I’m still getting a lot of comments from people who think that I’m crazy to be in Mexico what with all the drug gang violence going on.
Hands up. How many of you would write off the entire country of Canada because of our recent terrorist attacks in Ottawa and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu? How about the entire United States because of the events in Ferguson? Yes, there is bad stuff going on in Mexico right now, but it’s nowhere near where I am and I am not going to write off a whole country for events happening in a specific area.
Furthermore, I was in Surrey, B.C. in early 2009 when there was rampant drug gang shootouts in broad daylight in places I frequented. I was paralysed when I was there, afraid to leave the RV park. So I know what it feels like to be somewhere unsafe. Mazatlán just doesn’t have that vibe.
In just about all the cases of violence against tourists in Mexico over the last few years, there has been a drug connection. When there hasn’t been, it’s just an unfortunate case of random violence that happens anywhere. I lived through the biker gang wars in Quebec in the ’90s where innocents lost their lives. It was only a gut feeling that kept me from a movie theatre in Surrey at the time of a shootout in 2009. The odds of my getting mixed up in something like that in Mexico, especially in such a highly touristic area, are slim. Or, at least, no worse than in Canada and certainly much better than in the U.S.
Would I wander around Maz at night? No. Would I wander around most large Canadian and U.S. cities at night? No. The exception in all cases being if I was going somewhere specific and had my transportation lined up. Dale and I are still thinking of going to a club to listen to her friend play music one night and we’ll take a pulmonia from the panga to the club and back.
Wandering around Maz’s downtown today, I was struck by the lack of panhandlers and gang youth hanging around. I strongly suspect that the area is kept ‘clean’ because of the local economy being so dependent on the tourists. I found myself walking in circles holding my iPhone and didn’t have that gut feeling I get in the States or Canada that someone is going to try to snatch it.
After a year and a half in deep rural Saskatchewan, it is wonderful to be living so near to a large, vibrant, accessible, and clean city that I feel so comfortable exploring.
I was enlightened about Mexico and Mazatlan last winter. Lynne of Winnie views drove her RV down to the Isla where you are staying to the RV Park. Another RVing Woman took a train down and back to Southern Mexico last Winter to visit family staying in Oaxaca. It was in her blog I heard of the Copper Canyon, Barranca del Cobre in Northern Mexico, a location that immediately got onto my so called “bucket list”. The impression most Americans have about Mexico is the result of our fear based sensationalistic press. That is not to say Mexico does not have problems of course.
John, you’ve just reminded me of another post I want to make, about being a young, single woman traveling alone in Mexico.
We live in Langley, next door to Surrey. The gang violence happened here too with rival gangs having shootouts right here in our neighbourhood. And now it’s nice and peaceful again. Mexico is as safe as any other country.
Peter, I’m still traumatized by my winter in the GVR. 🙂 I love the area and would visit again, but I will always feel on my guard there.
You’ve got it Rae! Just use the same common sense you use anywhere else in the world and you will be OK. Drug gang violence is sometimes present but is restricted to guess who? Drug gang members! These guys have much bigger fish to fry than to harass some poor tourist who may have two or three hundred pesos on her. If they did, they would have the full force of three levels of police concentrated on them, something their bosses would be very unhappy about. It is not in their interests to harass tourists.
Common sense includes always being aware of what is going on around you. If you see something that does not look right, leave. Same as you would in Vancouver, Montreal or Seattle. It is no different in Mexico. In the total of three or four years we have spent wandering Colonial Mexico in our RV, we never had a bit of trouble and never felt threatened. You are doing everything right!
Relax and smell the bougainvilleas!
Croft, any more relaxed and one would think I DID get conked on the head by the coconut the other day. 😉
😉
I, too, have always felt safe traveling solo in my RV. Sometimes I’ve wondered if I’m just doing the head-in-the-sand routine because so many other people think I can’t actually feel as safe as I do. Maybe it’s them?
I think that if you’re hell bent on finding trouble, trouble will find you…. 🙂
I don’t worry about you being safe as You seem very well equipped to handle anything that comes your way. Random acts happen everywhere, stuff happens. You have the right attitude.
I think followers of Tioga George and his last few months in Mexico may have made some of us a bit wary. Robbed twice and his two friends murdered does make one think……
When I lived in Gatineau my last year of my ‘normal’ life, I would go home for lunch. One day, a guy rode up to me on a bicycle, grabbed my breasts, tried to push me into the bushes, and spit on me after I kneed him in the groin as hard as I could.* That happened a block from home. I have never had anything even remotely like that happen since I started traveling.
Regarding what happened to George, I have a feeling that he was getting a little complacent about his safety and he has always taken risks. I’m not saying he deserved anything that happened to him, just that their are consequences to decisions.
(*A cop found the guy curled up behind a dumpster, hands cupped around his genitals, and sobbing from the pain. I was congratulated on making a guy twice my size (and I was big girl back then) cry.)
You sure have lived an interesting life! Like I said above, I don’t worry about you being safe as you seem very well equipped to handle anything that comes your way.
I have common sense, which seems to be in rare these days. 😀
Rae, You really got that guy! I bet and hope he didn’t do that again to some other woman. Got what he deserved where he deserved it!