Is Mexico Safe?

[acejones]

Uh, bust me, please.

[tricepilot]

Originally Posted by acejones

Uh, bust me, please.

Officer Hayek places you under abreast, er, I mean under arrest

[Arte]

Originally Posted by tricepilot

Excellent tunes on this station:



Let it play while reading the dire warnings about Mexico......

long time since the last visit of our official sponsor (Salmita) of this thread !!

[Arte]

Originally Posted by PirateJohn

I saw that and was thinking "more sensational journalism." I especially liked the part about how they were the only newspaper reporting this.

As a practical matter the military regularly shows up and relieves the local police in many of these downs. Supposedly they canned all the Reynosa Transitos a few years ago for fleecing the gringo tourists, which would be kind of a moot point right now since Reynosa is practically a Gringo Free Zone.

Anyway ... not as dramatic as it sounds, although I guess that it's possible there is a BIG operation underway to occupy all of Tamaulipas, but if they did that they'd have to deploy pretty much all the troops in the South up here.

And Nuevo Laredo isn't a small town, so if it's the entire police force getting their walking papers then they will have their hands full.

Right! but do not come if your bike is not a Triple purpose (amphibious)

Rain effects of June 22, right behind the Sierra Madre bar

[SchizzMan]

Originally Posted by Arte

Right! but do not come if your bike is not a Triple purpose (amphibious)

Rain effects of June 22, right behind the Sierra Madre bar

Time to install the snorkle kit on the Harley.

[SchizzMan]

Originally Posted by tricepilot

Excellent tunes on this station:



Let it play while reading the dire warnings about Mexico......

intoxicating

[ChangoGS]

That music on the Hayek video sounds like the "Gypsy Kings" .

Thanks for sharing the video with us.

[pilot815]

Originally Posted by PirateJohn

I saw that and was thinking "more sensational journalism." I especially liked the part about how they were the only newspaper reporting this.

As a practical matter the military regularly shows up and relieves the local police in many of these downs. Supposedly they canned all the Reynosa Transitos a few years ago for fleecing the gringo tourists, which would be kind of a moot point right now since Reynosa is practically a Gringo Free Zone.

Anyway ... not as dramatic as it sounds, although I guess that it's possible there is a BIG operation underway to occupy all of Tamaulipas, but if they did that they'd have to deploy pretty much all the troops in the South up here.

And Nuevo Laredo isn't a small town, so if it's the entire police force getting their walking papers then they will have their hands full.

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2011/0...amaulipas.html

[tricepilot]

Originally Posted by ChangoGS

That music on the Hayek video sounds like the "Gipsy Kings" .

Si señor it is the Gipsy Kings

[MikeMike]

Arte is right. The military often take the firearms of local police and investigate the local police. Nice flood pic, looks like here.

[pilot815]

Originally Posted by MikeMike

Arte is right. The military often take the firearms of local police and investigate the local police. Nice flood pic, looks like here.

The Army frequently set up checkpoints in front of the industrial park i worked in. I always laughed when i looked out side and the police were stopped and spread out over the truck as the soldiers patted them down and dug EVERYTHING out of their vehicles to inspect them.

[Gringo Viejo]

Sasabe is a little border crossing southwest of Tucson, most famous (according to the local press) for illegal border crossing and drug smuggling. A few weekends back, I took my 4X4 LR Disco and crossed the border (alone) for a little scouting trip for a future GS ride. 15 miles into Mexico, I heard a "BANG"...flat tire. The only other vehicle I had seen previously on this dirt road was a pickup full of 8 or 9 young men probably heading north to the US. As i struggle with the jack and spare, another pickup stops, an old guy jumps out, grabs my lug wrench and proceeds to change the tire for me, in sprite of my protestations that I didn't need any help. Afterwards, we shared a couple of cold cokes from my cooler and I spoke bad Spanish to his equally bad English. He refused to take any money, but I insisted and shoved a fiver in his pocket. As I used my only spare tire, I returned home, as while I believe that Mexico is relatively safe, driving off-pavement with no spare is not!

It has been refreshing to see so many people on this thread with the same experiences of Mexico as I have had. Que le vaya bien!

[tricepilot]

^ Good story

[PirateJohn]

Originally Posted by Arte

Right! but do not come if your bike is not a Triple purpose (amphibious)

Rain effects of June 22, right behind the Sierra Madre bar

Oh Jesus!

I was in Reynosa last night, watching Mexico beat The Netherlands (3-2 ) and saw the news, but my Spanish being so bad I didn't catch what part of town all the flooding was in.

Anyway ... the front of the Sierra Madre floods too, in that access road that parallels the main street. And there is a metal grate there that will trap motorcycle tires. I like to point that out to folks as to why they need to be careful in Mexico, because the grate is impossible to see when the water is high.

Good luck Arte!

[PirateJohn]

Originally Posted by pilot815

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2011/0...amaulipas.html

I drove around a little bit last night.

There was a Metropolitan Cop on foot watching the new no-parking zone at the Centro but no other cops in sight. I started to give him crap about his buddies that tried to shake Mark815 and me down over a year ago but decided that there wasn't any point in that.

Went down to Boys Town and the place is dead, dead, dead. It's been falling down ever since I was hitting the place, but now several of the bars are closed, the girls are relatively scarce, and much of the place looks like it's getting remodeled with a bulldozer.

Anyway you usually see a couple of cops around Boys Town and a few downtown and I didn't see many on this trip.

Incidentally, someone (The Mayor?) was parked in front of the Mayor's Office (in the otherwise No Parking Zone) with a caravan of three virtually identical white Cadillac Escalades a few days ago. Just FYI guys.

I left the Mission Bar around 11PM last night and realized that there was basically no one left downtown, and that all the vehicles parked around that end of the Centro were basically nicer pickups, cars, and SUVs that corresponded to the folks drinking at the Mission Bar. Everyone else downtown had boogied out.