The Mexican Weighs In On Our Trip To Juarez

As promised, the Mexican at the OC Weekly has answered my question about the sanity of our recent trip in Juarez.  He didn't endorse our trip, but he didn't crucify us for our boneheadedness either.  You can read the full story here.

Is boneheadedness a word?

Sady, the Mexican had to edit my question.  The full question was as follows:

"Dear Mexican,


Yesterday, to the horror of friends and family, my wife and I walked across the bridge from El Paso into Mexico for a day of wandering the mercados of Juárez in search of Salsa de la Viuda and Bohemia Obscura. A quick internet search suggests that there were over 3000 murders in Juárez in 2010. Our friends said we were crazy. We are both very comfortable mixing with latinos in general. My wife is a "Spanish" person from northern New Mexico (call her a "Mexican" at your peril). Our view was that the drug lords are killing one another and are not much interested in a couple of day tourists in broad daylight in the tourist zone of Juárez. The fact that we saw only 3 other obvious gabacho tourists over the course of the day shows that US tourists are terrified of Juárez. Most of the tourist mercado was closed (we were the only shoppers there). Most of the usual border liquor stores were boarded up, and those that were open had scant inventory. The mercados favored by the locals, on the other hand, were buzzing. So, were we crazy to go? We had a great day even though we didn't find the beer or salsa."

In his reply, the Mexican implied that I could find what I need in El Paso, but I have never found either Bohema Obscura or Salsa de la Viuda there.  I've looked.