A couple has been missing in Peru for a month now as Peruvian authorities continue to work with the U.S. Embassy to search for them, according to reports.
Garrett Hand and Jamie Neal, both 25 and from San Francisco, Calif., but living in Oakland, were last heard from on Jan. 25, a day before they were expected to arrive in the capital of Lima on Jan. 26 following a cycling journey of several hundred miles to Cusco. Per ABC News, the two chronicled their adventure on Facebook, but the photos of camping, the wildlife and the people they met along the way and status updates stopped on Jan. 25.
The last post read, "Finally found Kraft Mac 'n' cheese in South America! Stoked LOL."
KTVU reports that after traveling through Argentina, Chile, and Peru, and arriving in Cusco, the pair was last seen on Jan. 26 getting into a taxi in Lima.
Neal's boss, Jeff Jerge, who owns a Bay area bicycle shop the Pedaler in El Sobrante, Calif., where she has worked for over two years, said that the couple missing in Peru embarked on their journey at the end of November, or early December. Jerge told Reuters that no money has been withdrawn from either of their bank accounts since Jan. 25.
Fox 40 reports that the cellphone of Hand, who is a fisherman in Alaska, goes straight to voicemail.
"There's potential that they could be out of service and there's potential they could have just lost contact, but the frequency of their posts before Jan. 25 was pretty close to one another, and certainly there's never been a gap like this," Jerge said. "It really doesn't look good."
The couple missing in Peru coincides with a travel advisory that the U.S. Embassy issued on Feb. 13 warning foreign tourists near Cusco and the ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu of a potential kidnapping threat. As Reuters notes, the warning was widely interpreted as being linked to efforts by a band of Maoist Shining Path rebels to repel a government push to regain control of jungle valleys in the Cusco region known for coca cultivation and cocaine trafficking. However, the embassy said there was "no connection between the disappearance of these two U.S. citizens" and the travel advisory issued in February.
While, the embassy made a statement saying that the couple was last heard from on Jan. 25 en route from Cusco to Lima, it appeared to conflict with accounts of Peruvian police and the Arcoiris ecological community in the Amazonian region of Iquitos, located hundreds of miles northeast of Lima.
Arcoiris told Reuters that the couple missing in Peru had stayed there for five days before leaving by boat on an upriver journey to Ecuador on Feb. 16, three weeks after their families said they received their last communication from them. According to the National Police of Peru, witnesses reported seeing Neal and Hand leaving Peru for Ecuador by boat in late January.
Family members and friends of the couple missing in Peru have begun collecting money to offer as a reward and are seeking to get flyers with pictures of the couple and information about them distributed in Peru.
The State Department has produced bilingual missing person posters with an image of Hand and Neal, while a Facebook page devoted to finding them asks that any helpful information be sent to a State.gov email address.
Jerge's bike shop has so far raised money and created flyers in both English in Spanish, too. Jerge, who has been in contact with other bikers in Peru to post the flyers, which offer a $3,000 reward for information leading to their whereabouts, according to the San Jose Mercury News, is also planning on reaching out to his distributors who have global offices to help get the word out.
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