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NOPE
Low reported severity

Tourist reportedly paid nearly $160 to reach a rural road near Mollepata for a 'Sacred Canyon of Humantay' that a trek operator says does not exist

BBC Travel reported on 29 September 2025 that a trek operator in a rural Peruvian town overheard two unaccompanied tourists planning to hike alone to the 'Sacred Canyon of Humantay'. The operator says the tourists showed the operator a screenshot of a confident, adjectival description, that no such canyon exists, and that one tourist paid nearly $160 to reach a rural road near Mollepata without a guide or a destination. The article implies an AI chatbot as the source of the description but does not name the tool used by these tourists, and gives no date.

AI system
Unidentified chatbot
Occurred
Event date unknown
Reported
29 September 2025
Event location
Peru
What the AI did
Communicated with the person
Reported harm
Other Material Harm
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Everyday life
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account
3 claims: 3 reported. 7 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 1 person

AI system as recorded: Unidentified AI chatbot

Reported harm

According to the trek operator quoted by the BBC, one tourist paid nearly $160 to travel to a rural road with no guide and no real destination. The operator says the plan could have exposed them to high-altitude risk. No injury is reported.

What remains unknown

  • Date of the event is not stated in any inspected source.
  • The AI tool the tourists used is not named for this event, and the screenshot is not shown.
  • The tourists' identities, nationalities and what happened after the operator's intervention are not reported.
  • The BBC text refers to 'the tourist' paying although it introduces two tourists. Whether both paid is unknown.
  • The BBC does not say to whom the fare was paid, whether it was paid before or after the operator spoke to the tourists, or whether it was lost.
  • The operator's own company page tells a differing story of a German couple who were re-planned onto a real route. That page names no payment and says the couple 'still hiked'. It is not established whether that is the same event.
  • The BBC article is a trend feature. Only the operator's account is given, from a single witness.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The operator says the tourists showed the operator a screenshot describing the canyon. The BBC ties the invention to AI chatbots and quotes an expert on the likely origin, but does not state which tool the tourists used or show the screenshot.

3 claims: 3 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported A trek operator says two tourists showed the operator a screenshot describing a 'Sacred Canyon of Humantay' and that no such place exists.

Causal attribution. The operator's statement. The BBC does not verify the screenshot or name the AI tool. An academic quoted by the BBC believes the program 'likely just put together a few words that seemed approriate to the region'.

Reported According to the operator, one tourist paid nearly $160 to reach a rural road near Mollepata without a guide or a destination.

Causal attribution. The operator's statement. The BBC's account of the sequence (payment before or after the operator met the tourists) is ambiguous.

Reported The BBC attributes the invented canyon to an AI program, quoting an academic's belief that the program likely combined words that seemed appropriate to the region.

Causal attribution. The academic's belief as quoted by the BBC. No tool or chat was seen.

  • bbc.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    the AI program likely just put together a few words that seemed approriate to the region.

Sources

2 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

English original, no translation. Applies to s1.

Portuguese translation of the BBC article published in Folha. Read by an AI model without human translation review. Not independent of s1. Applies to s2.

Event countries: Peru. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

BBC places the operator in a rural Peruvian town and the road near Mollepata. The tourists' nationality is not stated in the BBC article.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-29: A named local trek operator's account to the BBC, relayed in translation by Folha. One source chain. Unverified, undated and the AI tool is not identified, so the event date is not established and the case is published undated.

People reported harmed in this case

At least 1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

The BBC reports that 'the tourist' paid the fare and ended on a rural road. A second tourist is mentioned as part of the pair but no loss is reported for that person.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Tourist reportedly paid nearly $160 to reach a rural road near Mollepata for a 'Sacred Canyon of Humantay' that a trek operator says does not exist. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-peru-mollepata-tourist-reportedly-paid-160-dollars-sacred-canyon-of-humantay-operator-says-nonexistent

BibTeX

@misc{2025_peru_mollepata_tourist_reportedly_paid_160_dollars_sacred_canyon_of_humantay_operator_says_nonexistent,
  title = {Tourist reportedly paid nearly \$160 to reach a rural road near Mollepata for a 'Sacred Canyon of Humantay' that a trek operator says does not exist},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-peru-mollepata-tourist-reportedly-paid-160-dollars-sacred-canyon-of-humantay-operator-says-nonexistent}
}

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