

Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!
|
Worf
Lt. Commander

Registered: 07/04/04
Posts: 15,663
Loc: Final Frontier
Last seen: 5 years, 2 months
|
Drug war city offers police-escorted tours
#4578505 - 08/25/05 01:09 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticl...TOURISTS-DC.XML
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (Reuters) - A Mexican city at the heart of a raging drug war is trying to woo back jittery Texan day trippers by offering free bus tours with an armed police escort.
"The aim is to shake off the bad image that we have and give a boost to the craft markets and restaurants in the center, where business is almost nil," Nuevo Laredo's tourism director Ramon Garza told Reuters on Wednesday.
The tourist board in the city, which is across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas, is sending charter buses to pick up tourists from San Antonio for day tours escorted by guides and police motorcycle outriders.
The three-times-a-week service began in mid-August and comes after more than 115 people have been gunned down in the Nuevo Laredo this year as rival drug gangs battle for control of the lucrative cross-border trade in cocaine, marijuana and heroin.
The escorted visits are being welcomed by traders in the sweltering border city, where several bars and tourist trinket shops have closed since the troubles began last year.
"Tourists think that gangs are waiting to pick them off as soon as they come over the bridge, so anything that the authorities do to challenge that is welcome," trinket stall holder Pedro Rivera told Reuters at an empty craft market.
Washington has issued repeated travel warnings urging U.S. visitors to stay away from crime-wracked Mexican border cities this year, singling out Nuevo Laredo, where more than 40 U.S. citizens have been kidnapped in the past year, for special mention.
The United States shut its consulate in the city for a week early this month after drug gangs fired bazookas and raked each other with machine gun fire in a street battle
--------------------
Kira: What do Klingons dream about?
Worf: Things that would send cold chills down your spine, and wake you up in the middle of the night. No, it is better you do not know
|
Dreamer987
The VerbalHerman Munster


Registered: 04/15/03
Posts: 5,326
Loc: Texas
Last seen: 10 years, 3 months
|
Re: Drug war city offers police-escorted tours [Re: Worf]
#4580065 - 08/25/05 05:04 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
Sweet! free bus ride in and out of Nuevo Laredo. Now i don't gotta worry about my friends cars getting stolen, and i can buy pharmys with an armed police escort.
--------------------
|
CptnGarden
fuck this site
Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 11,945
Last seen: 8 years, 11 months
|
Re: Drug war city offers police-escorted tours [Re: Dreamer987]
#4581070 - 08/25/05 09:00 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
LOL the only time I went to mexico, I was really little (like 8 or 9), and some crazy dude pulled me into his shop and tried to sell me this obsidian cat for 300$ im like WTF. my dad ran in thinking he was trying to take me or something and punched the dude out cold. dont drink the water
|
Le_Canard
The Duk Abides

Registered: 05/17/03
Posts: 94,392
Loc: Earthfarm 1
|
Re: Drug war city offers police-escorted tours [Re: Dreamer987]
#4582484 - 08/26/05 01:45 AM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
Plus, Mexican cops can get the best drugs!
| |
|
|
|
|