Drogas

Today I saw the first sign of the impact of the drug wars that I've seen so far. We were driving to Zacatecas which is about three hours north of Guanajuato and at the border of every state was a military checkpoint. These checkpoints had sandbag walls, a guard tower, drug dogs (German shepherds), and a group of soldiers in camo. We were stopped on the border of Jalisco and Aguascalientes. I had no idea what was going on, and nothing really happened. The soldier asked our driver where he was going, where he had come from, and to see identification. Once he had confirmed that our driver was the guy on his ID, we were allowed to pass on through. We asked Lalo, the CIEE assistant director, what was going on and he told us that it was part of the increased security due to the drug violence that peaked earlier this year. Later, as we were driving we saw a caravan of military transport trucks driving groups of soldiers down the road. I don't know where they were going, but they looked important. The car in front of the caravan was a jeep and it had a machine gun on the roof. It was quite a sight.

It was a strange thing because I had almost completely forgotten that that had even been a problem. There are no roving bands of soldiers wandering around Guanajuato or even military checkpoints stopping cars to check for smuggled drugs or guns. CIEE has told us that we are not allowed to travel in the neighboring state of Michoacan because of reported drug violence, but that is the extent of its impact on us. We were safe in Zacatecas, but it was an interesting reminder that Mexico has been fighting an internal war against the powerful drug cartels.