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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Good morning from the front lines!
This is my hood- checking the surf a few hundred yards from the Mexico border just this morning- looking South at the Tijuana Bull Ring and one of the most murderous cities on the planet.
From our friendly neighbor to the South, mountains of trash, feces and an occasional corpse wash up on our beaches.
But still; I always forfeit to the dreams of the surf, food, beer, wild landscapes and amazing climbing.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Baja- There's not one human in that landscape.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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I got into a tussle deep in the Sierra Madre, hours from any paved road, back in the late 80's. We were exploring Copper Canyon and other areas for BASE sites. A long story. Good one, though. I wrote it down. Two guys with knives tried to rob us. We got away, but not before this huge dude punched me in the eye with a monster haymaker. He also took half of my hair out when he tried to drag me from the vehicle by my hair. I kicked him in the nuts, and he fell back with a handful of my hair. Seriously. Hair was still falling out in clumps for the next 48 hours.
After that experience, I decided to never go back to the whole shitty country, and I haven't. I even refused to go to a brother in law's wedding down there.
Ed Abbey had a harsh view on Mexicans, and people accused him of racism. I think that it is illegal to own a gun in Mexico, or at least very difficult. Anyway, on the topic of illegal immigrants, he wrote that they should be humanely fed, humanely clothed, then each given a gun and ammunition to go back and straighten out their whole shitty country for themselves.
This was prior to the drug problem or cartels. Mexico has always been a corrupt and dangerous place. The tourist spots are OK, but I wouldn't stray far from them these days.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Shetville , North of Los Angeles
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I was in Sierra Madre near Monrovia last Saturday and got into a tussle at the Starbucks when a group of yuppy cyclists , dressed like lycra clad peacocks , cut in front of me forcing me to wait 10 minutes for my mocha frappe...Last time i go there...
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overwatch
climber
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What is ever your point?
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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I spent a lot of time in Mexico in the 80s and 90s. Camped some but generally used hotels because they were so cheap. Even Ensenada creeps me out now. The town is dead except for cruise ships. Seems like the local crowd between ships is bad news. Too bad because Baja is an awesome place, would love to take my son on a trip to the tip.
The Aussie surfers made several mistakes, the final mistake was fighting back. Do not consider bringing a gun and a cowboy mentality to Mexico, when you try to play macho you will be outgunned and dead much quicker.
Drive a crappy car/truck, don't take anything you do not mind losing.
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skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
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I've been following this thread for a while not really knowing what to say. My condolences to the friends and family.
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GuapoVino
climber
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Hey Base104, I went to Copper Canyon a couple times back in the early 90's. We rode the bus to Creel then backpacked down into the canyons. We didn't have much trouble down in the canyon but some guys at the bus station in Chihuahua tried to talk me into staying in Chihuahua and doing some sight-seeing with them (like I wanted any part of that). After seemingly giving up he extended his hand to say goodbye. Without thinking I shook his hand expecting him to then walk away but instead he grabbed my hand and started trying to pull me. I was about to deck him and run for the bus, not something I was really wanting to do in a foreign country, but luckily about that time a Mexican cop came up and grabbed him and he took off. I'd love to go back to Copper Canyon but that area is right in the middle of the drug war.
You probably went through Creel. Check out this video of drug cartel goons blocking off the roads into town and then go to various houses to kill the enemies of the local drug lord.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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The Chief
climber
Down the hill & across the Valley from......
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Dec 12, 2015 - 08:21am PT
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Yup.. the Spaniards made them do it.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPS, wait a minute, ah, oh.....
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Dec 12, 2015 - 08:22am PT
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I bicycled the length of Baja and the length of Mexico's west coast a couple of years back, camping almost every night. Closest I came to trouble (in Sinaloa as it happens) was when a guy selling coconuts on the side of the road told me that if I went down the dirt road to the beach (which was my plan) I'd get whacked, finger slicing across his throat was the way he explained it.
Other than that no trouble the whole trip... good karma or good luck, not sure. But on a bike you do have an advantage that when you camp its easy to get way off the road and behind some cactus or what not, so no one knows you are there.
The only real robbery I experienced on the whole ride was a California parks ranger who gave me a $300 ticket for camping in a closed state park campground.... somewhere near Cambria. Still bitter about that one.
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Jim Clipper
climber
from: forests to tree farms
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Dec 12, 2015 - 09:34am PT
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Thread drift alert... First, condolences to the traveling surfers. I may be naive, but I imagine that they were traveling with aloha, bringing some money to places further from the tourist spots at least.
Also, things seem to have taken a bit of a racist shift. Chief, who drew those pictures, and maybe why? Where did all those Mayan texts go? Also, maybe don't believe everything you read on the internet, in newspapers, or other historical forms of propaganda.
