"I can't even remember when I last experienced he beheading of a close friend. Everyone assumes it must be a weekly, or even a daily event: after all,
I live in Mexico. The truth, however, is that you are as likely to have your head removed against your will in my town -- Oaxaca -- as you are to be
murdered by roving, machete-crazed gangs in Martha's Vineyard.
You protest: slavering butchers are thin on the ground in Martha's Vineyard. Ah, but we do not have beheadings in Oaxaca. To be honest, they're
unconscionably lax about slaughtering tourists in this city. It just doesn't happen. There are whole great swaths of Mexico -- some 95% of the country
-- that are untouched by the drug war. In these places, tourists are annoyingly safe.
Take out a map. Mexico is rather large. To avoid all of Mexico because you fear drug violence, is like cancelling your trip to the Napa Valley because
you hear that people are flying airplanes into towers in New York City. (I'm sure a lot of Europeans did just that.)
The homicide rate in most Mexican cities is just not very exciting. People who read newspapers -- they are legion -- will tell you that Mexico City is
Elm Street on steroids. No way any vacation is going to take them near the Mexican capital. Yet these same people do not think twice about hauling
their beloved brood to Disney World.
Disney World is in Orlando. Orlando, Florida.
What, you're not trembling? The rate of violent crime in Orlando is really something. At the theme park itself you might not encounter drooling gangs
with machetes, but the likelihood of getting slaughtered is much higher in the city of Orlando than it is in Mexico City. The homicide rate in Mexico
City is sub-terrifying: 8.3 out of 100,000. The rate in Orlando? Honey, you don't want to know.
If you're truly bent on living dangerously, hit the French Quarter for a shot of faux absinthe. New Orleans is gunning them down at a rate of 51 per
100,000. To be fair, that is an improvement upon the post-Katrina high of 71 or so. No doubt champagne is flowing at the tourist board.
I happen to love New Orleans, but Mayor Mitch Landrieu admitted -- discussing a local high school -- that for part of last year "a student attending
John McDonogh was more likely to be killed than a soldier in Afghanistan."
Funny that people are not dissuaded from visiting New Orleans -- or Disney World -- by travel advisories that read like torture porn.
Oh, you do want to know those Orlando stats? That would be 11.7: which is better than New Orleans or Baghdad, but way higher than Mexico City. (28
homicides, in a population of 238,300.) Ironically, in the UK you'll encounter the same kind of hyperventilating press about Orlando that you'll see
here damning Mexico. To Brits, Orlando is the Mouse That Roared, Then Indiscriminately Dismembered.
In fact, the capital of America is a much more dangerous place than the capital of Mexico: You are 10 times more likely to get beheaded on a school
trip to the Lincoln Memorial than you are strolling through downtown Mexico City.
Okay, I'm lying. You are ten times more likely to be murdered in a drug-related crime. (The rate of actual beheadings is suppressed by travel agents
on both sides of the border.)
People ask me, regularly, how they can travel safely to Mexico. Here I have impeccable advice: follow this, and you're pretty much guaranteed to keep
your head. Taking notes? Good.
Do not, under any circumstances, take a job with a major drug cartel. Just say no. You do not want to be a hit man, or a mule, or even middle
management -- that's how people get killed.
I mean it: that is how people get killed. Sunbathing, on the other hand, is oddly uneventful. Yes, there are a few places in Mexico that I would
avoid, unless I were applying for that gig (which I urge you to reconsider). Most border towns are not the destination of choice, unless you are
brothel-hopping, in which case a soupçon of danger is probably bracing. Acapulco has gone, sadly, from a town in which you had a good chance of having
a bad time, to a town in which you have almost no chance of having a good time.
And Mexico City, while not particularly murderous, is somewhere to be very careful: petty crime is rife, and not-so-petty crime (kidnapping) is a real
issue. I travel through Mexico City all the time, and even chose to live there fairly recently, but I take the usual precautions -- I restrict myself
to taxis from official taxi stands; I don't use bank machines on the street; and I suppress the urge to wave my arms around and yell, "Rob the
Canadian!" (If you would like to give it a shot, that would be: "¡Robe del Canadiense!")
Lots of really nice cities are getting a bit hairy: Guadalajara, for instance. The San Francisco Chronicle has a useful list of places to avoid --
mostly areas on the American border, and south along the Pacific Coast to the state of Guerrero. The Washington Post has another useful list: they add
to this the entire state of Veracruz (which is very sad -- it's lovely). These two guides will steer you clear of all the places you have been reading
about, including the very few resort towns that have become dangerous: Mazatlán, for instance, and Acapulco.
Again, however, this is a tiny part of Mexico. "Of 2,500 municipalities (what we call counties), only 80, or fewer than five percent, have been
affected by the drug war."
