BajaNomad - "Beer Is Cheaper Than Water Here..."

"Beer Is Cheaper Than Water Here..."

BajaNomad - 12-1-2002 at 07:33 PM

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/business/1683266

Nov. 30, 2002, 11:05PM

By JENALIA MORENO

CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico -- Every day, Marisol Quintero walks between the two worlds of Cabo San Lucas.

She spends her days on the beach trying to lure tourists considering buying luxurious time shares in this sun-soaked paradise. These condominiums are so out of her reach that Quintero doesn't even fantasize about spending one night in their oversized beds, with their 380-thread-count sheets.

Late at night, she returns home to her two-room shack, where she can see countless stars through the gaps in her sheet metal roof. The sky isn't dimmed by the glare of lights in this shantytown, where there's no electricity.

By morning, she's out again trying to steer rich visitors toward buying vacation homes on the beach or renting water scooters.

"Where are you from, amigo?" she asks nearly every American who strolls past her on this beach in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur.

To tourists, the herds of vendors such as Quintero on the beach seem a nuisance. Most walk past without ever giving her a second look. She's just another face in this sea of poor trying to keep afloat in one of Mexico's most opulent resorts.

At night, Quintero invites tourists to dine on jumbo shrimp at a restaurant on this town's boogie-all-night drag.

"We have to have two jobs here to live," Quintero, 31, explains.

Working two jobs, six days a week, Quintero earns $350 a week, the same amount tourists might spend on a short vacation in Los Cabos -- the common name for Cabo San Lucas and its neighboring town of San Jose del Cabo.

"Would you like to see the menu, amigo?" she calls out to tourists who spend the equivalent of her daily salary on a seafood combination platter and an overpriced daiquiri. At bars up and down this party town's main street, waiters pour tequila down the throats of young tourists out to show their stamina.

For tourists, this is a nightlife mecca. For locals, Los Cabos seem close enough to paradise, with a natural beauty and constant influx of American dollars.

Take a short drive north of the beach, the yacht-filled marina, the five-star hotels and restaurants like Hard Rock Caf? and Squid Roe, and you stumble into reality in the form of pot-holed dirt roads, shantytowns and yards filled with burros and chickens.

At night, buses are dropping off maids and waiters wearing starched uniforms after work. Quintero lives in an area like this, where 5,000 people subsist.

"I see people who have a lot, and I don't; and it makes me want to cry," said Quintero after she arrived at the 900-square-foot parcel of property she calls home.

Quintero bought this land for $1,000 a year ago and hopes to save enough money to paint her plywood walls and build a real floor where there's now only dirt.

Economists also see the stark differences in living conditions.

"We're a study in contrasts," said Margarita Gracia, director of the University of Baja California Sur's Los Cabos campus. "We're the most expensive tourist destination; we have extreme poverty."

The trouble for the many people lies in the cost of surviving amidst such splendor.

While tourists take bubble baths in hotel rooms costing $150 or more a night and dance in clubs pulsating with loud music and bright lights, Gracia said many workers in Los Cabos don't have basic services like water and electricity.

The local government made promises to deliver such services during the last election, but residents are still patiently waiting.

Those people who do have electricity complain the prices are too high. Living in Los Cabos costs 45 percent more than living in the country's capital of Mexico City, another expensive city, Gracia calculates.

And earning the government's minimum wage of about $4.22 a day doesn't cover living expenses, so most workers have to survive on tips.

But they still have to pay the same high prices tourists do: $1.90 for a 2-liter bottle of Coke, $7 for quesadillas at a hotel restaurant and $3.80 for a 1-gallon bottle of water.

It's a problem the developers of the posh houses going up here are aware of. Doug Schnitzer, a Houston developer who is selling multimillion-dollar homes along the beach, said his management company has donated money to fix a local ambulance, helped on local cleanup campaigns and donated funds to repair a local school.

"It's important to everybody to step forward to make the Los Cabos area something we want to be proud of," said Schnitzer, who said developers in Los Cabos need to be involved. "If we all don't care, long term that will have a detrimental impact on everybody involved."

