*I remembered a horrifying story a lawyer friend told me when he, his girlfriend, and another couple went to Juarez, across from El Paso to enjoy an evening meal. After dining, and walking back to El Paso while the men enjoyed a beer as they walked, they were suddenly surrounded by several police squad cars. Shortly, the police started beating the lawyer and his friend. Both men ended up in jail.
[snip]
Luckily for them, their girlfriends went to the Mexican Consulate’s office in El Paso for help.
They were helped, but were asked to give sexual favors in exchange. After four grueling days in jail, they were released without being told what they did wrong. While in jail, my lawyer friend noted that there were other Americans who had been detained for several years.*
Right now Juarez is a battleground between competing drug cartels. I personally know two people who were very close to a pair of killings(within a block and they heard the gunshots). Both cases were at night.
If you just want to walk across the Paso del Norte or Santa Fe street bridge and walk back-- do it during the day.
Much better, take a road trip to Old Mesilla, N. M. and have lunch at the Double Eagle. If you’re in town August 8 catch Lyle Lovette and his large band at the Plaza. Lose all your money at Sunland Park Race Track and Casino.
You realize you’re coming at a time the temperature loves to be three figures.
pkbites: ‘Juárez’ sounds like ‘warez’, illegally cracked versions of copyrighted software (the cracks remove the copy protection schemes, such as registration keys and checking for hardware dongles) distributed in certain places. Warez can also contain viruses or merely be trojans (malware passed off as useful software, as the Trojan Horse was passed off as a gift) so practicing safe hex is a must. (As are horrible puns.)
I have a friend whose extended family is from a town close to Juarez. He grew up in the countryside there. There was supposed to be a big family reunion there this summer. It’s been canceled because of the drug war. I figure if people who have been living there for generations don’t want to go to the Juarez area right now, it’s probably a bad idea to go.
Been there only once, and it was not a positive experience. Let’s say it involved serious compromise of my personal safety, and serious compromise of my personal liberty. If that’s enough for the purposes of the OP, so be it. If on the other hand anyone wants the full anecdote, I’ll provide.
This was, oh, carry the one, ummmmh – not quite forty years ago. But from reading this thread, it appears that little has changed.
It would have been the summer of 1969 or 1970 (not totally sure now) and 4 of us guys decided to take a drive from Florida out to Texas and vicinity. We planned to hunt reptiles in the desert, maybe score some peyote from the locals, and see what other kinds of excitement we could find. We were all 19 or 20 years old, and we drove my 1960 Ford Fairlane 500. Four door passenger sled, 390 engine, 4 barrel carb, I used to joke that the dial on the dash was calibrated in gallons per minute, not miles per hour. But hey, gas was $.249 in Florida, cheaper in Texas. Could fill the big old tank for four bucks and a bit.
At some point we decided to cross over and visit Juarez. Parked somewhere on some street, took a walk. Window shopped some of the bars, not ready to commit to one, it being only about 1 in the afternoon. We were there long enough for a string of local boys, all looking about 12 years old, to sequentially accost us, offering “My sister, she a virgin, I swear! Five dolla!”
We’d only been there maybe fifteen minutes total when we saw a group of older locals approaching us, but these were carrying broomsticks and similar wooden implements. We thought “how quaint” until they got up to us, and proceded to bash us into bloody insensibility with them. They pulled out our wallets, snatched the cash. We had no credit cards. (It was a simpler and gentler time, children.)
About the time they were finishing up with us, some of us saw, through whichever eye still opened, some of the local constabulary approaching. We yelled for help, and they came over, just in time for our assailants to run cleanly away. We were pointing and yelling, “There they go, get them, they robbed us!!” yadda, yadda.
So they shackled us with chains and cuffs, and hauled us off to jail. Told us we would be charged with attacking the locals. Of course, we would be formally charged by “the Magistrate” when he came to town in “a few weeks”. Meantime we’d cool our heels in jail.
Lemme tell you, jail in Juarez is no picnic. After a few days we began to understand the “hints” the jailors dropped, about maybe being able to “fix” something for us, if only we had some money. Of course, as we all knew, we had nothing, since we had been robbed. But it was “suggested” that we could perhaps call someone, and they might send us some money? Hint, wink, grin.
We’d been there about five days when I started to hint back, I might have something of value, but not cash. Took I think another couple of days to negotiate. Bottom line was, I signed over the title to my car, we got out of jail, the guards drove us in the back of a pickup truck to the border crossing, and we walked across, back to the good old US of A. Where we immediately begged for jobs doing menial crap for even less than the wetbacks would take, just to save enough money to make Greyhound money back to Florida. Some vacation!
So let’s just say Juarez does not bring back fond memories.
True, that. There’s a reason why houses 35 miles up the road in Las Cruces sell for up to twice the price as their equivalent in El Paso. EP is an ugly, polluted and relatively poor town with few big-city amenities and little high culture. People are friendly, but that’s about it. If your idea of scenery consists of channelized arroyos, billboards and high-rise signs, El Paso is your place.
When I left in 99, I knew people who’d commute to El Paso from Cruces and I know a lot of it was because they thought El Paso was a dump. But also, I figured they were saving money. Talking to a woman who moved to El Paso last year, she told me that the housing market and taxes are out of control.
The best thing about El Paso was that it was next to Juarez. You could really get some bang for the buck crossing the border, if you knew where to go. Juarez is much bigger than El Paso so it has more happening stuff. Not that it’s my cup of tea (or that I ever went), but IIRC you could still see bullfights in Juarez when I was there.
So you’re not getting the sanitized, dumbed-down amusement park treatment. The Coke is still made with sugar. The food is as fresh as it gets.
So the best part of El Paso was Juarez. And the worst part, as this thread shows, is Juarez.
I remember not being able to use our fireplace because the pollution was too bad and city ordinances forbid it (depending on conditions that day). That came largely from the lack of regulations in Juarez, plus poor people burning tires to keep warm in winter.
I wouldn’t drink the water either, OP. Diseases along the border, like cholera, are a disaster waiting to happen.
*The colonias public health crisis has adverse implications for the larger community as well, since most residents work in nearby cities, frequently in food service or in homes. The result could be increased health risks to the general population from the spread of communicable diseases. Perhaps more disturbing, cholera outbreaks that have occurred south of the border could easily move into the state via such a highly mobile population. *
I couldn’t find a cite but I remember they talked about an “orchestrated flush,” where we’d all put bleach in our toilets and flush at the same time. The hope was that this would wipe out various nasties via the sewer system. A knowledgable friend of mine at the time said it was ludicrous.
And theft? Get the car and/or valuables across the bridge and you’re in another country. Jump across the border, commit a few crimes—rape, whatever—and jump back across.
How is it that we’re so decent to them when they come to our country? It boggles the mind.
It could have been. They voted to go with TX. Had they gone with NM, they might have become the state capital, and they certainly would have been the most important city in NM’s economy. Instead, the ended up as the low man on the totem pole in TX politics.