But here, the funniest thing happened. As I would tell Mexicans that I was thinking of driving around Guatemala for a while, they’d all look me with a horrified look that I’d not seen since I began telling people in the US I was going to drive through Mexico.

“Oh, no,” people would tell me, “You don’t want to drive in Guatemala. It is really dangerous there.” At first this seemed funny but after a while your mind starts to play tricks on you. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t go. Maybe I should just close the curtains and stay in bed today.

Finally, I was like, “Wait a minute. That’s the same thing people are saying about Mexico and it’s fine here. I’m just gonna go.”

Well, just before crossing the border my good ol’ friends Heart Palpitations and Sweaty Palms got in the car with me. I said, “Haven’t seen you freaks in a while.” They said they usually stayed near “las fronteras” the borders. Noting that my fears were now speaking Spanglish,  I decided to quit talking to myself.

Well, low and behold, Guatemala proved to have people just as friendly as Mexico, if not more so, and during my stay in Quetzaltenango I had a great time. My confidence quickly rose to my Southern Mexico levels as my trip to Lago Atitlan was approaching.

Looking for someone who’d want to split the cost of gas I met this Dutch guy who was also going there. During the trip we hit it off right away and talked and laugh most of the way. MOST of the way.

The towns around Lake Atitlan can be accessed through a road that goes around it. However, the road does not make a complete circle around the lake. It goes three quarters of the way around it and then there’s a 3 kilometer stretch that is not paved. My Dutch friend was going to the town just after this 3 kilometer stretch, while I was just going to the first town accessible by the paved road. We got to that town first and filled up the tank. He gave me half the money and after looking at the map of the lake, I decided to help him out and take him to where he was going. After all, it looked so close on the map. After hours of driving around the mountains that surround the lake, we came to the start of the dirt road. It had been raining quite a lot in the past few days, and in the jungle that means muddy roads. After seeing what lay ahead, I stopped at the start of the dirt road and looked around.

That’s when my gut told me not to go any further. It looked bad and there was no telling how worse it would get further ahead. As I was debating whether to go or not, I saw a truck coming from the directions I was heading to. On the back there were a bunch of people as I think the truck was used as a method of transportation for workers. I asked the driver of the truck how it was ahead and he said it was fine, but the people in the back of the truck did not give me or my Dutch friend a very friendly look, and my gut pointed that out.

After the truck had gone I asked the Dutch guy what he thought and he said it’d be fine. He’d been traveling all over Central America for a few months before that and he’d seen worse. I didn’t think I had a solid argument, and I still did want to bring him to his village after all the time we had invested riding around this lake. So we kept going.

Not more than a mile into the dirt road, as we are going up hill, I notice three pretty big rocks blocking the road ahead. I stopped about a hundred feet away and now I am getting a really bad feeling. Just then three hooded guys jump out of the side of the road waving machetes and guns. I put on reverse and head down the muddy road thinking we are going to flip over at any minute. They are running after us. Finally I attempt to swing the car around and it works perfectly. I am facing the right way and ready to go. Except that as I hit the gas, I realize I’m stuck in the mud and the car won’t move.

What followed was a very cliché-ish robbery that I think was modeled after something in that 80s Michael Douglas movie “Romancing the Stone”. I would have expected and even preferred something more original, but no. Some criminals don’t have much imagination I guess. We gave them what they wanted and everything was fine. No one was hurt and all that was taken was replaceable. Some I’ve replaced some I did not. I’m not missing the stuff that I didn’t replace, so I guess I didn’t need to have it in the first place.

I later found out that I had broken another cardinal rule (the first being not following my gut). The rule of having a guide that knows where not to go or asking people where you should stay away from. As it turned out, as I told people in Guatemala what’d happened to me, none were surprised and said, “Yeah. That’s a known bad spot. I could have told you that if you’d ask me.”

But that’s how you learn. That day I learned two valuable lessons that I know share with everyone that cares to listen.

1. Know where it is ok for you to be and where it is NOT ok for you to be.
2. Listen to your gut. It knows. I don’t know how, but it does.

