Our trip caused considerable consternation amongst family and friends. We were uniformly advised against making this trip both by our experienced Mexico-traveling friends as well as by our friends and family who travel vicariously through the television. We heard a lot of emotional warnings about a “hail of bullets” and a “war zone” and “kidnapping.” In no way to do I mean to ridicule these points of view, as Juárez is clearly a dangerous place. Still, I thought a visit to the tourist zone just across the border was feasible. I don’t want to die. I swear.
Our plan was based on the the somewhat-informed notion that the violence in Mexico and Juárez is primarily among the various drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs) and that tourists have not been widely targeted since the violence exploded to its current proportions. This doesn’t mean that is safe, of course. It’s just that it’s different from a typical mugging. The bad guys in Juárez, by and large, are not mugging people for their wallets. To the contrary, most of the murders Juárez are the result of a targeted hit against someone from a rival gang. Hits against innocent people are almost always some form of retribution against someone from a rival group.
With this in mind, we restricted ourselves to the highly public and tourist zone during mid afternoon daylight hours on a Saturday afternoon. Even this zone has not been free from violence. Firefights among the warring DTOs have occurred in the central area of Juárez, though such events are not a frequent occurrence. Still, the possibility of wandering into such scene was our number one concern, although there was little we could do to protect ourselves aside from be vigilant for trouble.
Another issue that concerned us was that of kidnappings. I am well aware that countries like Colombia and Venezuela have ongoing problems with kidnappings for ransom. In typical cases, a person is kidnapped and held until the family can come up with the ransom money--usually a lot of money. As far as I can tell, this is not a common scenario along the US/Mexico border. We weren’t terribly worried about getting kidnapped for a ransom, but I suppose it could’ve happened. We specifically avoided taxis for that reason even though our quest for Salsa de la Viuda and Bohemia Obscura might’ve been successful had we taken a taxi out to a large supermarket away from the center of town. We just didn’t want to be trapped, helpless, in some taxi. (I keep writing "we" when really I should absolve Lisa of all responsibility for my crazy plan).
The final big security concern was a plain, old-fashioned mugging. For this reason, we carefully limited ourselves to well-populated public areas in broad daylight. We didn't venture down any dark alleys. We didn't walk for miles across town in search of our salsa or beer. We were surrounded by hundreds of people for most of our time in Juárez, most of whom were Mexicans who were out doing their shopping just like us.
Somewhere at the beginning of this post I rated my knowledge of the border violence as "somewhat informed." I make this determination because the mistake I made was that our plan was based more on my general knowledge of the border violence, but not on specific, up-to-date research. I think I'm more in tune that your average US citizen, but I'm still far from being an expert on the subject. I definitely should've read more before we went. Upon returning to work on Monday, I was excoriated by my friend Cheryl for being such a moron as to go into Juárez . She mentioned the recent case of a pair of University of Texas at El Paso students who were murdered in Juárez as well as other general cases of US nationals being murdered in Juárez. I was unaware of these cases, and I definitely should've read about them before we went. On further investigation, there have been a significant number of murders of US nationals in Juárez in the past year. However, each case I investigated was more complicated than you might think. In the case of the UTEP students, it turns out that there were not tourists at all, but rather US citizens who lived with relatives in Juárez and commuted to school in El Paso. All the other cases I found had similar familial or cultural ties to Mexico/Juárez. Likewise, in most cases, the murders were carried out in a deliberate assassination-style. Thirty-six shells were used to kill the UTEP students. It was not a random mugging. I couldn't find a single case in which a typical pair of gringo tourists were gunned down in broad daylight in the center of Juarez in broad daylight. This doesn't mean it couldn't happen, of course, but most muders carry the hallmarks of the warring DTOs.
While reading about the issue, I found this very interesting blog on Mexico's drug war. I'm no expert on analyzing who is and who is not an expert on the Mexican drug wars, but her blog looks pretty good to me. It's far more detailed, analytical, and less histrionic than most popular press reporting on the issue. In one post, she analyzes the details surrounding a case where three US citizens were abducted and murdered in Juárez while attending a wedding in Juárez. She writes:
"Analysis: The groom's father has told authorities and the media that he has no idea why his son and the others were kidnapped and killed, but the immediate answer is that they seriously ticked off someone in a major DTO - likely either the VCFO or the Federation, since that's who's fighting in Juárez these days. Initial information indicated there was never a ransom request or contact made by the kidnappers; now we know why. This was a targeted hit against those four people, and although we may never know the exact reason they were targeted, it's most likely there was some sort of DTO link there.
