What to see in Matamoros (besides the dentist)…

David Agren, the “Low Rent Correspondent” has been covering “the real Mexico” (whatever that is) for a number of years now.  Like most people who live here, he recognizes that “real Mexicans” live along the border too… and that there are things to see, even in Matamoros:

He writes in today’s Mexico City Herald: 

MATAMOROS, Tamps. – Cab driver Mario Hinojosa and his sidekick Don Enrique operate from a two-car taxi stand in Matamoros´ Historic Center. They normally shuttle locals and tourists around the border city in a new compact sedan and an aging, yellow 1976 Ford with so many miles that Don Enrique can´t remember how many times the odometer has turned over.

Most of the tourists they serve are daytrippers, who cross the Rio Bravo from neighboring Brownsville, Texas, in search of low-rent diversions like cheap boozing and poring over trinkets.

But a few of the visitors, curious about the dark side of the border, inquire about narcoturismo (drug-trafficking tourism) – which involves visiting the sites where traffickers carried out their dirty deeds and eventually flamed out in battles with law enforcement officials.

“People come here asking about tours all the time,” Hinojosa said on a quiet Monday morning, adding that he charges US$60 for narco-inspired excursions.

…

They´ve also taken passengers to Santa Elena, the site of a ranch that was home to a group of narcosatánicos (narco-Satanists) under the sway of Cuban-American drug kingpin Adolfo de Jesús Constanza – people that Hinojosa says “had a screw loose.” (The narcosatánicos carried out ritual sacrifices and smuggled marijuana until they were busted in 1989.)

Oh, there’s a historical fort there (I can’t be the only foreigner who has actually gone and toured it), and the usual bordertown trinkets, cut-rate plastic surgeons, liquor stores, etc. when you’re not cruising for narco-satanicos (said, by some HIGHLY UNRELIABLE sources, to have included George W. Bush).

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