Scary times in Baja

[EddyBreffitt]

Check out this story:
www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20071016-1426-bn16kidnap.html

[windanseaphoto]

Surfers warn of armed robberies while camping on Mexican coast

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20071114-9999-1m14baja.html

Weber said he and his girlfriend had gone to Baja to escape the foul air caused by the wildfires in San Diego County. Just after sundown Oct. 23, two men wearing military clothing and ski masks confronted the couple. Weber said he initially refused to come out of his motor home, but surrendered after the robbers fired a shot into the vehicle.

"They made us get down on all fours – execution position – and put guns to our heads,” said Weber, who owns the San Diego Surfing Academy in Carlsbad.

[gdewitt1]

Here's another one.

http://www.race-dezert.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36297

[pacspeed]

Just got back from a week in Cabo, actually only a few hours ago. Had a great time, rented a little beach place in Zacatitos (east cape), side trip to Los Barilles, surfing every day, fresh fish and lobster every day, an absolutely amazing decompression time.

We had to part with a 40$ mordida since I got spotted by a traffic cop with an open beer, but thats nothing new or dangerous. The vibe was very low key, everything felt totally safe. I was fully convinced that the violence, crime, and thuggery we're discussing was a border area problem.

This very morning, not 12 hours have since passed as I write this, a flustered gringo expat walks into my brother's rental house, just down the beach in the same community, and asks to use the phone. He had just been carjacked, at gunpoint, about two miles down the road we had been driving on everyday. This was not a case of ostentatious American sticking out, he was a building contractor driving a white Chevy pickup, about the most common vehicle down there. One car pulled out and blocked the road, another pulled in behind him, the same old story, gun to the head, kneel in the ditch, look up and you're dead gringo.

I have always been one to defend the general safety of traveling in Mexico, but this has tipped the scale for me. This guy was alone, my brother and I had been all over those roads for a week with our wives and 4 young kids. What if the perp decided he didn't just want the car and the money, but a piece of Gringa tail while he was at it? What could we do? In that scenario, our kids would get to witness either or both of their Dads getting killed or their Moms getting raped.

The bottom line, I will still travel (nervously) in Mexico, but not with wife or kids. We were down there looking for property to buy, that is clearly off the table. We wont even go into the double standard applied to foreigners when it comes to law enforcement. I have read accounts of Americans doing 20 to life for having guns on their boats in Mexico, yet the place is obviously flooded with them. Get caught with some pot, and you're going to jail, until somebody who loves you enough empties their bank account, yet the government is riddled through with drug money and criminals.

The whole place is just kind of rotten. Until the Mexican government can get a handle on the crime situation, and present some semblance of rule of Law, the place remains far too savage, corrupt, and dangerous for my taste.

[ericandholly]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21950265/

[pacspeed]

Funny thing about the rule of law....that good samaritan got arrested as soon as the Border Patrol arrived.

It's still better than if he had been able to pay the Agents a few clams and walk free.

[allen]

Hearing these stories about Baja is pretty sad; makes you wonder what's going to become of the place. What's Trump going to do w/the condo's he's building in northern Baja? Chauffeur people back and forth across the border in armored limos? Baja is all toursim, if they don't clean up the crime against tourists, they will economically ruined. Captain Kirk and all the places in La Ventana need their guests to make it safely from La Paz/Los Cabos airports to the beach. What's going to happen to them if everyone is getting car jacked withing 2 miles of the airport?

[captainkirks]

I have been driving from SoCal to La Ventana and back every year (sometimes twice in one year) since 1993, and have had to pay a grand total of $20 to one cop in Ensanada when I ran a red light by mistake a few years ago. Granted, I only drive Northern Baja in daytime - but in Baja Sur we drive from La Paz back to La Ventana at night fairly often and have never had even one incident.

In La Paz, I have been pulled over by the local cops on average once per year, and have paid ZERO in fines except for the time (over 10 years ago)my car had temporary plates, I had no registration, no tourist card, and I had no drivers license with me. I wonder how much that would have cost me in the USA if I was a foreigner...it was $100 cash here, end of story.

While these recent incidents are certainly bad news, it seems that many people are ready to jump to conclusions without a lot of facts to support those conclusions. Thousands of tourists drive the roads in Baja every year, and very, very few have any serious problems - especially south of El Rosario and in Baja Sur (South).

To my knowledge, none of our guests at Capt. Kirk's has had any kind of serious problem with the police in Southern Baja, and that is for a total of 15 years.

Should people not buy a house in Florida because Sean Taylor (of the Washington Redskins) was just shot and killed in his own house there?

