This photo from Fox News shows that it's not exactly a joy ride fun vacation for folks locked in a container truck doing it for real.

FAMILY FUN!

Originally Published the Week of Sept. 2, 2010 in Western Outdoor News

Do you ever read a story in a magazine or newspaper and then slap yourself on the forehead shake your head and say, “What the heck are you people thinking?”

You know about the popularity of “reality shows.” 

I’m sure you’ve heard of specialized vacations.  People bored with Waikiki, Vegas and camping in Yellowstone do things like trek down the Amazon River in a dugout canoe in a loincloth. They spend a week with National Geographic charting the migratory patterns of  one-eyed-parrots on some  remote island or  they go out with an archaeology crew to brush dust off the fortress ruins of Masada in the Holy Land. 

I can understand that.  I’m down with that.

Why ride down the Disneyland Jungle cruise when you can kayak over the falls on the Nile River?  Why go eat Italian food in Santa Monica when you can spend a week in a villa in Florence taking a cooking and wine class?  “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies or two weeks on a barefoot sloops off Grenada Island? We scuba with sharks here in La Paz.  No biggie. Great fun.

Well, I just read an article posted by Lorena Segura of Reuters and picked up by MSNBC online.   http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38840613/ns/travel-active_travel/

It appears that , “enterprising” travel agencies are now offering “black tourism” events whereby you can now  feel what it’s like to be a real-life poor person trying to find work across the border in the U.S.! Or hang out in a crime ridden Mexican slum. Or how about a jungle meeting with a real revolutionary!

That’s right!

What family wouldn’t jump at the chance to:

• run through some of the most dangerous slums in Mexico at night
• maybe the chance of getting robbed or beaten or worse
• be chased through the dark in the desert
• have to crawl under barbed wire and through other obstacles
• get really dirty and have to keep up with a “coyote” (paid guide)  or you get “caught” and thrown into a  fabricated border patrol truck and bounced around
• denied food and water
• hide in bushes all night
• maybe see a real live narco drug gang member or Zapatista revolutionary (but no pictures allowed!)
• dress down…no Izod polo shirts or Tommy Bahama shirts allowed.  Dress to move and dodge and hide like a real desperate person trying not to get caught!
• wade through rivers and creeks evading the border patrol

Sign me up!  What fun.

As one German tourist commented in the article that this provides “real insight” into “real Mexico” and, “Things like this don’t exist in Germany! I can’t get this in Cancun!”   How exciting!  (I guess she’s was too young to remember the Berlin wall.  You got caught, you didn’t get tossed in a truck…they ran you down with dogs and machine guns. Game over, Hans!).

The tourism agencies explain this as a way to “educate tourists about developing countries.”  And yes…we take VISA.

One agency runs a “safari” into an area where locals will not even set foot because it is such a danger zone and you stand a good chance of being robbed at gunpoint.  Oh, Joy.

Another provides “undercover tours in one city’s market area in Mexico City notorious for drug deals, underage prostitution and pirated goods.”  (sounds like Vegas or Hollywood to me!)

One local business in Hidalgo takes groups into the desert and does the simulated “border run” dash-sprint-hide-crawl so you can see what it’s like to try crossing the border at night or in the heat of the day. No water or food allowed.

In the remote mountain area of Chiapas they take you up into the rebel areas so you can possibly see real live rebels and meet one face-to-face. Take a photo with a Zapatista!

People are signing up for these things! 

What next?

Driving a  Humvee through an Iraqi minefield looking for weapons of mass destruction?  Or the night tour through downtown Mogadishu in Somalia waving a U.S. flag?  Jog through Central Park at midnight with a pocket-full of cash?

Give me a break…

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Jonathan Roldan has been the Baja Editor for Western Outdoor News since 2006.  He lives with his wife, Jill in  La Paz, Baja Sur, where they own and operate the their fishing fleet as well as their bar and restaurant on the historic La Paz waterfront.  Their website is:   www.tailhunter-international.com  Jonathan can be reached directly via e-mail at riplipboy@tailhunter-international.com