Not too long ago, Cabo San Lucas was an affordable and sleepy fishing town. Here at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, the Sea of Cortez spills into the Pacific Ocean, and for decades it attracted divers and fishermen drawn to this once-isolated town that was only accessible by sea.

Back then, fisherman gave their excess catch to locals, recalled Carmen Gonzalez, who like many Mexican residents of this area moved here in search of a better life. She arrived in 1975 from Mexico City and spent many years working as a waitress in a bar before she married and had children.

Everything changed when the Mexican government stepped in about 20 years ago and began to develop this town at Land's End.

Real estate developers descended and built resort hotels and golf courses.

Now homes go for millions. Cabo attracted the rich and famous from former Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar, who opened a bar, to Enron's elite, who used to jet here for the weekend.

Now there's an international airport and a paved highway.

Such international fame has created jobs. Few people beg on the streets of Cabo San Lucas compared with other Mexican towns.

But it has also created steep prices for everyone.

Up to 10,000 Americans and other foreigners are retired or work here, and they, too, complain about the prices.

"It costs me $100 to fill up my Hummer," said an American real estate agent in San Jose del Cabo.

While tourists and foreigners gripe about their margarita bills, more than 100,000 locals struggle to pay the price of potable water delivered to their homes by a truck twice a week.

"The beer is cheaper than water here," said Quintero, who earned a degree in accounting but never found a job that paid more than the tourist industry.

Locals can't even afford the seafood in this fishing town.

Gonzalez, 50, said it's been a long time since she ate a piece of fish.

"We can't have the luxury of eating shrimp, because shrimp is very expensive," said Gonzalez, a leader of her community in San Jose del Cabo.

Hotel workers have tried to organize and demand higher wages, but many people are afraid of losing their jobs, she said.

Gonzalez and Quintero blame the Mexican government for allowing poor people to live in these primitive conditions while rich tourists enjoy five-star vacations here. Local government officials did not respond to media queries.

With the government so cash-strapped, the only alternative to helping the poor get basic utilities is to force hotels and other investors to provide decent living conditions for their workers, Gracia said.

Until then, Quintero and her neighbors use candles to see what they are cooking or make their way to the hole in the ground that serves as a toilet.

Quintero pointed out a lighted shop on the way to her home.

"The only place with lights is the place that sells beer," she said.

[Edited on 12-7-2002 by BajaNomad]

JESSE - 12-1-2002 at 08:03 PM

Very nice article, and very truthful, coming from a dirt poor family myslef, i understand the problem of those people, i took me an incredible amount of resolve in order to work my way out of poverty and make a decent living. The problem is Mexico is basically a problem of laws, and enforcing the laws, Mexicans are very hard working and imaginative, the problem is that to start a new business in Mexico for a Mexican is extremely dificult, why?

In Mexico if you have a better product or offer a better service, and you dont have conections or access to even the smallest of loans, its virtually imposible to start a business, add to that having to get a bunch of business licences, get no break from the Tax man, and corruption, and you a have a mission impossible.

Regular people in Mexico dont start businesses because the whole system is set up in a way that you are almost assured to fail, you can have a great product or service, but nobody will give you a small loan, and if you do manage to start the business, you have to deal with competition that doesnt play fair, and a Goverment that sees you like a cash cow to get money from you instead of an investment.

Another unfortunate thing that happens here and is very little discussed, is that we have a closet race segregation, look at most business owner and well off people and you will se that most of them are of spanish descent, or have very little meztisaje, people that look indian (the majority does) are look down upon and get even less oportunities.

No matter what the goverment does, if it doesnt reduce corruption, and it doesnt make it easier for regular Mexicans to start businesess, the situation here will always be the same, thats why Mexican overwhelmingly prefer to start little businesses where they just make enough to live, its the only way they can control their destiny.

amen!

Bajabus - 12-1-2002 at 11:19 PM

I second what jesse says!

Packoderm - 12-6-2002 at 12:24 AM

One business that I can think of that is not being offered is decent baby-sitting. Where can a tourist find a licensed baby sitter in CSL? I had to pay $10.00 an hour for a sitter to sit in our suite and watch our son while she watched cable tv. I'm sure there must be some to have safe-guards to protect the child and the parents and allow a baby-sitter to make a little money.

