Juarez understand · Juarez tourist information
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Juarez tourist information
Juarez tourist information
Juarez is a large Mexican city located in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert. While you are in Mexico, you are nowhere near the tropical Mexico with beautiful beaches and Aztec and Mayan culture many people expect. Juarez is home to the Mexican vaquero (cowboy) culture and you will be more likely to encounter people resembling cowboys than any other vision of a Mexican one might have. However, Juarez is rich in the northern culture of Mexico, and most travelers will find this more charming and realistic than the culture they experience at many other locales that are not off the beaten path in Mexico.
However, special attention must be paid to criminal activity in Juarez, as well as the city and state of Chihuahua in general; there have been recent revelations of police corruption in the area, some incidents quite violent in nature as they pertain to the border area's prevalence in illegal drug and/or human trafficking. Also, visitors, especially females, should be aware of the sexual violence/murder rate amongst the female populace; since 1993, perhaps earlier, hundreds of women, most of them underpaid workers at sweatshops known as "maquildoras," have been killed by persons unknown, their bodies found beaten, raped, tortured and murdered in and around Juarez. As most of the victims are local women, deemed by their killers and indeed quite often by those investigating their deaths to be disposable.
Foreign visitors should not have much to worry about as long as they follow common sense; if you avoid venturing out alone into suspicious areas of town, particularly after dark, making obvious your personal wealth to strangers, and staying well clear of any illegal activity, particularly involving drug purchase/smuggling, you should be fine. Just remember before you think about potentially getting in over your head regarding these matters: the Mexican police are notoriously lacking in concern for those whose activities are considered "high-risk." The US Border Patrol can also be quite mercurial about these matters, and neither American nor Mexican prisons are very enticing places to spend one's vacation.
Juárez experienced over 1600 murders in 2008, 2700 in 2009, and 3100 in 2010 (out of a population of 1,500,000). While many of the victims have been connected with drug trafficking, the random nature of this violence requires precaution.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Juarez
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Juarez - updated Apr 2024
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Juarez Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.