Gunshots pierced the night air. Sirens wailed. Then came a voice, sounding like the U.S. Border Patrol. "Don't cross the river!" someone yelled in a heavy accent. "Go back to Mexico where you belong!"
Welcome to one of Mexico's strangest tourist attractions: A park where visitors pay the equivalent of $16 to hike across fields and through treacherous ravines, a gruelling experience aimed at simulating an illegal journey across the U.S.-Mexico border.
"We want this to be an exercise in awareness," said Alfonso Martinez, who acts as the chief smuggler at EcoAlberto park in central Mexico. "It's in honour of all the people who have gone in search of the American Dream."
The park, funded in part by the Mexican government, compares crossing the border to an "extreme sport" and tells participants that they, too, can "trick the migra," slang for the Border Patrol.
Considering the comic book they already produced, this is not a shock.
Posted by Muddy at September 1, 2006 07:14 AMSo....they *do* train these people.
Posted by: mrs. muddy at September 2, 2006 08:21 PM