Graphic anecdotes are hard to ignore, by design, but they are useless when trying to grasp the nature of a country that is not simply vast, but
immeasurably diverse. You know how Los Angeles doesn't have a whole lot in common with an Amish community in Pennsylvania? Well, multiply that
difference a thousand-fold when comparing Ciudad Juarez (a genuinely dangerous place) to an indigenous town in the Mayan Riviera (that edenic coastal
strip between Tulum and Playa del Carmen).
In fact, you are a whole lot safer in this entire region -- the Yucatan Peninsula -- than you are in Canada. The national homicide rate in Canada is
1.85 victims per 100,000. Sorry, kids, but that's a war zone relative to the Yucatan: .1 in 100,000.
Mexico's homicide rate as a nation isn't even world-class. The country is in fact something of a sissy relative to the thugs in the neighborhood.
Before avoiding Mexico, cross the following nations off your list: Honduras, El Salvador, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Venezuela, Jamaica, Belize,
Guatemala, Bahamas, Columbia, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Brazil... ah, but I'm boring you. I shouldn't be: All of these countries -- and this
is only half the list -- are murderfests relative to Mexico. Some of these places are worse than Miami.
Let's put this in perspective. Imagine a nice family from Oaxaca planning their vacation in Canada. They do research on the internet, and decide that
some things are just too risky. Tea at the Empress Hotel, for instance. Victoria, B.C.: the second most dangerous city in Canada? Must be called
Butchart Gardens because people get butchered.
So our family turns elsewhere. Hm. Probably best to avoid "Edmonton's Murder Belt." Aiee. We'll go east. Regina? Are you out of your mind?
"Saskatchewan reported the highest Crime Severity Index, followed by Manitoba." How about the West Coast? Not if our worried Mexican family cares
about that crime severity thing: "St. John's had the largest increase." This is awful.
At last, after carefully considering Prince Edward Island, our sensible family decides it is just not worth the risk. (After all, homicide in PEI has
skyrocketed.) You would have to be a fool to leave Mexico.
All right, all right. The beyond-exponential increase in homicide associated with Prince Edward Island -- when looked at closely -- is not really that
alarming. One whole person was killed in 2011. As opposed to zero, in the five preceding years. Prince Edward Island is hilariously safe. The Mexican
government has been decent enough to refrain from issuing travel advisories, despite the crime rates in Abbotsford and Thunder Bay. Level heads have
prevailed.
The truth is that most of Canada is almost as safe as the Yucatan."bajaguy - 12-25-2013 at 03:52 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by jimgrms
I agree ,but people misbehaving make the headlines .
^^^ This..........
Good news does not sell newspapers.
It is my humble opinion that a lot of the hype regarding violence in Mexico is amplified by the US Chamber of Commerece and the US travel industry to
keep US dollars in the states.......and news sources are glad to run stories about violence in Mexico because of advertising dollars spent by the
travel industry.......as they promote (with a straight face) visiting places like Las Vegas..............liknbaja127 - 12-25-2013 at 06:30 PM
Bajaguy, that makes great sense! Some people believe every thing they readalacran - 12-25-2013 at 07:06 PM
We already know about the crimes in Chicago, New Orleans, (all of) Florida, Ditroit etc, etc, and that does not cause news, nor sell newspapers.
Is easier to hit on Mexico.
I have vacationed (in B.C.S. for over 42 yrs. And now live there permanently, and having learned the rules of the land, with a shot of tequila, never
had any trouble.
Gotta be watchfull of the Canadian Cartel vs. RCMP war along the northern border
durrelllrobert - 12-26-2013 at 09:28 AM
wetto - 12-26-2013 at 10:39 AM
I just agree with friends and inquiring minds who are afraid of Mexico. I don't really need a new hotel built to accommodate them all and spoil the
area even more.EnsenadaDr - 12-26-2013 at 12:18 PM
You WILL get beheaded by expats on a Mexican board if not physically but verbally if you start posting anti-alcohol comments.sancho - 12-26-2013 at 01:09 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by EnsenadaDr
You WILL get beheaded by expats on a Mexican board if not physically but verbally if you start posting anti-alcohol comments.
I admit the BEER posts here pointless, how many different
ways can one post Pacifico is better than Corona?
In certain demographics, alcohol seems to fuel a percentage
of the US. But beheadings because of a post are somewhat
rare, but state your opinions/case, there is room for
everyoneDavidE - 12-26-2013 at 01:33 PM
Ya don't want to get caught selling inferior rolling papers on the streets of Culiacán after midnight.
Giving a guy los cuernos and calling him a peenchy cabron while he's holding an AK-47 and demanding your car and your wallet is also high inadvisable.
Getting caught with a lawnmower in Marijuana growing country is frowned upon.
Don't take your official replica DEA blue ball cap to Mexico.dasubergeek - 12-29-2013 at 01:05 AM
How to stay safe in Mexico: Don't be a pendejo.measomsan - 12-29-2013 at 08:07 AM
Now that's funnydurrelllrobert - 12-29-2013 at 10:43 AM
