Scot hijacked at gunpoint on Peru bus trip
A SCOTS backpacker has told of the ‘worst 48 hours of his life’ after he was abducted at gunpoint by thugs in South America.
Andy Lawrie, 24, from Aberdeen, was travelling by bus from Peru’s capital Lima to the city of Arequipa when the gang of armed robbers jumped on board.
They hijacked the bus and drove the terrified passengers off to a desert area, where Mr Lawrie was frogmarched off and forced to lie in the sand with a gun at his head. The men then rifled through his pockets before ransacking the vehicle.
After the ordeal in the early hours of Sunday morning, Mr Lawrie wrote on Facebook: ‘Undoubtedly the worst 48 hours of my life.
‘Halfway through the night, after just having fallen asleep, I heard several loud bangs and the bus screeching to a halt.
‘Not sure how many there were in total but two large Peruvian men brandishing guns came upstairs and started shouting rather loudly in Spanish. Shoving the guns in everyone’s faces, they went through folk’s pockets first, then ordered everyone out of the bus... I was seconds away from being killed.
‘It was the first time I’ve had a gun pressed to the back of my head and not an experience I ’ m keen to repeat.’
After the thugs made their getaway, Mr Lawrie and the other passengers were left stranded in the desert until the local police found them five hours later.
But he would not let it spoil his holiday: ‘I’m doing Colombia, Ecuador and Peru as I’m between jobs before starting my new one on September 1.’