Off to Panama today...

[MikeP]

No, not by boat. Wife has a meeting there and I'm going because I always wanted to see the (now Chinese-run) canal!

A few years ago, when we first moved to Mexico, we thought about bringing the boat down here and keeping it in Ixtapa. That would have meant going through the canal - either on its own hull or on a transport boat. But after going to Ixtapa - great marina - we decided that the kind of boating we enjoy would not work here. We prefer the Ches and all the little towns to anchor near/dink to. From Ixtapa it's pretty much beautiful coastline, etc but nowhere to go in the sense of the type of stuff we enjoy. Lot's of BIG (and little) powerboats in the Ixtapa marina so obviously a lot of folks like it. OTOH, we've been there several times and have seldom seen a boat actually LEAVE the marina. Maybe there's a "Hotel California" thing going and you can check out but you can't leave!

I'll post a few pics of us at the canal FWIW. I won't be back to Mexico for 3 weeks - Panama for a week, San Antonio TX for Thanksgiving week, then to MD for a week to winterize the boat.

 

[67hat34c]

Mike, News media makes Mexico look like war zone. What is it like in your area and also the areas where you would be boating?

 

[MikeP]

There's no indication at all anywhere we are/have been. I don't want to sound like it's all a media thing because it IS a serious issue in some areas. But we walk all around Mexico City in the area in which we live - to stores, restaurants, etc and in San Miguel de Allende and we never have any sense of danger at all. But most of the violence is in the border areas and from a distance point of view, it would be like living in NYC and reading/hearing about violence in Chicago. Bad as it may be, it has no real "impact."

That's certainly not to say it couldn't get a lot worse...

 

[Hatattack]

South/Central America are not anywhere as bad people make it out to be. Be smart just like anywhere else. US cities are just as dangerous.