David K - 12-7-2002 at 12:58 AM

You went to Cabo with a child... and then left him/her with someone you never met before?

You stay in a 'suite' but want to pay less than $10/hr. for the safety of your own child?

I'm sorry to nit pick, but as a single parent I am seeing red lights flashing at your post.

Would you want to save a few dollars and risk your child to being kidnapped for a ransom (it happens).

Again, sorry for sounding like Dr. Laura but I suggest don't travel until your child can join you on ALL activites in a strange area. Otherwise, leave the child with family. Go dancing or nite clubbing in the U.S., and go visit sites in Mex. (with children).

Dave - 12-7-2002 at 03:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BajaNomad

"It costs me $100 to fill up my Hummer," said an American real estate agent in San Jose del Cabo.

[Edited on 12-7-2002 by BajaNomad]

Oh No! I feel your pain. :lol:

Stephanie Jackter - 12-7-2002 at 11:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dave

Quote:

Originally posted by BajaNomad

"It costs me $100 to fill up my Hummer," said an American real estate agent in San Jose del Cabo.

That line stuck with me too, Dave. My heart bleads for the poor hummer driver.

To Pacoderm: No need to self flagelate for hiring the baby sitter... But Cabo is a rotten choice for a vacation if you want to save money on anything. I remember taking my kids (8, 5 and 3 at the time), to breakfast in CSL when we went to get our passports a few years ago and getting stuck for a 40 dollar bill - and two of them even split a plate of bacon and eggs! I couldn't believe it. Highway robbery is alive and well in Cabo San Lucas and my heart truly does go out to all those regular people who can't keep up while the developers make gobs of money on their backs.

Isn't that an adequate picture of how things are becoming in the whole world right now? Eat or be eaten....- Stephanie

[Edited on 12-7-2002 by BajaNomad]

Oh No! I feel your pain. :lol:

Packoderm - 12-8-2002 at 01:29 AM

I was not complaining about the $10.00 per hour for the babysitter. And, we didn't hire just anybody. It was arranged through Las Misiones de Cabo; they advertise babysitting. We saw the sitter for about a week before we decided to trust her. But, you have a point. That would definitely suck if our son was kidnapped; my wife and I discussed this at great length before we went for it. Really though, what I was trying to get at is the business opportunity for an entrepreneur to open a legit babysitting operation in Cabo. I wonder if kidnapping babies is common in Baja? p.s. We were amazed at all the price gouging in Cabo; much, much more gouging going on than I remembered in '95.

[Edited on 12-8-2002 by Packoderm]

babysitting in cabo

cgsmith - 6-5-2003 at 09:56 AM

I agree that a child care/babysitting business is very needed in Cabo - as well as day time "kid club" type activities.

I have traveled alot with my kids and have used a hotel provided babysitter a time or two. Usually, the babysitters come with excellent references.

More American children are abducted in America than in Mexico. I'll take my chances with a reputable Mexican babysitter long before I would leave my kids with an American I did not know.

I don't see that you did anything wrong.

Family Guy - 9-12-2003 at 06:33 PM

excuse me for barging in here but I think we are missing the point of the article which is the effect of a tourist economy on the local poor population.

I have little sympathy for a tourist who travels to Cabo and complains about the price gauging. Dave, I feel your pain at the pump--yes a hundred dollars to fill up your Hummer is a indeed a bummer but it pales in comparison to the plight of the locals.

I think this article touches upon a very important trend in the world that is playing out not too far away at the WTO meeting in Cancun. Will free trade and the influx of Western development and American dollars lead to a rise in the standard of living for poor countries? Or will it simply create even more clear divisions between the haves and the have nots, the rich and the poor, and the ethnically elite and the rest.

Unless, like Jesse explains, opportunities for entrepreneurship are made available for the locals they will simply be exploited and forced to survive in society where prices are driven up by the advantaged. Being a resort community, the situation is exaggerated and distorted to a degree but is played out in various ways all throughout Northern Mexico and 3/4's of the rest of the world.

I tend to favor globalization and increased trade, but I also realize its enormous impact on the third world. Unless everyone is able to make the transition effective, we may have more to worry about than the cost of gassing up our Hummers.