Argentine Couple Injured in Molleturo Bus Crash Raise Enough to Fly Home

What Happened

On April 15, 2026, a Cooperativa San Luis bus crashed at kilometer 57 of the Cuenca-Molleturo-El Empalme highway — the main artery linking Cuenca to Guayaquil and the coast. Fourteen people died. Twenty-nine were injured (source).

Among the injured: Gastón Firpo and Jazmín Repetto, an Argentine couple traveling through Ecuador who found themselves stranded in Cuenca without the means to get home.

On Monday, Firpo posted an update that the fundraising campaign they launched after the crash had hit its goal:

"Gracias a todos por su amor, logramos juntar la plata para llegar a casa."

("Thank you all for your love — we managed to gather the money to get home.")

As of publication, they're waiting only on flight authorization — a routine medical clearance required by airlines to carry recently-injured passengers.

What This Means for Expats

This story is human-interest, but there's a practical layer underneath worth pausing on.

The Cuenca-Molleturo-El Empalme route (Vía Molleturo, or E582) is the most used ground connection between Cuenca and the coast — the way you drive to Guayaquil, to the beaches at Playas and Salinas, and to the airport at Guayaquil for many international flights. It's beautiful and dramatic. It's also dangerous.

A few things the crash highlights that are worth internalizing if you use this route:

• Altitude drops thousands of meters over a short distance. Brake failure on loaded vehicles is one of the recurring causes of crashes on this road.
• Fog and low visibility set in quickly — especially in the Molleturo and Cajas sections, often by 3–4pm.
• Long-distance buses traveling this route have variable safety records. Cooperativa San Luis operates legitimate licensed service, but bus crashes on this corridor happen often enough that expats tend to avoid overnight departures or buses with visibly worn vehicles.
• If you have travel insurance, this is the kind of corridor where a policy that covers emergency repatriation is worth the annual premium.

If you're visiting Ecuador and something goes wrong, the infrastructure to help you get home is thinner than you'd expect. Ecuador doesn't have the same consular logistics some other countries do, so stranded foreigners frequently end up relying on community fundraising — exactly what happened here.

For Firpo and Repetto, the kindness of strangers — Ecuadorian, Argentine, and otherwise — got them what they needed. The Cuenca community turned out. And they're going home.

Source: El Mercurio