I can't even remember when I last experienced the 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.
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Mexico resort beating victim emerges from coma - World - CBC News
Calgary woman beaten at Mexican resort still in coma - World - CBC ...
Canadian woman attacked at Mexican resort out of coma: brother
Cancun bar attack is more bad news for Mexico tourism ...
Woman emerges from coma after attack at Mexico resort | CTV Atlantic
Facts are simple and Facts are straight, Facts are lazy and Facts are late;
Facts don't know quite what to do, Facts don't do what you want them to;
... and so on
But thanks for this article, I am planning to move my frozen butt to Mexico from B.C., Canada
{did you know that the Pacific NW is the sole area in the entire world where the annual average temperature has DROPPED 3oC since 2008? - whereas the global annual average went up ~2oC since 1990}
PS - speaking of crime:
my neighbor was attacked by a knife-weilding brother-in-law who got 3 months in jail, whereas my neighbor's injuries will keep him off work for 6 mos. [I don't see how Crime Minister Harper's "tough on pot growers" is going to help THAT sad situation!!]
How not to get kidnapped in Beirut - don't go.
How not to get shot in ...etc, etc.
I suppose this might sound facile to some since businessmen can't always choose where their company sends them to conduct their affairs. I work in the film industry and have shot in several countries where the criminal element has presented a danger to us. First, read State Department and CIA (public) reports on the area. Second, when you arrive, immediately register with your local embassy or consulate. They can't help you if they don't know you're there. I would also ask myself if I'm travelling as a tourist, is it worth the risk to go? This is a big world and there are wonders everywhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
So if an American does get killed in Mexico (that they clearly rarely do) talk about biting the hand that feeds you!
Driving around Mexico sounds challenging enough... I'm not so sure that driving around WITHOUT your drivers license is a good idea.
I know my country its a beautiful one, but right know I'm just not as happy living here as I was two or three years ago. Lots of families with the possibilities when to live else where, including one of the closest families to me. And if someone from the States would ask me "Would you recommend traveling to Mexico right now?" I would definitely answer with a sad face "No, go somewhere else in South America like Chile or Argentina".
Maybe that's no how everyone in Mexico feels, but I've personally treated a lot people in the hospital that have been the victims of the so called "drug war", and most of them didn't make so well and I do get the sense that Mexico is a sad country right now. What do you think?
P.D. Sorry for my crooked english.
I think you are right when you say Mexico is sad, right now. It seems that much of the country is in the grip of corrupted officials, thieves and murderers, and a great part of the nation's destiny is in the hands of its northern neighbour.
But haven't these always been Mexico's problems?
If the sadness you speak of springs from a loss of hope, that is the saddest thing of all.
http://mazmessenger.com/2011/11/01/mazatlan-ranked-third-in-national-homicide-rates/
But you know the situation on the ground better than I do, and it may be that someone reading this to plan a vacation would be wiser to pay more attention to your opinion than mine. The last thing I want to do is contribute to the hysteria.
I'm not saying there are no dark sides to Mexico; it would be naive and dishonest to do so. There are drugs; there is also the violence associated with that. However, for the average person visiting Mexico, as long as you are respectful (ie. learn a few phrases beyond the cursory "Gracias", "Por Favor" and "otra cerveza", look to the locals as to how to dress and don't flaunt notable material excesses you will be treated as welcome visitors. The Golden Rule applies as always : Treat others as you would like to be treated.
Funny, I don't every remember being offended by a travelers lack of English skills.
However, they have been deeply affected by an apathy that is now only starting to seep into the American/Canadian psyche (The systemic abuse of power that is entrenched in the Mexican political system is one of the root causes of the apathy witnessed by foreigners. I won't even comment on the religious causes).
Most people pay no attention to politics there, generally assuming that all politicians are corrupt, like the police are. The corruption is more of a nuisance than an actual problem for the typical citizen. As this article says, there are more murders in Houston or Kansas City on most days than in the entire country of Mexico. Anyone feeling uncomfortable about Mexico should not go there, but the danger is greatly exaggerated.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/15/western-canadian-cities-still-most-dangerous-in-the-country-rankings/
The ranking was done by Macleans. It's also quoted here:
http://www.leaderpost.com/news/Maclean+ranks+Regina+Canada+fifth+most+dangerous+city/5867903/story.html
b. the writer and I went through this further down and I did find the stats. Which are somewhat odd in that violent crime in Victoria is very low but nonviolent crime is higer which puts Victoria second for crime. But it relates only to Canada where the crime rate right now is the lowest since 1973.
http://www.sipuebla.com/safety_in_Puebla.htm
My guess is that your family member was living in an uncharacteristically tough neighborhood. Another possibility -- and I suggest this delicately: having been a young man myself, once, I can tell you that they sometimes have a tendency to exaggerate the dangers they've experienced. I don't mean to suggest that your family member was deliberately distorting things, but his experiences do not square up with the statistics. I'd move to Puebla in a heartbeat.
The notion that locals do not help you if you're in trouble is simply untrue: New York used to suffer from a variant of this myth. In some cities, the police are not always as helpful as they might be (to put it mildly), but I've found Mexicans in general extremely open to assisting both locals and tourists. I imagine this is quite different in towns ruled by the cartels, but people in Puebla do not live in fear.
My landlady's family is in fact from Puebla, which is close to Oaxaca; she visits regularly. I was there myself not long ago to rescue a dog. It's a great town.