Many of you have asked about and worried about the bandidos in Mexico.

Drug cartels and the efforts to deal with them have dramatically increased the violence that we occasionally read about or see on our local or national news programs.  If you subscribe to or read the U.S. State Department traveler alerts it paints a pretty scary picture.

Other on line research suggests that these problems concentrate in the parts of Mexico that do not include the Baja peninsula.  To the extent they do exist in Baja they are concentrated near the U.S. Border towns of Tijuana and Mexicali.

I am just one traveler, on just one trip, at just one time of year.  So conclusions are risky to draw.

My experience these last few days has not included any thing or circumstance or incident that would give one pause or reason to be concerned about bandidos.  The scariest moment of my trip thus far was crossing the border.

Having said that there are military checkpoints located sporadically throughout the Baja. I have gone through at least 10 so far.  I have been waived through 7 times.  I have been stopped three times and asked very simple questions.  Where am I coming from.  Where am I going.  And am I here on vacation.  And then I have been waived through.

There obviously are bandidos in Mexico, as evidenced by the photo below of a prison. I have been fortunate so far that I have not run into any.

Stay safe…