Gay Globe Trekker

Acapulco Close Up

Coming Up: Inside scoop on Jon Paul’s Condé Nast Traveler story on tourism & Mexican drug-trafficking crime.

There’s an old black and white photograph of my mother taken in Acapulco that’s always captivated me— she’s wearing an elegant sleeveless number and Jackie O sunglasses, hair swept up in a glamorous do, sipping a tropical cocktail, sand and surf in the background.  It always made me want to experience the jet-set style of the Pearl of the Pacific.  So last year when I began noticing trendy new hotels opening in Acapulco including luxury resort Banyan Tree and the uber-hip Hotel Boca Chica, I thought now’s my chance.

The story was originally pitched to Bon Appétit as a take on Acapulco’s glamorous rebirth.  And while my editor Dana liked the idea, it quickly got shelved when a new editorial team took over.  Every freelancer can feel my pain at the amount of background research that was about to go down the drain.  And then news broke around the world that 20 Mexican nationals visiting Acapulco had been kidnapped and killed.  In the midst of all this new development, Acapulco’s rebound was being challenged by a perception of instability.

I realized my glamorous story took on a much more hard-hitting angle, so I reached out to  Kevin who edits The Informer section of Condé Nast Traveler.  He was interested in the affect drug-trafficking crime was having on tourism recovery in Mexico and Acapulco, but needed the story written and filed by December 13.  Considering it was December 1, that gave me just 10 days to head to Acapulco, gather statistics, and coordinate interviews with a range of hotel industry executives and government sources.  Anyone who has dealt in any capacity with Mexican bureaucracy before can tell you that is not such an easy task.  But as a freelancer chasing a story assignment who was I to argue about timing?   I was thrilled with the opportunity to stretch out of my comfort zone of typical feature and food writing with a more news-oriented assignment.

One thing that I immediately had to get a handle on was the volume of drug-trafficking crime that had happened in Acapulco over the previous year.  As I read the stories, it became clear to me that no tourists had been injured and that if really weren’t involved with the drug cartels your risk of being caught up in violence was low.  Still, when I read a story about the Acapulco’s local newspaper office being attacked, I started to get nervous.  As the risk expert I interviewed for the piece David Ropeik explained to me, the risk now was more emotional for me because I could relate to it.  Turns out, drug lords weren’t to blame for that journalistic attack.  To better help me personally judge my risk, I used Google Maps to plot out where the various crimes had taken place in Acapulco—it quickly became obvious that most of the crime happened well outside the city.  My worries subsided immediately.

Everyone asks me, “But on the ground, did you feel safe?”  Absolutely.  There wasn’t a time I was ever unnerved or worried.  I traipsed all over town, across the mountains, and to many beaches in pursuit of the story, and thought Americans are missing out on the natural beauty of the bay.  But at the end of the day, everyone has a different tolerance level for risk.

Mostly, I left Acapulco feeling sad at the affects the war on drugs is having on the entire country of Mexico.  It’s a complicated issue made worse by America’s voracious appetite for illicit substances and automatic weapons that are easily purchased here by drug cartels.

It may take awhile for Acapulco to recover the glamour glimpsed in that photograph of my mother.  But I’m still poptimistic it will happen, and hope you enjoy my story in Condé Nast Traveler.

Suggested follow-up:

For more on how we evaluate risk and the affect it has on decision making—sometimes to our detriment—read David Ropeik’s engaging book How Risky Is It Really?

For links to opinion columns, experts and news round-ups that give you a daily summary of ALL the drug crime deaths occurring in Mexico—not just the ones we read about in our local papers—check out StopTheDrugWar.org

This entry was posted in Featured, Gay Globe Trekker and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.