41–50 of 113 posts
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What a piece of shit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would be interested in visiting some or most of these countries in a few years time. At the risk of sounding cliched, I don't obviously want the touristy experience but want to experience the country(ies) and am prepared to do that for a few months. I currently know zero spanish, do you suggest picking up a guide book or should I invest time learning it at a school (I live in SF)?
For $200-$300/week, you can get one on one immersion with a teacher in Antigua. I spent 10 weeks. There are over 100 such schools in Antigua. http://www.guatemala365.com/ Immersion is the best way for both time and money. Here's the one that I went to: http://www.guatemala365.com/index.php?link_school=plfm
I've been to 93 countries. All continents. Places travellers would normally not contemplate visiting. All independently. I've _never_ had to bribe someone. In all the years of doing this, I've had an official try to shake me down maybe 5 times. I think McAfee's advice is way off.
I've never bribed anyone but have lived and travelled extensively in Latin America and the Caribbean. I've never paid a bribe, but have been close to it on a couple of occasions. I have generally avoided it by playing a dumb tourist or talking Danish to them. (I'm fluent in Spanish) but from Denmark. It depends really much on how you travel. I don't know anything about you, but from the sound of it my guess is you ba…
I find reading articles like this exhausting. I've got to imagine being a criminal/sketchball while on the road in whatever country you're in is equally exhausting. Is it not just possible to travel abroad, carry proper documentation, a bit of cash, and enjoy yourself? Does every situation really require constant vigilance to knowing when to run or not, how to make eye-contact, when to make excuses, etc.? Perhaps I'm…
One might only come into these situations if you veer off well known tourist areas. If you take local transport (non-tour buses) then you might be subject to the same shakedowns as locals. So, if you act like a tourist and walk like a tourist, then most likely the biggest problem would be picked pockets.
Take Mexico, for example. My understanding is that so long as you stay in the tourist areas --say Cabo, Cancun ,etc., you'll, for the most part, be fine. Go outside the tourist safe areas and you're taking a bit of a risk. The size of the risk would depend on many factors, but it certainly increases. Mexico earn a sizable fraction of GDP from tourism, they'll do all the can to insulate tourists from the violence.
I've been to 93 countries. All continents. Places travellers would normally not contemplate visiting. All independently. I've _never_ had to bribe someone. In all the years of doing this, I've had an official try to shake me down maybe 5 times. I think McAfee's advice is way off.
Corruption in most of these countries is a negotiation game that is conducted implicitly. That's why playing dumb is so effective--if you don't know the rules of the game, you can't play, especially if you don't share a language. So, for every time where someone has forcefully pressed the point and made it clear to you that a bribe was expected, there have likely been a hundred times where a native in your place would have been expected to pay a small bribe of some sort.
Do this if you want to be an abrasive dipshit who the host community rejects. This guy is a colonialist-tourist, not a traveller. You can feel his contempt for the people and the lands he is "visiting" seething through.
How am I supposed to have anything but contempt, if even 25% of what he writes is true? Don't want my contempt? Don't run your country like a corrupt shithole. Seems simple enough.
Every society has its dark underbelly of criminals, but what narco and sex-tourism money does is tip the scales of power in those societies in favor of the criminals. Suddenly, the poor but honest technocrats running the country find themselves fighting a moneyed criminal class. No contest.
McAfee and his type are best served staying home and cooking meth in a trailer somewhere, not play Mad Max in people's homes with his easy money.
It may just be that I don't have McAfee's cajones, but much of his advice herein seems like a surefire way to, at best, end up locked up in some South or Central American prison for the rest of your life; at worst, end up face down in some ditch someplace.
I've been to 93 countries. All continents. Places travellers would normally not contemplate visiting. All independently. I've _never_ had to bribe someone. In all the years of doing this, I've had an official try to shake me down maybe 5 times. I think McAfee's advice is way off.
I've also been told by a local to stick a $20 bill in my passport to avoid problems going through customs because we had expensive computer equipment on us and were in a rush for our next flight. I refused that advice. But I've seen boxes that have been opened and things missing as well so I was taking a chance by not doing it.
I've seen a lot of corruption, and had a chance to participate in it. Seems McAfee's advice is based on experience. I wouldn't discount it so easily.
No one is, even in the slightest, is doubting the validity of this blog?