Rosarito Beach tourism woes harken memories of San Quintin ordeal

Rosarito Beach and nearby Puerto Nuevo have become virtual ghost towns because of a violent war between police and drug traffickers, as a story in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times described.

Tourists are avoiding this part of northern Baja California as though it contains a plague which, in a way, it does.

But how many Baja travelers remember when the quaint, blustery village of San Quintin, which is located south of Ensenada, was enduring its own tourism drought, caused by thuggery and corrupt local police?

It was 10 years ago and in one respect the situation was worse because tourists -- mostly surfers, fishermen and highway passersby -- were actually being preyed upon.

Surfers camping south of town recounted being beaten and robbed by masked men with knives and machetes.

A couple from Placerville, Calif., was sleeping in a trailer when men broke in with knives and machetes, and demanded their cash. One family's vehicle was stolen and another's was shot up and rolled over with two children inside.

Campgrounds were robbed and the small hotels in the area hired armed guards. The worst incident was the discovery in nearby El Rosario of the bodies of two Nevada tourists, who were found to have died  from sharp blows to the head.

I traveled down there a week after a temporary special federal police unit had arrived to weed out the rotten elements.

I stayed at the Cielito Lindo Hotel, whose owner had hired a guard who looked like Lurch on "The Addams Family." He sat on a chair near the hotel campground holding a shotgun and looking scary.

There were few guests. There were no surfers camping on the beaches south of town; their tales had been told in colorful detail in surfing magazines and website chat rooms. Baja websites were filled with warnings to avoid this region, especially at night.

I took a nighttime ride with the new cops and they swept through San Quintin and nearby El Rosario like Wild West sheriffs hellbent on cleaning up the town.

Ultimately, they were successful, and such a rash of crime against tourists has not surfaced again, as far as I know.

Though this problem my have been solved, another obviously had not. Some of the locals said they could hear airplane noise to the south on nights with extreme low tides, and were convinced they were involved in the drug trade and landing on remote beaches to deliver their goods.

It was a separate issue, and clearly not one the new police unit had come armed to contend  with.

-- Pete Thomas

Top photo: Fishermen scoot across San Quintin Bay beneath a flock of black brandt. Credit Gail Fisher/Los Angeles Times. Bottom photo: Patrick Friedman displays a perch caught during a recent visit to a largely deserted Rosarito Beach pier. Credit: 976-TUNA

Comments

[Joe Schmoe]

I have been going down to Rosarito Beach for over 10 years and I have lived in Bonita, CA for a large part of my life. Whether you want to acknowledge the fact that the drug cartels rule the Tijuana/ SD area or not, it will be an enduring reality for many many years to come. This level of violence will continue until the Mexican government understands that their methods of dealing with the drug trade (mainly getting direct deposits of large sums of cash to their personal bank accounts) will perpetuate the violence. Rosarito is indeed a ghost town right now, but because Mr. Hugo Torres has a lot of real estate in the city (which requires tourists to be successful) he is compelled to turn the police force into an actual mechanism of protection for the people as opposed to the farce it is currently. Things will get better I am sure. On a similar note, Chronicles of Narnia will be filming down at Fox Studios next year, so there will be an impetus from Americans to help safeguard the area for the future of Baja Hollywood filming projects.

[Jon K.]

Almost every time I've gone to Mexico, I've had to deal with corrupt police officers. It's just not worth it to go down there. The country needs to get its affairs in order. It's pathetic.