"DARING" U.S. TRAVELER MOTORS INTO THE HEART OF MEXICO
Poor old Mexico. Talk about kicking a guy when he's down!!!!
Just when the price of oil plummets, American jobs dry up and the fear of drug violence cuts tourism, along comes the swine flu of 2009!!!!!
But, Finally some good news on Mexican Travel.
WE foreigners are not alone. American and Canadian license plates are common in Mexico, especially in Cabo.
If Mexico is so dangerous what are all of us doing here?
Written by Peter Ferry and Published on WORLDHUM.COM
Okay its time for a little good news. In May 2009 the US Centers for Disease Control lifted their recommendation against travel in Mexico. H1N1 probably didn't come to the US from Mexico in the first place. And now a little bit more good news. Drug violence is not a threat to the ordinary tourists like you and me. This is according to the Mexican government and the US State Department and Me. Let me give you a little back ground.
I had driven to, in and around Mexico often with impunity and pleasure, but that was years ago. Now I was planning two auto trips, one from the border to central Mexico and another from Mexico City to Cuernavaca to Oaxaca and back and my friends were alarmed.
"What about the drug war?" "Aren't you afraid of being kidnapped?" NO! At least I didn't think so. The dangers of Mexico have always been exaggerated, and I have always taken them with a grain of salt. The drug trade is nothing new, and poor people have been kidnapping rich ones for money in the third world and even in the first world (Italy) for a long time. Besides I am not rich!
Still news reports in the weeks before I left cause my grain of salt to grow smaller. One said that President Felipe Calderon's assault on the drug cartels has started a "civil war". Another called the kidnappings an epidemic. A third compared Mexico to Pakistan and described it as a failing state. And the CO of an Air Force base in New Mexico advised those in command who planned to drive into Mexico to do so in broad daylight in caravans with cell phones ready.
Hmmmmmm
I called Sanborns the American insurance people who have been providing auto insurance for American motorists in Mexico for sixty years and asked if they advised any speical precautions. "Only to stick to the main routes and not drive at night, but that is mainly because of animals that wander onto roads". (Mexico is open range). "Have you had any problems with tourists being held up or hijacked?" "No, We wouldn't be insuring them if we did." (A review of Sanborn's rates indicates no dramatic increases in recent months or years which would likely have occured if theft or damage claims had gone up.)
Okay, I'd go! But I would avoid Cuidad Juarez where the violence is the worst, I'd cross the border on a Sunday morning, the quietest time of the week and I'd do it at Laredo, where the cartels recently seemed to have called a truce.
WHAT FOLLOWS ARE FACTS ANECDOTES AND OPINIONS.
THE FACTS:
Mexican highways are excellent and well marked. Most major cities are now connected by well engineered toll roads that have limited access and are patrolled by Federal Police and Green Angels, motoris assistant trucks manned by mechanics. Customs offices are clean and custom officials are professional and efficient. Neither used to be the case. Gas stations are also vastly improved. Almost all now include a convenience store and some even have food courts. And the vehicle stock is better than years ago; gone are most of the lopsided buses and one eyed trucks of the past.
THE ANECDOTES:
David Tramp is an American who has lived in Ensenada Mexico for three years and sells real estate. He drives his hummer into California through Tijuana, one of the hotbeds of drug violence, about four times a month. Has he ever had or seen any trouble? "NEVER". Does he have any advice for tourists? "Stay out of high crime areas wher there are drugs and prostitutes. Common Sense!"
Fiona McNeil is a school teacher in her sixties with very little spanish who is working in a Waldorf School near San Miguel de Allende in Central Mexico. She drove there alone in nine days from her Bend, Oregon home without incident except to be short changed at a gas station.
Ramon Morales is a Harley Davidson motor cycle mechanic who came to Mexico with his pregnant wife and three year old daughter when he was laid off from his job in San Antonio, Texas. Despite his Hispanic name, he has red hair and a Texas twang. His wife was reluctant to come; "Now I can't get her to go home. Hell, I gotta get back and find some work."
