Mexican Drug War

Murders by Numbers

If you can’t or shouldn’t do something it always makes it more enticing to do whatever that is, right? Well, every time we spoke to someone new about this OU excursion, more often than not, we received the response of, “You shouldn’t go to Mexico City, it’s too dangerous… Or, Why the hell would you ever go to Mexico City?!” And, with that in the back of our minds, we dove into this trip wanting to prove all of the doubters wrong!

Mexico City is one of the most populous cities on the planet, and yes, that has certain effects on an area, but certainly is not enough to validate the stigma associated with it. The population of Mexico City hovers around 20+ million people and is rapidly growing on an annual basis! To put this into perspective this city has about the same population as the 7 most populous cities in the United States combined! This would include New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and San Antonio.

However, Mexico City has become a victim of it’s own exponential growth over the years, and now with its surging drug trade coupled with the media’s desire to exaggerate — tourists all over the world are deterred from visiting.

Now… let’s do a little math, shall we? If you were to look at the populations of each respective city along with its murder rate per 100,000 people and get the weighted average murder rate for the entirety of the sample, you would see that the weighted average murder rate of the 7 US cities combined is greater than that of Mexico City. What does that mean? If we were to bunch all of these cities together in order to keep the population figure on par with Mexico City and compute the ’new’ murder rate for this group of cities it would prove that Mexico City actually has a safer environment when concerning this type of crime!

This city is a truly beautiful destination with a vast cultural scene that can take weeks to fully explore and that is all masked by the picture in which the media paints of it. Mexico City resides in a valley between two large hills and was interestingly enough built on top of a lake there hundreds of years ago. In the last 100 years Mexico City has sunk about 42’ and is sinking about 8” each year. The city is busting at the seams with growth in business and immigrants from other countries are coming in droves; only further enforcing it’s need to constantly build out.

However, with that said, Mexico City does not resemble a city with people just jammed together like sardines, but rather an impressively well orchestrated experiment in population management and municipal upkeep. When walking around the city one can notice how densely populated it really is. The streets are in gridlock around the clock with hour commutes just to travel 5-10 miles, cars move through the streets with complete disregard for any traffic laws, people flood the city streets for as far as the eye can see, and all the while the city is kept inconceivably clean.

The people that inhabit the city are some of the nicest around. When in the belly of the beast, or an authentic Lucha Libre match, we were the only ‘tourists’ in the entire crowd, but we did not feel out of place. We were experiencing Mexican culture as locals, and they were very welcoming to the idea of also being entertained by two gringos wearing Luchador masks. 🙂 But, from the inside of the Lucha Libre arena and the rustic areas surrounding the Teotihuacán Pyramids to the halls of the nicest restaurants and night life destinations Mexico City has to offer; we were taken aback by how far from the truth Mexico’s image has gotten.

Mexico City really is a testament to what a big city should look and feel like. There was not one instance where we felt unsafe or unwelcome. In fact, we were welcomed with open arms everywhere we went and cannot wait until we get the chance to return!

To check out some of the cool stuff we did while in Mexico City see our other posts on Pure Joy and ¡Lucha Libre!

We were lucky enough to have stayed at the W Mexico City while we were filming the OU-Pilot and boy was it worth it.

Our first impression when we walked through the doors of the hotel couldn’t have been better. Cinthya, one of the members of the concierge team, a front desk attendant, as well as a gentleman from the valet staff all welcomed us with open arms. We arrived a bit before our check-in time and to no fault of their own they still arranged a complimentary package for us at the restaurant, Solea, to make our wait a bit more pleasurable.

After a not-so-great flight with an extremely early departure time we were exhausted, and all we wanted to do was relax. The hotel made sure that we were comfortable and had followed up with food, drinks, etc. to make up for the morning of hectic travel. After enjoying our welcome package, we revisited our friends at the check-in desk to go to our rooms. We chatted a bit with Cinthya (displayed above), who proved to be a great asset for us later in the trip, and then were led up to our rooms.

The rooms were not only beautiful and incredibly clean, but they gave the OUCrew a corner of the hotel where our rooms were connected. It wasn’t a normal door that connected the rooms together, but the rooms shared their own private hallway, which was perfect for the way in which we like to collaborate on projects. And, to make our lives even better while on the road they had included wifi service for both of our rooms.

We became very close with the concierge staff, both Cinthya and a gentleman by the name of Israel (also depicted above) and were able to plan our weekend with ease. We had them plan excursions for us ranging from Lucha Libre fights and guided tours of the pyramids to getting reservations at the most exclusive night life destinations in the city.

We were given the royal treatment in a city that we were told not to go to — let’s just say we can’t wait to go back!