Amazon Hostel MAHATU - Leticia - Amazonas, Colombia

Comment by Richard Hastik, Austria

February 2009

Avoid this place! Owner organizes rip off tours!
A very bad thing happened to me and other travelers in leticia/colombia in the mahuto Hostel. We booked there a jungle tour for three days into the amazon. Before booking the trip, gustavo, the owner of the hostel, also told us that there could be the possibility of shooting a wild pig in the forest. (As the wild pig is an important food source for the endangered jaguars it is forbidden to shoot them!) The idea of shooting animals during a jungle tour made me suspicious about the whole tour, but gustavo promised that there wouldn't be any animals shot. As he was very helpful the day when I arrived I believed him and booked the tour. The next day we arrived after one-hour boat ride with a public boat at the town of libertad. When we arrived at the town our guide told us that we had to hike two hours to reach the camping side. It finally took us five hours with just two ten-minute stops. (we were three big guys that hiked fast, I am used to hiking because I worked for three month in the rain forest of costa rica, other people might even need much more time). During that hike we didn't get any explanation about the flora and fauna of the forest, we just headed straight to the camping site. After the dinner it was already dark and we had to go to bed, the next day we directly headed back again five hours without any stops. This time our guide told use it would only be one and a half hours because of a faster way, what was a lie again. (i tracked the trek with gps, we talk about a twenty kilometer hike in deep rainforest). In the late afternoon we arrived with a small boat (overfilled, just 5 centimeters out of the water -- dangerous!) at another town after crossing the amazon river. There we arrived at a family house that our guide also had never visited before. The family didn't know about our arrival (gustavo didn't inform them) and felt surprised. They asked why we didn't inform then before arriving. We felt strange that we just showed up and nobody informed the family. Because of rain the night walk in the forest was canceled a second time. Our guide told us that he can't get out because gustavo don't want that we get out when it is raining. He already had problems with tourists whose camera got wet and who wanted their money back -- very strange reason! The next day we returned after only twenty minutes of piranha fishing without even a fish. The same thing happened when we went out to see dolphins in the amazon. That might have been a bad mood of mother nature but after the next "event" we finally had to stop the tour. Our guide took us to a friend of him who knows a place where big anacondas live. As the guy showed up with a shotgun it turned out that he wanted to hunt anacondas with us, what is strongly forbidden in colombia. We asked us why we were sent on this trip, we didn't want to shoot any endangered animals neither we wanted to commit a crime. Beside the things which happened we really felt ripped off. The price of 450 colombian pesos (about 170 dollar) is unreasonable for a three-day jungle tour with public boat just an hour outside a big city, especially if you sleep in a tent and you don't have high costs for accommodation. Other agencies offer for the same price (and for three persons) a tour with a chartered boat deep into the primary forest. There you sleep in a lodge and not in cheap tends. Back at the hostel we had to call the tourist police because gustavo didn't understand why we disliked the tour, anyway it was no problem for him to sent tourists to shoot endangered animals. In his opinion those animals were anyway shot by local people. My opinion is that that might be true, but you must not support that crimes by organizing tours which include hunting those animals. Also it is also sufficient for him to sent people on a jungle tour with a guide that doesn't explain the fauna and flora, just the seeing the rainforest is enough experience -- for him. The police we found out that our guide was not authorized to do tours, neither did gustavo have a license to organize tours (at that moment).