The stench of Juarez
Juárez is a sprawling border town that’s infamous for its maquiladora assembly plants, savage drug cartel and brutal feminicides. Over 400 women have been butchered here in recent years, without much resolution or explanation either.
The town crumbles inwardly under its 3 million inhabitants, cross-border traffic and decaying industrial heart. Anger seeps out of the pavement.
Shady doctors, money shops and cut-price pharmacies line the main roads, where Viagra and Vicadin are bought up wholesale by visiting Texans out for a fuck and a fix.
Endless taco shops spew thick smells of burning grease, animal fat and rancid meat. There’s traffic, noise, hustle. A ragged crack addict washes his feet in a sooty black puddle. A starved family begs for change by the immigration post. A man with no legs chases after me with a rattling cup.
Ciudad Juárez. The arse-hole of the world? Quite possibly.
I make the rounds of the ‘three-hour’ hotels, breathing in the TB, the tumours, the rat-infested alleyways. For all its horror, the city certainly has spirit. And humour too. Between all the evil glances, there’s an unmistakeable gregarious charm. They’re alright… some of them, at least.
By dusk I’m back on the bus and heading south to Chihuahua. My body aches to the bone from the job, the travel, endless strange hotel rooms and endless traipsing around. We pass the outskirts of Juárez where miles of scrap metal and an ocean of wrecked cars turns red under the desert’s setting sun. Onwards.
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Tags: interamericana, Juarez, Mexico, norte
Wed, Aug 12, 2009
Mexico, The North