Should everyone leave LA and SF and other big cities because so many people die in accidents on the freeways?

Maybe we should all move to Canada (if they would take us), because the Fundamentalist Muslim Terrorists are after the USA and will strike again, sooner or later?

[rationalnational]

dude,

like beam me up.....

[BajaVaya]

I have a little experience with Baja, driving (and flying) to Baja since 1967. I have a house just south of San Quintin (El Socorrito) plus a trailer at P. San Carlos. I go down for about a week once a month; retirement has its benefits.

My take on these incidents is:
1. Duh! 2. Duh! 3. Duh!

If you drive through a poor area, late at night, in a shiny truck loaded with high priced stuff, the probability of your coming out with it are slim. Forget Mexico, try it in Watts, Inglewood, Compton, Logan Hts... take your pick. And if you don't speak English in those areas, double duh.

How would you feel toward hoards of obnoxious German tourists breezing through Calif. in brand new Mercedes and Beemers with fists full of euros, shouting loudly, not speaking a word of English other than "Beer," and having no inclination to learn another?

My surprise is that there have not been more of these robberies. Living among Mexicans I have heard of numerous robberies and, yes, murders.

All the crimes have one thing in common: Gringos -- even Mexicans -- were far from anybody, alone (or a small group), and it was nightfall.

Do these incidents put me off Baja? No more than planes crashing into the World Trade Center put me off NY, or the murders in LA every night put me off Tinsel Town (however, the traffic does).

Over the years of visiting Rio Vista, Crissy Field, the Gorge (brother lives in Portland), Hawaii, South Africa, Holland, Los Banos and other "hot sailing spots" touted in glossy magazine pictures, I have come to the conclusion that few places can match Baja, and almost none surpass it. Not just my (biased?) opinion, ask Dave Ezzy, his son, Graham, Jason Polekow, Matt & Kevin Pritchard, Ian Boyd, and the other top sailors who you will rub boards with at P. San Carlos.

If nothing else, the water won't give you cancer -- and if there are two sailors on a wave, it is crowded (and time to sail to another point).

My advice is: just use common sense driving, staying, and camping in Baja. Think of what precautions you would take with those activities in Inglewood or Watts:

1. Avoid driving at night. (Bandidos may be the least of your worries, cows love the warm blacktop and a close encounter with one could ruin your whole day, and probably many to follow. Also, young muchachos love to get pissed after work and their blood alcohol level is far above 0.08. Those little crosses and shrines by the side of the road are no small accident, they are from numerous big ones -- almost all at night.)

2. Camp at a campground with a big sign and somebody who collects $5 - $10. (Especially if he has a wife and kids.) Many small hotels/motels near the beach have attached campgrounds with fences. Bandidos, south of Ensenada, are local and, I am told, if (when?) they are recognized they risk a handling by the Mexican Policia worse than anything that happened at Abu Ghraib. (Big time hoods don't bother with anything less than a kilo of cocaine, and the last thing they need is attention in the gringo press. If small time artists draw unwelcome attention that could threaten their operation, they will often deal with amateurs terminally.)

3. If night falls, just turn into the nearest little motel, take your stuff off the racks, and pay the $30 asked for. If your stuff is too large to lift off, run a heavy cable or chain through it then click the lock. Nimble fingered local amateurs don't carry bolt cutters (most don't even have flashlights -- they use matches for light). Then get up fresh and early and actually enjoy the drive. (A bicycle cable/chain is a good idea... period. It costs a lot less than replacing a board.)

4. Don't spend the night in TJ or Ensenada; plan to drive at least to Santo Tomas or San Vicente. Crooks in the cities are invariably organized gangs and armed. Many have turned to crime frustrated with trying to jump the border, out of dinero, and with no jobs.

5. If you need to stop to buy provisions, do it in Ensenada at a Gigante, Calimax, or Comercio Mexicana -- large supermarkets on the main drag. (There is even a Costco and Home Depot plus Burger King and yellow arches. Besides, the meat/cheese is wrapped in plastic, the servers wear gloves and caps, and the floor is spotless -- just like the good old USA, except half the price.) Pull into their ample parking lots, put 50c in the palm of a guard and tell him "Mas quando regresso," (More when I return) and give him 50c when you come back. Cheapest insurance anywhere.

6. If you absolutely, positively insist on driving at night, convoy behind a big truck or, best of all, a bus -- and be patient. (They will hit the cow first... Or at the very least block the view of any bandido. Besides, bus drivers know every pothole and turn; if you go faster than them at night, your chances of sailing the waves is slim.)

!Vaya bien, cuate!