This article was on the front page of the Calgary Herald today in regards to the Rio Frio incident....
Calgary-area couple recalls Guatemalan armed robbery ordeal
By Jamie Komarnicki, Calgary HeraldFebruary 23, 2009
A Calgary-area couple who returned from Belize on Saturday said they endured a harrowing encounter similar to a local aid worker's ordeal when they were robbed at gunpoint at the Guatemala border nine days earlier.
Andree Lamoureux said she can't shake the terror she felt when the armed bandits targeted her and husband while they were exploring the remote Rio Frio caves in the Belize jungle.
The High River couple had hired a certified guide to take them on the tour, and were inside a cave with another tourist couple when five masked gunmen demanded their valuables.
Once the robbers left, the couple were able to make it to a police outpost about eight minutes away.
Police believe the bandits are Guatemalan and authorities are working with counterparts in that country to apprehend the men, according to local media.
Lamoureux and her husband, Bill Harris, cut their vacation short and returned home this weekend, to the relief of family and friends.
"It was just a frightening experience. It was something we never thought that we would live through,"Lamoureux, 52, said in an interview from her High River home.
"You don't care about what they're stealing from you. The only thing you think of is, 'I don't think we're going to make it out alive.' "
Lamoureux said she researched the area of the country she and her husband were travelling to, and felt assured they would be safe.
The experience proved her wrong.
Lamoureux said she's concerned other tourists could walk unwittingly into the same dangerous situation -- and not make it out as safely.
She questioned whether protecting the fragile tourism industry in the Central American country might be partially to blame for the dearth of information --and affect the authorities' motivation to pursue the crime.
It's a sentiment echoed by Calgary aid worker Sandra Van den Brink, who was aboard a small shuttle bus on Thursday with 11 other passengers in Guatemala when the group was accosted by four gunmen.
Van den Brink has been hunkered down in her Panajachel apartment since the frightening ordeal, fearful to emerge.
"I tried going out to the market yesterday and I felt paranoid. It's just ridiculous. I look at everyone's faces now thinking, 'Are you one of them?Are you going to hurt me?' "
She contacted her two adult sons in Calgary on the weekend to assure them she's safe, though shell-shocked.
Van den Brink, 54, still has some work to finish in Guatemala, but she's rethinking her stay in the country.
"I'm still trying to deal with getting over the shock of all this. I'm a little concerned about going back on the roads -- even to get to the airport -- at this time," she said.
"I need to have a little time and distance to feel brave enough to get back on the highway."
Canadian authorities warn that strife between drug cartels and the military should keep visitors to Guatemala on the alert.
Van den Brink said she's noticed that violence has escalated in the country in recent months and said Canadian authorities should put pressure on local officials to bring the cases to light.
She said she contacted the local embassy soon after the robbery but hasn't heard back from authorities in either country. "I think that was the most frustrating thing for me. I felt so powerless. Doesn't anybody care this happens? It's such an injustice."
Lamoureux said it will take a long time to recover from the experience.
She and her husband chose the Belize vacation to take them off the resort circuit. Apart from the robbery, Lamoureux said she was deeply affected by the trip.
"We saw some prevalent poverty,"she said. "You see things that will haunt you for a long time."
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