A Few Questions

• Are you rethinking you decision to move to Mexico due to the increase in the rise of violent crime?

• Are you planning on selling your home and moving somewhere else due to the increase in the rise of violent crime in Mexico?

• How has the increase in violence changed your lifestyle in your daily routine?

• Have you already moved because of the violence?

espíritu del lago wrote:

• Are you rethinking you decision to move to Mexico due to the increase in the rise of violent crime?

Too late since we moved here ten years ago. We picked Mexico over Colombia since there was so much violence down there in 2000 when we made our decision. Today, maybe we´d choose Colombia in either the highlands or Cartagena.

• Are you planning on selling your home and moving somewhere else due to the increase in the rise of violent crime in Mexico?

We own two homes in Mexico - Lake Chapala and San Cristóbal de Las Casas. When we bought in San Criatóbal, that was the supposedly dangerous place but today we actually would choose San Cristóbal over the Chapala area for safety. However, after having an emergency gall bladder operation in an utterly filthy hospital in San Cristóbal that nearly killed me leaving me no time to fly to DF to have it done and coming down with a serious amoeba problem in Tapachula in a rustic hotel on the slopes of the Tacaná Volcano that took months to cure, I now value living close to Guadalajara more than ever for the excellent medical care available in that city - an asset that becomes more valuable as I get older. We´ll keep both homes for now since the real estate market seems to be in a bit of a slump but the Lake Chapala area or metro Guadalajara are much better places for geezers so our primary residence will remain here.

Anybody want to buy a really nice newly renovated home in San Cristóbal´s historic center?

• How has the increase in violence changed your lifestyle in your daily routine?

• 
  
  At Lake Chapala, yes - a wee bit - like avoiding large, crowded events or venturing out late at night. In San Cristóbal, no, except that we will be more cautious when exploring dangerous areas near the border with Guatemala by car. Incidentally; the incredible violence in the Lacandon Forest and other areas near the Mexco/Guatemala border in Chiapas and Tabasco both against Central American illegal immigrants, Central Americans working legitimately and among indigenous groups in conflict is underreported or not reported at all. Dawg understands this phenomenon which arises, more than any other reason, from lack of caring because the antagonists are indigenous and thus, in the minds of the local "ladinos" irrelevant plus the fact that these violent episodes take place usually in the deep jungle where corpses rot away under forest cover and tribal law prevails and "everybody minds his own business".
  
  We just drove down through Michoacan to Zihuatanejo over Route 37 from the Guadalajara - DF Autopista through Uruapan and Nueva Italia, an area I like to call the "empty quarter" south of Nueva Italia (beautiful drive though if a bit deserted) because we had prepaid for a hotel room some months ago. I don´t know that I´d do that too often. Chiapas seems much safer than Michoacan and Guerrero these days.
  
  To further emphasize the terrible violence that has plagued both Michoacan and Guerrero of late, on the way up Highway 200 from Zihuatanejo to Highway 37 to head north to Uruapan, we were passed by a large convoy or machine gun toting federales and, when we got the first toll plaza on Autopista 37, that large contingent of federal police officers were stopped at the toll plaza area to don bullet proof vests and they were all masked. Then in Nueva Italia as we drove the downtown area of that farm town on a little side excursion, a number of machine gun toting state police cruised past us in several vehicles which is fine but a reminder that nearby Apatzingán is a stronghold of the violent Familia Michoacana and local sympathies seem to be with them at least in part.
  
  I can´t leave this subject without pointing out that a couple of days before we drove the Autopista 37 on our return trip to Lake Chapala, a police commander was assassinated at one of the three toll booths on that highway after having been shot 45 times with automatic weapons.
  
  On the positive side, we were quite impressed with the marvelous agricultural valley occupied by the city of Uruapan which is incredibly green and beautiful and a center of citrus fruit and avocado and macademia production with a great climate at (I think) around 4,000 feet. The extensive cultivation of orchard fruits initiated by an Italian immigrant in the Nueva Italia area many years ago before his haciendas were seized by the government and re-distributed to the landless, assures a drive offering spendid vistas of row crops and orchards and then the harsh but beautiful desert of the "empty quarter" and the Presa Infiernillo begins and the contrast is inspiring. A fine trip if you are so inclined.
  
  Have you already moved because of the violence?

Well, no, but this is the time of year we ordinarily head for a few months stay in Chiapas and, although the timing is coincidental, we are pleased to be out of here for a while and to have convinced a couple of American friends to housesit for us during our absence since things seem a bit unsettled here at present. This too shall pass but, in the meantime, the Chiapas Highlands beckon. What sweet irony that the home of the Zapatistas provides shelter from the Zetas - at least for now - the Chiapas indigenous not being easy folks with whom to deal.




Regards.

oncesubtle wrote:no, no, no, no.

With the increase in violence in the United States have you decided to move, sell your house, change your lifestyle, jump off a bridge, drink more tequila?