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The saddest thing about visiting Managua and San Salvador is experiencing the fear caused by the violence that comes with extreme poverty in a big city. Every major hotel and nearly every business has an armed guard. It’s unwise to walk around after dark, especially with a big camera. While you’re unlikely to be hurt, the risk is that groups of young thugs might just rob you at knifepoint. I found that, rather than whole safe neighborhoods, there were mostly small islands of safety around malls and fancy hotels. A wealthy tourist (and nearly all tourists here are wealthy, in relative terms) happily pays triple for a taxi that works with the hotels so you know you’re safe. You generally hop from one safe zone to another by cab.
Talking with travelers and residents in these countries, I’ve concluded that the risk for tourists is actually small, but the hype and caution are big. These days, with all the gang action and bloody drug warfare in the news, the image of Mexico and Central America has changed. It’s killing their tourism. Of course, with news media being what it is, if it bleeds, it leads. But a couple we met who spent two months traveling overland throughout Central America experienced nothing like this. When bandits do hit, they corner the victim and demand their valuables, or enter a bus from the front and rear and simply rob everyone on board.
Wandering through one Managua barrio, we kept one eye on the street for Nicaragua’s notorious open manholes. Desperation drives people to steal the lids and sell them as scrap metal. The neighborhood felt pretty desolate. Drivers slow for the omnipresent speed bumps and weave around the open manholes. Apart from a few shops selling odds and ends through barred windows and rustic cantinas serving beers to a rough-looking male crowd, there’s almost no business metabolism.
We came upon a small yard where the neighborhood children were jumping giddily up and down while one swung a stick blindly at a mischievously darting piñata. We enjoyed the scene, but I winced every time the stick viciously cut through the air among all those excited little heads. As I took a photo, a mom came over and suggested I stow the camera for safety. We realized we were in a bad neighborhood, and she ‘ baby in arms and her elderly mother at her side ‘ escorted us to the nearby big street. As we reached a bank with an armed guard out front, she said, “Now you are safe.”
In Nicaragua and El Salvador, there must be more armed guards than military and police forces combined. Nicaraguan security guards make about $1 an hour…and consider it a blessing. We chatted with the guard while watching a grimy kid in the intersection juggling small flaming torches for tips. Whenever a driver stops at an intersection, he is confronted by a battery of children begging, washing your windows, selling little goodies, and entertaining. I marveled at how a society can economize by cutting education. I couldn’t help but think I’ll spend what the guard makes in a day on a taxi back to my hotel, and I spend what that torch juggler hopes to make in a day at poolside for a rum-and-Coke.
Mexico City was the third stop on our visit. I wanted to greet the New Year in one of the world’s biggest cities. While much of Central America has petty crime and gang violence, Mexico is suffering from fear related to its drug war. While border regions in the north are actually seeing lots of bloodshed (Juarez is considered as dangerous as Baghdad), people in Mexico City and the vast majority of Mexico only read about the violence in the news.
Still, violence is the big issue. Out and about for several days in that vast city and celebrating the New Year with throngs in the streets, all I noticed in Mexico City was how the city seems occupied by military police (as opposed to El Salvador and Nicaragua, where private security dominated and there was almost no military presence), and how mellow and in-control things seemed. Subway stations with security cameras and more guards are labeled as “safe stations.” All New Year’s Eve, rather than wish the police gathered on major corners “Feliz Año Nuevo,” I’d say, “Police Año Nuevo”…and they’d return big smiles and answer, “Igualmente” (“Same to you!”).
The lessons I take home? A progressive observer would blame neoliberal (that is, pro-business) policies for contributing to the vast gap between the wealthy and the poor in these countries. A conservative observer would likely blame socialist policies or a lack of law and order. After my experience, it seems that anyone of any political persuasion can agree after traveling in Nicaragua, El Salvador, or Mexico that the fear and violence that wracks a society because of a desperate poor class is bad for the economy and a failure for every strata in that society. While the fear and poverty employ guards and sell razor wire, they also ruin any chance of a healthy tourist industry (potentially a major employer and industry here), and cause beautiful people who want to love and build their country to dream of escaping to the USA.
