Earlier this week, despite the Border Patrol officer’s advice (see previous post), we visited Mexico. This requires an explanation. I’ll try to make it short.
Millions of Canadians and Americans - largely without incident - holiday in Mexico; they do so further south from here and on the coast. It’s the border - from the Pacific to the Gulf - that is so appallingly violent. This is the main battleground of the cartels, American and Mexican authorities. The front is a quick bike ride from my winter home in which, I hasten to add, I feel perfectly safe.
Many wintering northerners cross quickly into Mexico for health care and pharmaceuticals, which are much more expensive in the States. A few days after I arrived, Jode went to see her dentist in Reynosa, one of the more murderous border cities. Here’s the Rio Grande as we cross into Mexico.
Doctors, dentists and drug stores are a short walk from the river. Numbers have plunged, but enough gringos still come to keep business ticking over. Jode’s dentist lives on the American side, but crosses into Mexico to practice.
While Jode was being treated, I took a cautious wander.
This map, a few steps from the frontier, suggests road trips for tourists in Tamaulipas, the Mexican state bordering southeast Texas. Tamaulipas is hardly ever out of the news for killings - individual or massacres - discoveries of mass graves, drug smuggling, drug seizures, kidnappings, collapse of civil authority and plenty of other bad things. Carjackings are frequent. It would take a very brave or confident person - certainly not me - to drive down one of those circuitos.
As it was midmorning, I walked up to the main square.
I didn’t see another Canadian or American and certainly got a lot of second glances.
One or two people said ‘hello’, but you don’t have to be an old reporter to know when it’s safest to turn back. Such a pity as just a glimpse of the square suggested that Reynosa would be a wonderful place in which to wander. I slipped quickly into the cathedral.
Here’s one of those marvellous Mexican murals.
A report today suggests that one-third of Reynosa’s homes are abandoned. People are fleeing in large part because of the drug war. Tourists used to throng this arcade. The bars boomed.
No more.
I wasn’t sorry to be back on the American side.
In last year’s blog, I mentioned one Mexican border town that still gets a reasonable number of visitors. Click on the following link and scroll down about midway:
Over the last two years, tourism numbers in Nuevo Progreso have dropped by the tens of thousands. When we crossed a couple of days ago, the streets were noticeably quieter. But the margaritas are excellent and it’s still fun to do a little shopping.
Nuevo Progreso is considered safe enough because it’s small, isolated and the Mexican military and police attempt to guard the roads leading in. And so, some of us continue to cross, but it would only take one serious incident involving a gringo and the little town would be out of business.
I don’t want to end this post on a completely gloomy note. Earlier today, Don, Jode and I drove down to the mouth of Rio Grande at the Gulf of Mexico.
By the river, there was a fisherman on the American side. Beyond him, in Mexico, you can see (click on the picture) some cowboys - vaqueros - tending cattle and evoking the past.
