Thread: Mexico Offers Drug Deal and People Trafficking Holidays

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/artic ... firms.html

Most holidaymakers go to Mexico for white-sand beaches, Caribbean sunshine and a tequila or two.

But a new type of traveller is now flocking to the country, keen to experience a dark underworld of leftist rebels, drug traffickers and illegal migration.

While escalating violence in Mexico's war on drugs may be prompting some would-be tourists to think twice about visiting the country, others see it as a chance to try a different kind of travel experience.


Taking your life in your hands: Companies are offering tours to the most dangerous areas of Mexico City

Increasing numbers of holiday companies are offering trips to remote mountain areas, home to Zapatista rebels, as well as the most crime-ridden areas of Mexico City.

Foreign tourists, mostly from Europe, are signing up for undercover tours in Tepito, a sprawling market area in Mexico City notorious for drug deals, underage prostitution and pirated goods, said Cesar Estrada, head of Universal Travel.



Protest: A Zapatista rebel stands guard

Community centres are running what they call a 'safari' in this historic area, where many Mexicans refuse to set foot for fear of being robbed at gunpoint.

'We tell visitors to dress simply. If they want pictures, our guides take them discreetly,' Estrada said.

Donata Von Salviati, a German tourist, said she prefers such tours because they provide the kind of insight into the real Mexico one could not get in a beach resort like Cancun.

'Things like this don't exist in Germany,' she said.

A US-based tour operator is also offering to educate tourists on social conditions in southern Mexico, where the leftist Zapatista rebels took hold in the 1990s.


Foreigners can visit the poor state of Chiapas and meet members of the rebel group who control various villages in the state and are fighting for indigenous rights.

Even Mexicans are getting involved, with domestic tourists taking to reality tourism in the central state of Hidalgo to simulate the dangerous trek many of their countrymen undertake as they cross the U.S. border illegally.

Visitors pay about 200 pesos - £10 - for a nocturnal trek through a state park where they struggle to keep up with guides posing as 'polleros' - ruthless traffickers charging thousands of dollars to usher poor would-be migrants across the border.


Beyond government powerl: The Zapatistas control certain areas in the south of Mexico

In order to help tourists understand migrants' plight, guests are prohibited from carrying food and water as they wade through a river in the darkness and hide in bushes to elude the 'migra,' or U.S. immigration authorities.

The tour ends quickly for those who don't run fast enough - they are thrown in the back of a mock border patrol truck.



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The trips began six years ago in a bid to draw attention to the plight of undocumented immigrants - nearly seven million Mexicans lived illegally in the United States as of January 2009.

Although they were originally offered in northern Mexico, due to increasing fears over security as drug cartels clashed for control of the border territory, they were moved to the centre of the country.

More than 28,000 people have been killed in drug violence since President Felipe Calderon declared war on powerful cartels when he took office in 2006.

Originally Posted by TOTB

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1306299/Mexico-drug-wars-people-trafficking-city-tours-offered-travel-firms.html

The trips began six years ago in a bid to draw attention to the plight of undocumented immigrants - nearly seven million Mexicans lived illegally in the United States as of January 2009.

"to draw attention to the plight of undocumented immigrants"
- that purpose wasn't implied in the concept of "drug-wars-people-trafficking-city-tours."

"nearly seven million Mexicans lived illegally in the United States as of January 2009."
What a bunch of PC bunk.