In my travels this Christmas season, I have to admit I was more worried about the TSA than about the drug cartel problems in Mexico. Would I get searched? Be forced to choose between the backscatter or being patted down? Apparently neither. I flew on eight different flights during the busiest time of the year and not a single time did I even so much as witness anyone being subjected to the backscatter or a search....and I'm not even sure if I should be relieved or worried about this (given that last year the 'underwear bomber' tried to blow up a plane during the Christmas season). What was the most extensive search I had to go through? It was actually in Mazatlan!
I flew in on a tiny 60 person jet to the place that I consider my hometown. As my dad tore through crazy traffic - refusing to yield or even stop at the stop signs (ahhhh I miss that Mexican way of driving :) )- he casually mentioned that 11 people had been shot in the outskirts of Mazatlan just the week before. This is nothing new, especially to a girl like myself who grew up hearing about shootouts at restaurants, watched the feds clean up after gun fights from the night before, and was told to never even look at the expensive cars we sometimes encountered as they were driving around downtown with windows so tinted it was impossible to see in anyways. But it was a bit different this time. That first day I walked to the beach and saw military helicopters flying overhead (this actually happened more than once during that week), on one walk later that week I came upon the feds standing on the beach holding their automatic weapons and instinct caused me to head in the other direction as fast as possible (no one wants to be in the wrong place at the wrong time), I even saw them downtown staking out a small taco stand IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY, and a friend of mine mentioned that she had heard gunshots in her neighborhood at 3 in the afternoon. I'm accustomed to witnessing the aftermath of these things the next morning but although I have seen the feds hanging around most of the time, I can't really remember a time when gun fights would happen in the daytime.This is a new Mazatlan to me but I understand why people stay and why my dad goes back again and again; Mexico is special, despite all her problems.
When I flew out all of my bags were opened and extensively searched....twice- I even saw one guy taking off his shoes so that the police could check inside. The only other place I have witnessed such extensive searches was in Manila when they searched me before I could get into the stores (and the searches to get on the plane were even worse!). And in both cases I felt safer flying out of a third world country than I did out of the USA where people complain about random and sporadic searches that are meant to keep us safe. And so this brings me in a full circle....I would rather be in wild Mexico where people understand that inadequate searches put us in danger as opposed to the USA where the seeds of discontent sprout up at the slightest inconvenience. And I really am a Mexican at heart.....give me Mazatlan any day,with or without the drug wars.