More recent examples of those pictures? Human ears hung from helmets, soldiers bodies hanging from bridges, fallen football heroes whose stories were retold, false wars in the Phillipines, Gulf of Tonkin, etc.
How did the Meso-Americans build those pyramids, moving so much food, forests, and stone, if all they did was cut out hearts? American ingenuity?
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ground_up
Trad climber
mt. hood /baja
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Dec 12, 2015 - 02:06pm PT
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Naive of me I now but, we send troops all over the world to
deal with others problems.
Why the hell not Mexico ?
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Dec 12, 2015 - 02:08pm PT
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Complete lack of understanding of the religion. The Aztecs and others were not killing people for their money and/or drugs.
Short enough for the dodo birds.
The Aztec religion is composed of an incredibly complicated, yet interesting, set of beliefs. Filled with stories of human sacrifices and demanding Aztec gods and goddesses, the Aztecs have left behind a legacy that will be studied and marveled for years to come.
The Hierarchy of Aztec Gods
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl
A part of the religious Aztec legends is the belief in a hierarchy of gods. According to Aztec mythology, the top three gods were Huitzilopochtili (or “hummingbird wizard), Tezcatlipoca (“smoking mirror”) and Quetzalcoatl (“sovereign plumed serpent”). Below these three gods, those who practiced the Aztec religion believed there were four sub-gods and an infinite number of gods were below these four. Among them were the god of rain and the god of growth.
Aztec Sacrifices
Aztec sacrifices were an important aspect of the Aztec religion. At the root of these Aztec rituals was the belief that the gods needed to be nourished by human beings. This was accomplished through human blood. A part of the Aztec religion, therefore, was to participate in bloodletting, which is intentionally harming and drawing blood from the body. Those who were higher in status within the Aztec religion were expected to give the most blood during these Aztec rituals.
The Aztec gods and goddesses also required the living hearts of humans for nourishment. All hearts were good, but the bravest captives were considered to be particularly nourishing to the Aztec gods. As a result, widespread warring took place as the Aztec people sought to bring captives back to the Aztec temples for sacrifice.
Sometimes, those practicing the Aztec religion sacrificed just one person. At other times, hundreds or even thousands of captives were sacrificed at a time. Each Aztec sacrifice, however, took place the same way. The captive or captives were taken to a pyramid or temple and placed on an altar. The Aztec priest then made an incision in the ribcage of the captive and removed the living heart. The heart was then burned and the corpse was pushed down the steps of the Aztec pyramid or temple. If the captive was particularly noble or brave, however, he was carried down instead.
In the case of an Aztec human sacrifice being performed for the god Huehueteotl, the ritual was slightly changed. Huehueteotl was the Aztec god of warmth, death, and cold. He was responsible for light in the darkness and for food during times of famine. As a part of the Aztec religion, special sacrifices were held for Huehueteotl. The victim was first thrown into a fire, and then pulled back out with hooks before being dying. The living heart was then removed and thrown back to the fire. Aztec human sacrifices and bloodletting were important aspects of the Aztec religion, as they believed it brought balance and peace to the world around them.
The After Life
Warriors were highly regarded in the Aztec culture. They were responsible for going out and finding and capturing the majority of the sacrifices used to appease their gods. As a result, a special god was included in the Aztec religion to honor the warriors. This god, Camaxtli, was the god of war, hunting, fire, and fate. He was thought to have invented fire and to have made the Earth. The Aztecs believed that Camaxtli lead both warriors slain in battle and human sacrifices to the eastern sky. According to the Aztec religion, they then became stars in the sky.
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The Chief
climber
Down the hill & across the Valley from......
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Dec 12, 2015 - 02:13pm PT
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The Aztecs and others were not killing people for their money and/or drugs.
Religion, money, drugs.... what's the difference Brown.
RFLMAO...
Carry on.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Dec 12, 2015 - 02:16pm PT
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Religion, money, drugs.... what's the difference Brown.
Religion, money, drugs....self defense, colonialism, slavery, disobeying a legitimate order (did you say keelhaul?), cannibalism, head hunting ...
feel free to expand the list
what's the difference
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The Chief
climber
Down the hill & across the Valley from......
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Dec 12, 2015 - 02:22pm PT
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^^^^^That made no sense dooooood.... do another line and try again.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Dec 12, 2015 - 02:41pm PT
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The Aztec religion is composed of an incredibly complicated, yet interesting, set of beliefs
Devil worship is interesting, too, but also not necessarily admirable.
Plucking beating hearts out of virgins' chests is not that complicated.
The IRS tries to do the same to me every year, although they haven't
gotten the memo that I'm not longer a virgin.
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