Spring breakers avoiding Mexico. DUH.
We'll see but you'd have to be a damned fool to go to much of Mexico right now. It ain't what it used to be. Why go cruisin' for a bruisin?"
Students there say the real madness would be to take the traditional 30-minute trip to the Mexican border for the popular "Two-Nation Vacation."
News of gun battles between Mexican soldiers and drug cartels in border cities are keeping tourists away and prompting many parents to dole out a stern warning: "Don't go to Mexico."
It's easy to see why parents are concerned.
In Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, machine-gun-toting Mexican soldiers have been deployed to the border in armored personnel carriers to quell drug cartel violence. The situation is the same in other Mexican border towns. But the sight of armed men patrolling the streets makes many visitors nervous.
As a result, local businesses that depend on tourist traffic to Mexico say they are really hurting this year.
Debra Fassold's family has been running the Original Tours company since the 1970s. Fassold says she used to have 10 to 20 trips from South Padre Island to Matamoros, Mexico, each day. But now she says she doesn't have enough customers for even one tour.
One visit to the border crossing in nearby Brownsville confirms that Spring Breakers are staying in South Padre. A border guard said he'd seen only two kids go across the entire day.
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