I have no information at all that indicates DTO enforcers are just randomly kidnapping and killing people for no reason. As I've mentioned before, that type of action would represent a MAJOR shift in DTO tactics - especially if US citizens were being targeted just because they were citizens. Several dozen US citizens have either been killed in Mexico or become victims of cross-border kidnappings. But US citizenship doesn't mean you're clean and invulnerable, or that you didn't have DTO ties before you swore the oath. I hate to be so cynical, but unless I read something solid to the contrary, I'm going to assume that these US citizens in particular were either actively involved in the drug trade, were witnesses to something they shouldn't have seen, or were working as informants for a US agency. All three of these situations are likely to put someone - regardless of citizenship - six feet under in a Mexican dirt pile."
So in retrospect, the writer of this blog seems to agree with my basic notions about the violence in Juárez, i.e. that they're not targeting typical tourists, although it is quite possible to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm not saying it was a good idea to go. I'm not saying it was safe (not even sort of). But I am saying that we were not likely targets in the drug war.
In the end, we walked in knowing that many choices we make in life are fraught with risk. Riding motorcycles, skiing, having sex, smoking crack, eating fatty foods, etc. all have finite risks. In the case of Juárez, my real question is how great was the risk? Pretty much everyone we’ve asked has told us that we were off-the-charts crazy to have gone. I have written a letter to “Ask A Mexican” at the OC Weekly to get a balanced, informed, and amusing assessment of our level of imprudence. He has written back and says he will answer my question in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.
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Well dumb or not, we did have a really great and interesting visit to Juárez. We can give first-hand reporting that things are really extremely different there now than they were a couple of years ago.
First off, there are no gringos there. We wandered the markets in el centro for about five hours. During that time, we saw exactly three other people who were obvious gringos. This is a huge change from recent years when we would've seen hundreds of gringos wandering around on a Saturday afternoon. Despite this, at not one moment did we threatened in any way. Nor did we get any reaction from any Mexicans that implied that we were idiots to be there. We simply met many friendly Mexicans. Just like usual.
We visited the tourist mercado. We were the only shoppers in the whole place. Most of the stalls were closed. Again, this is a huge change from the past, when you would've typically found the tourist market to be buzzing and thriving with happy gringos. The restaurants at the tourist mercado were open for business, but had no customers. None. The tequila shops had paltry pickings. In the past, the walls of the tequila shops would've been lined with hundreds of gleaming bottle of tequila. The border dentists were almost all closed. Not one taxi driver offered us a ride until we were within 200 yards of returning to the US at the end of the day. There were beggars, but many fewer than in the past.
We had lunch at La Nueva Central, a large, thriving restaurant not far from the cathedral and the buzzing non-tourist mercados. On first glance, it looked a bit too cafeteria-like, but on closer examination, we realized that the place was absolutely packed. Also, the pies in the window looked great. It turned out to be a the best meal I've ever had in Juárez. This isn't saying much, since most of the food I've had in Juárez over the years has been average at best. La Nueva Central, however, was excellent and cheap, a great combination in my mind. Lisa had queso fundido and I had huevos divorciados (divorced eggs). For desert, we had a cream pie. It was all super tasty, and the atmosphere was friendly and super-Mexican. We got our money's worth. We found out later that they've been open 24/7 since the 1950s. Here are some pix:
Huevos Divorciados:
Pay de Crema:
Here is a picture of street performers who run into the street at red lights to juggle for a few seconds before asking for a little money.
We ended up not buying much. The stuff in the tourist mercados don't interest me much. In the non-tourist mercados, I enjoy just trying to figure out how people live down there--what they buy and why. We did buy a few meters of oil-cloth to use as easy-to-clean table cloths during outdoor barbecues. We also bought a bottle of Correlejo tequila at Marcos' request. We ended up coming home with more pesos than we brought with us.
Lisa Shops For Oil Cloth:
A Strange Little Building Near The Tourist Mercado:
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An interesting post about the life in Juárez can be found here. Life is hard for those who are stuck there with nowhere else to go. One estimate suggests that over 100,000 homes have been abandoned and that 25% of the population has fled in the past two years. There were over 3000 murders in Juárez in 2010.
* I found out later that Caracas, Venezuela might actually be the true Murder Capital of the Universe. This might seem to be an easy question to resolve, but the Internet is sometimes more vague than you might like it to be. Some boosters dubiously promote Caracas as Number One Most Murderous while others claim that Juárez has overtaken Caracas.
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