Mexico burnout

Mexico can be a very interesting place to visit with all the history and geographical things it offers. Some of the best beaches in the world are in Mexico. The people are varied and friendly. All well and good. There are dangers but there are dangers everywhere you just need to minimize them and maybe have some luck on your side to avoid the worst dangers. I was always pretty lucky in that not much bad ever happened to me either in Mexico or anywhere else for that matter. I have a lot of street smarts and experience that helps me survive in new places.

Some of the problems in Mexico are the water shortages and water delivery problems. Taking a shower in Mexico was always an exciting adventure because you never know when the water will stop coming out of the faucets. There is nothing worse than to run out of water after soaping up in the shower and then be covered in soap scum all day when it is 96 degrees and sunny outside. Foaming sweat is ok for horses maybe but I did not like it. Lack of water wasn't the only problem when you took a shower. There were also the suicide showers themselves. The suicide showers with the obviously poor wiring were always scary. A suicide shower is a shower head that has an electric water heater inside the shower head itself to heat the water for your shower. Standing in water with exposed live wires going to the shower head can be hazardous to your survival. To touch the exposed wires can kill you. Washing your hair requires that you pay close attention to where your elbows and arms are flying around. One mistake letting your arm go too high and ZAP you are electrocuted.

People do get killed from the bad wiring sometimes and not only in the showers. In Mexico and most other third world countries there is very little building code enforcement. In Mexico particularly it is common for people to steal their electrical supply from the overhead wires. To do this they just take a wire and go up and twist it around the overhead high current wires. Lots of people make mistakes and fry themselves doing this but it doesn't seem to stop anybody from doing it. I have seen high voltage high current wires exposed at thirty inches off the ground on main side walks in Mexico and other third world countries. Anybody that touches these exposed wires would be instantly fried. Yet there they are at the perfect eye level for little kids. I don't know if the kids there learn to not touch the wires by seeing their friends fry or if it is just by chance that they don't touch them very often. It is an extremely dangerous situation and it is common all over Mexico. Wires just loosely twisted together with sparks flying every once in a while is also an everyday sight anywhere in Mexico.

Another very annoying thing in Mexico is the fireworks. For every wedding, anniversary, birthday, graduation, holiday and whatever other excuse to have a fiesta there was, there were always fireworks for the celebrations. The parties typically went late into the night and the fireworks were mostly just loud firecrackers that sounded like bombs going off. So all night long, every night, there were loud explosions going on to keep you from getting a good nights sleep. I started to wear ear plugs to allow me to sleep for a couple of hours. Lots of party goers get injured playing with these stick-of-dynamite sized firecrackers they played with. They usually got really drunk before they started to play with them and they were just homemade firecrackers to start with so the mistakes and resulting injuries were common place. I hated all the explosion noises more than I hated the amplified mariachi bands that played the same music over and over again at all the same events.

I am about six feet tall and in Mexico that is just too tall. In every market and along all the streets there are headbangers that start at about five feet off the ground. I had to duck so often that I inevitably missed one sometimes and I got bopped in the head for it. It was impossible to keep your head up to look out for them. The ground was so uneven and had so many open holes to fall into if you didn't look down that you were forced to look down with only a few glances at over head obstacles. Tourists with casts on their legs and arms from tripping are a common sight in Mexico. I never injured myself in Mexico but I did finally break an arm in Costa Rica for the same reason. I would hate to be confined to a wheel chair in Mexico because you would not be able to get around at all from all the obstacles and uneven surfaces.

The dangers in Mexico are not what drove me out of the country. All the pickpockets, thugs, drug lords, mariachis, dangerous wiring, loud parties and noises, thieves and crooked cops or other officials are not what made me want to get out of the country. It wasn't because of diarrhea from the dirty water and contaminated foods. It wasn't the suicidal drivers. The reason I left is because it is impossible to get even a couple of minutes of peace in Mexico. No matter where you are or what you are doing there is always somebody in your face trying to sell you something or tell you something or just to talk to you about something. They do not take no for an answer. Please leave me alone does not work. Trying to ignore them just encourages even more aggressive behavior. Hey Mister, wanna buy some jewelry for your girlfriend? Or what ever they were selling from gum to flip flops, they did not take no as no or go away as go away. Even if they did take you seriously and walked away, they would be back five minutes later saying the exact same thing to you...they were relentless. Anything you do just encourages them to increase their attacks. I started to go a little crazy from it after a while.

On the beach is one of the worst places for this harassment. All the jewelery and clothing and hammocks and food and drinks being hawked for sale are just one big relentless attack on your private space. There is no threat of ever falling asleep on a beach in Mexico--the hustlers make sure of that. I have to give them credit for their persistence and for their get-up-and-go trying to earn a living. There are a lot of Americans that could learn a thing or two about self sufficiency from these street hustlers. Instead of asking for handouts these people are trying to find a need and fill it. Sometimes I do want that margarita when they come up to me to offer me one but I have to say no 998 times for every "ok I would like one please" I say.

In the end it was this relentless attack by street hustlers, hawkers and cons that would not get out of my space and give me even a few minutes of peace and quiet that made me decide to leave the country after a couple of years of traveling around in it. Everyplace I went was the same thing too. There was just no escape. So I decided to jump on a plane and head South. I had no plans on where or when I would go I just knew I had to get away from these guys before I exploded at one of them one day.

By chance of availability and cost of the flights the first stop was going to be San Jose, Costa Rica.