This post was mentioned on Twitter by BeersandBeans: HikeBikeTravel.com -Thanks for the shout out!: http://bit.ly/ag5VDf via @addthis…

It’s so good to hear from you! I’ve been wondering what the heck you were up to. How is Idaho? I’m gonna have a pic of you coming out soon on here.

Thank you for your reply. I appreciate it. My post (and the following posts) are about encouraging people to visit to Mexico. We love it there and know what a beautiful place it is. However I know people across the border here that are too afraid to visit because of the news. I try not to watch too much TV news regarding the issues. I get most of my information from the newspapers and online sites I subscribe to.

As much as we love it there, we have had several very scary experiences ourselves in Baja – mainly my boyfriend who was once put into a sleeper hold and robbed in TJ and was also grabbed off the street by police in San Felipe as they tried to throw him in a cop car. I refused to let him go and fortunately we had a friend from the area who told them to screw off and go bother someone else. Had we been pushovers they would’ve hauled him off to jail for the serious crime of walking down the street. Last year we were in Ensenada and 2 people we knew were held up at knife point for an attempted robbery in broad daylight. They fled and were not chased. I have had other experiences as well but for all the bad we keep going back.

Obviously there is something very special about Mexico and that is why I consider it my second home. I feel bad for people who are too afraid to experience the truly beautiful place it is and I want to help people get over the hump and see it for themselves.

I know there are problems in Mexico and I know there are other problems in the U.S. as well. Unfortunately news of beheaded cops and drug shootouts in front of schools don’t sit well with tourists. And quite frankly people are nervous of driving in an area they don’t know esp. with military police sitting on the side of the road with machine guns loaded on the top of the car. You are used to it and I am used to it because we’ve done it many times but for some people this is a completely foreign and scary idea. I want to encourage people to realize that just because it is different from what they see daily in the U.S., it isn’t really a big deal.

As for the statistics, I actually did search for specific drug death statistics for San Diego and couldn’t find anything online for the past couple of years because I did want to do a comparison and felt since the 2 cities are right across from one another it would be interesting.

Unfortunately it is the locals who are paying the price because the tourism is so slow. When I was in Tijuana & Ensenada recently the cities felt like ghost towns. No one was there and all the shops were hurting. I can only imagine how all this drug nonsense is hurting the local people. It’s too bad the cartels don’t see/don’t care who they are really hurting here.

My goal with the following posts is to invite people to visit, inform them of the laws and give them the confidence they need to embark on their own adventure. The reason I gave so much background in this post is because a lot of my readers are from other parts of the U.S. and don’t have much knowledge except what they see on the news, which typically focuses only on the negative. With this series I wanted to acknowledge things that have happened but also focus on the positive – that things are changing and that it is still a great and amazing place to visit.

As an american living in the rosarito-ensenada corridor (alsong with 14,000 others) I can assure you that we do not live in a ware zone. Not sure where you live but in 2008 there were about 1500 drug related murders in southern california. That puts it right in the same per capita numbers you mentioend in your artical. Nice if you would put things in context of the mayhem of the US. Crime is down 22% over last year in Rosarito alone. We just ask that you don’t only focus on sensationaizing the bad but hightlight the good as well.

Contrary to news reports we are not living in a war zone. Quite the opposite. In fact Baja has likely never been a safer or better place to visit.

I completely understand how your friends could be concerned in light of some of the news articles. We continue to choose to live here for the tranquil lifestyle and the quality of life that it brings our family. We own a home on acreage, on a trout stream 5 minutes from downtown Boulder, CO but chose, a few years ago, to live here, on the ocean, after owning property in the area for 9 years. For those of us who live here life is “the same as it has always been” and we see no evidence of problems. Our family, including our 7yo daughter, who attends school in the area, feels totally safe here. We drive accross the border ever week and feel most threatened when we get to San Diego.

The press has grossly mischaracterized the situation in Baja. Reality is that the incidents you read about are exclusively involving rival members of the drug business, much like gangs in Santa Ana, San Diego, Riverside and LA, none of which is anywhere near this area. As we say, bad people killing bad people. If you are not involved in the drug business your chances of being caught up in any crime is undoubtedly less than they would be in Southern California. Due to Mayor Torres’s retooling of the Rosarito police force you will find the authorities to be very accommodating, friendly and helpful. They cross train with the San Diego police and their service is exemplary.

See what people who live and visit here are saying about the area:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=RosaritoBeachVideos

WHo says the internet is full of garbage? Great post! Rock on……

I don’t have any long-term travel planned anytime soon but I will go and compulsively buy some of these brushes anyway.

Meg