del Gobierno Regional Juan Manuel Guillén Benavides.

Southamerican Explorer envió a la muerte a la estudiante Paula Sibov al endosarla aun tour operador mucho más barato a fin de ganar más dinero,enviándola con un guía pirata de Arequipa que debe ser puesto en la cárcel de acuerdo al reglamento vigente por el delito de estafa en contra de la turista Paula Sibov al desempeñar una función que no le correponde además de atentar contra la integridad física de la pasajera.

The Colca Specialist

Ed Stafford,the man who walked the amazon

Ed Stafford, the first man to walk the entire length of the Amazon, talks about starvation, machete-wielding tribesmen and flesh-eating parasites.

By Amy Willis

For a 6ft 1 in man, there is a lot less of Ed Stafford than you'd expect. His trousers hang around his hips slightly and although he is bigger now than he was nine months ago, he is still rebuilding the muscle he lost during his incredible 6,000 mile journey from the source of the Amazon in the Peruvian Andes to its mouth in eastern Brazil.

Ed was warned that his two-and-a-half-year trip on foot across South America, which he documented online in a series of blogs and video diary entries, would end in failure and possibly death. But the explorer attempted it anyway, and nine million-odd steps and around 200,000 mosquito and ant bites later he proved his critics wrong.

“I was in my early 30s didn't have any kids, no wife, I wanted to do something incredibly challenging and I was in a lucky position to be experienced enough to do something big and not have those responsibilities,” he says.

Perhaps surprisingly, the 35-year-old former British Army captain wasn’t that fit when he landed at his starting point in Camaná, Perú. He had decided that given all the walking he was about to embark on he would just get fit as he went. But as the months went by and the miles under foot hit their thousands, instead of becoming an Adonis, he found that his muscle mass started to break down and he got weaker and weaker.

"We were slightly malnourished for the whole time,” he says, “We didn't have enough food to actually maintain our own body weight. When we came into each town we were so hungry we over ate and we sort of entered starvation mode."

Lack of food drove him to break their no-hunting policy. Ed recalls one time after two days on low rations when he and his Peruvian walking companion Cho spotted a red-footed tortoise nestling in the leaf litter. They wasted no time worrying about ethics and butchered the tortoise there and then, before roasted it over a woodchip fire in garlic and oil to make tortoise jerky.

They also scavenged for palm hearts, wild tomatoes, nuts, wild bananas and later fished for piranha, narrowly missing a run in with a two-metre electric eel capable of producing a potentially lethal 500 watt shock."I think it can always look out of context and in fact I just adapted to life in the jungle," he says. “We tried to deliberately not hunt but we needed to survive."

Cho joined the expedition six months into the trip, just before heavy flooding pushed them onto the drug-trafficking route through a lawless region of Colombia. Ed had fallen out with his original walking companion Luke Collyer after just 68 days; something the pair had not anticipated.

Everyone in the drugs trafficking region was involved in cocaine production, from the local peasant who grew cocoa leaves, to the people managing the town.
"In the town plaza there is a huge concrete coca leaf, which is the plant they make cocaine out of, and it is not very subtle, they don't try to hide the fact that that is where all the money comes from," he says.

The Colombian drugs trail included "The Red Zone" in Peru where petrified locals believed the "gringos" – including Ed – were trying to kill them to harvest their organs; something which understandably led to some hostile encounters. "As I looked over my shoulder there were no fewer than five dugout canoes heading in our direction – all full of armed Ashaninkas. Many of the men were standing up in these narrow vessels and were armed with either shotguns or bows and arrows. The women among them had machetes," he recalls in his book.

Ed and Cho were marched at arrow point to the village where they had to apologise to the chief for not having sought permission to enter their land. They were lucky; had they been carrying weapons the outcome may have been different.

Other people in the region called him a corta cabeza or "head cutter", running an index finger along their throats as he passed. “It was no doubt linked to the way indigenous peoples have been treated in the past by colonial settlers – but it was sad that such fear existed in these people’s lives,” he says.

