
Here in Sayulita or Riviera Nayarit, where I live, about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta, the crimes aren’t necessarily distinguishable by race or country of origin. You’re not targeted as a foreigner for any kind of crime. The crime that you see here is usually petty theft; house robberies where there’s lack of protection on houses or a tourist who comes down and leaves the house totally open and all of their valuables out. That’s the kind of crime we have here. We do not really hear of any other type of crime, even the type of crimes that we’re used to in the States, such as rapes or drug related crimes. We have very low crime here. Theft is the biggest crime we have.
Here in Sayulita, you have to be a little more careful relative to crimes against possessions than, for example, when I grew up in Colorado, when we used to leave our door unlocked. Here, you don’t do that. You lock your car and you lock your house. People put bars on the windows.
It’s the opposite situation when talking about personal security. You very, very rarely hear of incidences of any type on that level as far as people being held at gunpoint or knife point. In the 6 years I’ve lived here, I’ve probably heard of 3 incidents that ever happened. And again, the crime involved theft, but never to cause bodily harm to anybody. The 3 incidents I’m citing would probably be, for example, walking home late at night and somebody tries to rob you of your possessions.
There are areas where you can walk alone at night and there are areas you don’t do that. When I walk alone at night depends on the hour. Up to around 11 o’clock it’s fine and after that I would most definitely be walking with somebody. After 11 o’clock and walking alone, you’re running a higher risk of people preying on you because at that hour you’re probably drunk or drugged and so therefore, they would prey on you more easily.
(Casa Encantada with security windows and door, Sayulita, Mexico, pictured.)