Useful link:
Tips for Traveling Abroad – from the US Dept. of State

You’ve undoubtedly heard about the violence, killings and kidnappings in Mexico? Violence along our southern border has become part of the daily news. Some analyze the information for the Where and the Who, but most of us just remember the WHAT – and that it happened in MEXICO. From then on, the idea that we might have once had of Mexico – warm beaches, friendly people, siestas, and good food becomes lost through fear.

Sound familiar? That was how I felt before crossing the border the year I traveled in Mexico. As I rolled into Mexican territory, my heart beat faster and the palms of my hands were clammy. I crossed the border at Nuevo Laredo, a town known for narcoviolence – and the atmosphere was different immediately. In the US side the streets had been almost deserted as people stayed behind air-conditioned windows. In the Mexican side, there were people outside everywhere and for the first few minutes it felt like chaos. As I drove on, I passed some grassless soccer fields and saw kids playing while their parents watched. Somewhere near families were flying kites. I thought, it can’t be that bad if people are flying kites. Who’d fly kites in a war zone?

Unfamiliar with the highway system, I soon got lost.  I stopped to ask for directions at a local gas station. While I was asking the attendant, the guy behind me overheard where I was going and said he was going the same way. I could follow him and then he’d wave me off when I needed to turn. Hm! That sounds fishy, I though, surely he wants to kidnap me. I wanted to call my friend in Monterrey, but I didn’t have a Mexican phone. The gas station attendant offered to let me use his. I then followed the guy and a few minutes later I was not in the trunk of a car, but back on track.  After that, I relaxed and proceeded to drive all over Mexico for over 12 months without a single incident. How could this be?

Veteran travel writer L. Peat O’Neil once wrote that, statistically, the US had been the most dangerous country she’d ever been to. So perhaps the answer to my question can be found by looking at some facts.

According to the FBI, 13,636 persons were murdered nationwide in 2009 in the United States of America.

Officially, 111 U.S. citizens were killed in Mexico last year, a third in just two cities. Almost all of them were involved in illicit behavior; usually the trafficking of guns, drugs, or people across the border. This is 111 out of Mexico’s close to 8 million yearly American and Canadian visitors.

To further put things in perspective, the murder rate in Mexico’s Yucatan state is 2 per 100,000. That’s about the same as Fond du Lac, Wisconsin or Evansville, Indiana. Mexico City’s is 8 per 100,000; despite being one of the most populated cities on the planet. That murder rate is on par with Albuquerque, NM. Are you very concerned about traveling to Albuquerque?

Again, most of the things we hear happening in Mexico are drug-related. However, if you, like me, don’t associate with people in that world, don’t associate with anyone who associates with people in that world, and don’t make it a point to visit places known to be infested with people from that world, it is very unlikely you will experience any of that world.

We all know that there’s no guarantee that you will get out of your house today and not be run over by a truck driven by a serial killer high on drugs, right? Well, the same applies in Mexico and everywhere else you go. That’s why the best recipe to stay out of trouble anywhere in the world is:

1. Be alert
2. Take precautions to avoid being a target of crime
3. Have a guide that knows the area, speaks the language, and has experience with the local culture.
4. Listen to your gut, but NEVER EVER be a slave to your fears

To protect the monetary investment you’ve made on your vacation, I’d suggest you get Traveler’s Insurance, but that’s another thing altogether.

Finally, I did get robbed traveling. But it wasn’t in Mexico. And I didn’t follow my own rules for staying out of trouble while traveling.

You can read that story here. It’s short.

Useful link:
Tips for Traveling Abroad – from the US Dept. of State

Key to improving at anything is doing lots of it, then taking the time to review how things turned out, and figuring out what adjustments to make next time.

Now, if I’m not mistaken, you probably see lots of things every day you think “should be photos”. Maybe for you it happens while you walk through town on your way to work, or while you watch people in the park during lunch. Or maybe it happens when you are out in nature taking your dog out for a walk. The point is, if you are serious about taking better photographs, getting used to taking your camera EVERYWHERE you go should be your first assignment.

So start today and make it a habit.