Texas Star
US Veteran
In these 3rd world countries, most folks are still born at home, and there is no birth registry that is required as is now the case in the US. So, if you never existed, and you wind up missing....... who and how would they ever count you to know if you were murdered, or just fell into the river and drowned?
In reality, the murder rates are MUCH HIGHER in many of these countries. There is just no way to verify the deaths, let alone verify a murder, and even tougher to figure a death by gun vs. death by a dozen other ways.
And, having been down there..... Belize, Panama, Costa Rica are not the little havens people believe they are. Take a hike away from the resort, and see how things change......
I tried to impress that on a couple I know who went to Jamaica. Fortunately, they got back okay, but didn't wander far from their hotel. They also enjoyed a Mexican trip.
My brother's wife is from Mexico, and still visits family there, although she attained US citizenship this year. I worry whenever they're down there. She has a son from a prior marriage who is trying to emigrate to the US or Canada. Both countries have rejected him. (A daughter will become a US citizen next year, and has completed college here.)
It isn't just murders you have to be wary of in Latin America: a friend was in Costa Rica and at a restaurant along a river. The restaurant sold chickens to guests who then fed them from the restaurant wall to crocodiles on the river bank below. The crocs jump to catch the falling chickens. Sooner or later, some doofus is going to get caught by the hand and feed those crocs. At the least, they'll lose a hand or arm. The crocs can jump higher than most people think. My friend said they were crocodiles, not caimans, but whichever, they're very dangerous. (I doubt that she can tell a croc from a caiman.) The black caiman reaches at least 20 feet, and the American crocodile has been recorded to 23 feet. The latter is rare in the USA, limited to southern Florida, but is common in Mexico and further south. There is also an Orinoco croc in places like Venezuela. But she was in Costa Rica, so prob. they were C. americanus. They probably grow as large as Nile crocs, in remote areas.
Did anyone else here see the episode of, "River Monsters" where the black caiman kept eyeing host Jeremy Wade? If he isn't more careful, some croc or caiman is going to poach ol' Jeremy...
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