South America - Quito / UIO warning: squirted with poop and robbed

In UIO for a short visit, about 20 hours.

Just after checking out of my hotel in Mariscal Sucre and standing kerbside to hail a taxi to the airport, I was squirted with poop and robbed of my backpack in Mariscal Sucre. This happened in broad daylight, 1pm on Av. Amazonas in front of at the least a hundred people on the busy street.

I realized it wasn´t bird poop as the first thief claimed when I turned around, and I looked up just in time to see the second accomplice throwing my backpack to the third who was driving past at that moment. The immediate bystanders were all implicated in this - six or seven of them. I had no time to do anything about this and in any case, I have heard that the police respond to this common event by giving tourist brochures and concurring on how peligroso UIO is. I just managed to get to the airport with my reserve credit card and US passport in pocket..thankfully... CM allowed me to check in late to use the bathroom for a sponge bath.

I then called my credit card providers, not so easy when all the numbers and my sheet of info was in the stolen pack, but this was disrupted when I was hauled off the plane. CM took me airside while this happening to authorize inspection of my poop-covered bag by Ecuadorian DEA. Something about the routing to PUJ and back to PTY, but my Spanish isn´t workable enough to understand the nuances. I told them the bag was covered in mierda no doubt as their dogs had discovered. They asked me if it [the poop coating the bag] was mine, and I said no, not at all, I didn´t even know from which animal it came. I signed for this inspection, which was conducted courteously and professionally on the ramp underneath Copa´s 737-700. The Colombians in the F cabin were using their iPods to track the AmEx call numbers for me while this was going on.

After that, I was reboarded. Copa closed the door but the crew permitted me to continue the convo with Amex for a couple more mins, freezing the accounts and learning that already an attempt had been made to withdraw cash. At least I could laugh about that because as I inform my providers I don´t use any of my CCs for cash withdrawl and this led to the efforts being declined.

It amused me slightly to know the thieves had toured multiple cashpoint machines in Quito with my various cards over a period of several hours and had been repeatedly and consistently denied by them.

I learned from the usual sources (traveling Australians) that this happens all the time and that UIO is much worse than BOG or CTG or other places I'd visited recently.

Compared with almost every other place I have been, the lack of official and civic will to take this problem seriously was palpable and quite disturbing.

My local guide in the Galapagos told me that in Ecuador you never call the police about anything because you will most likely lose something further to them.

Thanks for the warning about another theft trick.

The poop trick, they tried that on on me 15 years ago there... nothing new under the sun.
Sorry for you for all the problems it caused, not fun.
For this reason, I now have a Disaster Recovery Plan (really) that has my things in three different places, scans on my email, including all numbers etc and much much more.

This is a global scam - Delhi is known for it as well. Poop is a cheap and easily available accessory to thieves.

Quito (among so many other places - at some times Guayaquil has been even worse, and the markets such as at Otavalo where numbers of tourists gather can be troublesome for this kind of pilfering) is known for petty thieves of various stripes and their relative immunity to the constabulary (probably in cahoots). Take all precautions, as you would in most highly touristed areas with hungry, desperate thieves and scammers.

Some report wearing backpacks in front - easier to keep an eye on, harder for poop tossers to strike unseen.

Sorry to hear about this. I was there a couple of weeks before you and I left with the impression that it is much safer than it is made out to be. At least you still had your passport and the UIO folks were helpful.

Oddly enough in my five weeks in UIO recently I didn't hear about poop tossing.

That having been said, pretty much everyone I know got their bags/purses/backpacks slashed on the bus, even if they were carrying them in front. One guy even had his front jeans pocket slashed and someone took his phone. Slashings also happened to people in a tourist information office and I think on the street.

My method of dealing with this: Wear a jacket (made of a material that doesn't slash easily, like fleece) with large inside pockets. If you need to take a bag with you, phone a taxi and don't go outside until it's there waiting for you. I never had any problems.