Bill and Debbie Kent of Corrales, New Mexico speak no more Spanish than "por favor" and "gracias". They drove down the west coast of Sinaloa and Sonora, states where the drug wars are being waged, then across to Guadalajara and to the central Mexican state of Guanajuato before returning home. Like almost all of the dozens of American Motorists interviewed for this article, they remarked on the excellence of the Mexican roads, the courtesy of the Mexican drivers, and the scenic beauty of the drive. Nothing untoward happened to them coming or going.
Michael Stark is an Englishman with a home in Hertfordshire and another near Valencia in Spain who came to Mexico to study Spanish. He drove the five hundred miles from McAllen, Texas to central Mexico straight through at eighty miles an hour during the daylight and night time hours. He was stopped for speeding but the police let him go with a warning. His only complaint, which was true of virtually eveyone interviewed for this story, was heavy traffic around cities.
Skip Mascorro has been operating international motorcycle tours out of Spring Branch, Texas since 1981 in countries around the world including Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Moldova, Cuba and Iran as well as Mexico and most of Latin America. He regularly leads groups into the mountains of Chihuahua, Sonora and Sinaloa where the drug cartels operate and, some say, rule. He says Mexico is as safe as any of the countries that he has visited.
Then are the drug wars a figment of someone's imagination?
"Not at all" says Mascorro. "They're real all right, and they are a serious problem for the Mexican government, but they are not a problem for tourists." Mascorro compares them to the turf wars of inner city gangs or the internecine cocaine wars of the 1970's and 1980's in South Florida made famous in the television show Miami Vice and the movie Scar Face. "People were dying all over the place, adn no one stopped going to Florida." Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton drew the same analogy on March 26, 2009 speaking in Monterray, Mexico.
Then is the press over reacting in the United States?
"Yes." In Mascarro's opinion it is doing so at least in part in response to political pressure. Fanning the flames of the issue are the anti immigration forces in whose interest it is to stir up fear of Mexico and Mexicans. "I think this is about "the fence" that anti immigration groups want to build from the Gulf to the Pacific. Almost no one who lives down on the border wants a wall," says Mascorro. Indeed Texas's conservative Republican Govenor Rick Perry has opposed the wall, and Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano when she was governor of Arizona once famously said, "If you build a fifty foot high wall, somebody will find a fifty one foot tall ladder."
But alarmist news accounts continue. A healine on an article in the San Antonio Express News on February 8th, 2009 announced "Mexican Murders American Victims" and led with the statement that "230 U.S. citizens have been slain in Mexico escalating a wave of violence since 2003." After some alarming claims, the article implicitly admits that two thirds of those killed were involved in the drug trade or gang activity. Many of the others were in HIGH CRIME area's. In fact only THREE of the 230 deaths resulted in protests from the U.S. State Department seeming to support the Mexican governments contention that "Tourists wishing to visit cathedrals, museum's and other cultural centers are not at risk." Despite the Express New's claim that it's investigation "examined hundreds of records," it failed to report a single instance of an ordinary tourist on vacation being murdered.
A CNN report on Anderson Cooper's 360 that aired on March 5th, 2009 from Rosarito Beach in Baja California Norte warned American students of the dangers of travelling to Mexico for spring break reporting that twenty murders, including some beheadings, had taken place in the community in the previous year. Only late in the report then parenthetically was it noted that none of the twenty murder victims was either American or a tourist.
I entered Mexico with considerable trepidation sticking to the toll roads and watching both my clock and rear view mirror. When I departed a month later, I did so at my leisure using secondary roads and leaving even these to explore the villages and country side. As a motor tourist I did not feel threatened by the drug violence or kidnappings I had read and heard about. And I was able to take advantage of the very favorable exchange rate that has made Mexico once again the best travel bargain available while rediscovering that country's charm, beauty and friendliness.
SHOULD YOU GO??????????????
You'll have to decide that for yourself. As for me, I've already rented an apartment for a month in 2010. I'm going back and I am driving.
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