But despite the dangers, Ed made it through the drug trafficking zone without too much trouble.
In April 2009, one year into his expedition, he reached the hardest part of the journey: the Brazilian rainforest. With worse flooding, poor maps, and parts of the Amazon rainforest which had never been walked, the threat of failure was overwhelming. Not to mention reports of fierce tribes that had, in the past, killed other British explorers.

Insects were also a concern: at one point Ed found himself with a botfly larvae growing in his head. “It was like a little pin prick and it can keep you awake at night," he says. "But you can't squeeze them out if they are alive and you have to block off their air hole so I did that, I used a bit of super glue actually and killed it and then squeezed it out."

“Botflies are flies that lay eggs on the underside of mosquitoes," he adds. "The mosquito bites you and the eggs feel the heat of the mammal, or in my case my head, and the eggs drop into the bite and then a small larvae starts growing inside the flesh. It is not serious at all but it is just eating away at the flesh in order to grow."

Progress was slow through the dense jungle but in August 2010, Ed Stafford and Cho finally emerged from the rainforest to attempt the final leg of the journey to the Atlantic Ocean.
Dozens of journalists were waiting for them, having followed their progress through the hundreds of blogs and video diary entries he had uploaded onto his website throughout the journey.

Nine million-odd steps, more than 200,000 mosquito and ant bites each, about 600 wasp stings, six pairs of boots and a dozen scorpion stings later Ed Stafford became the first man to walk the Amazon rainforest. It was, he admits, the best day of his life.

Ed plans on doing another world first in September next year. He is keeping the plan under wraps but says it will be a challenge outside the Amazon. Follow his progress on his website.
Ed has just released his first book Walking the Amazon, which is on sale now.

Overcoming fears

An experience with death in the Apacheta Cemetery of Arequipa

by The Colca Specialist

Yesterday´s night the public beneficence of Arequipa presented an event called “Overcoming Fears” which took place in one of the most well-known cemeteries of Arequipa called “La Apacheta”.

“Overcoming Fears” is a night ghost tour prepared for the different arequipenian means of communication and authorities too. Th especial guests were the members of the tour guides association of Caylloma ASGUIP TUCAY and the teather group PAZ CLOWN from Arequipa.

The circuit inside the cemetery was created by the tourism bachelor Marcela Chilo Tipola who was in charge of the presentation of it. Cesar Antonio Neyra Nuñez, the president of ASGUIP TUCAY association was in charge of providing the historical information during the circuit and the well-known Guillermo Rendón shared with the tourists his deep knowledge in comparative religion.

The teather group PAZCLOWN from Arequipa started the tour with a really beautiful dance called “La danza macabra” a version of “the dead dance” a dance that was introduced in Peru by the spanish conquerors.

The experience of being at night was incredible, and all the participants had an incredible experience inside the cemetery.

The tour was really diffrerent from other ghost tours I took before which were a real disaster. This one was different beacuse we had theather,music,three different kinds of guiding an a special surprise that when it was announced many people felt a little bit scared including me.

Marcela Chilo Tipola, the creator of this night circuit inside La Apacheta Cemetery announced that we were going to be guided by somebody who died before.

That person was the tour guide and famous sportsman Guillermo Rendón who died on July 24th 2006 in a traffic accident in Colca Valley area. He was 30 minutes without pulse and heartbeats inside the ambulance with a doctor a nurse and then after that he came back to life again.

That made the difference. Guillermo Rendón didn´shared only his vast knowldege in Comparative Religion and aboriginal cults but also his experience with death during the accident.

The circuit ended with a very deep message : LIVE THE PRESENT.

All the participants considered that this event was really great and that the authorities of tourism of Arequipa should do its best in order to create new touristic circuits like this one.

Eventhough that the representatives of tourism in Arequipa Luis Venero La Torre and representatives of Promperu didn´assist to the event.Authorities like these should be buried quickly in the sand of forgetness.

Congratulations to all the participants and see you next time!

The Colca Specialist.