It was winter in 1984-85. My girl friend from England and I bicycled from southeast coastal Florida to San Diego, California. In El Paso we went into Juarez, Mexico and did a loop in Mexico, reentering the US at border towns Agua Prieta and Douglas, Arizona. In Mexico the policia pulled us over. They advised us to go back to the American side. they said there had been robberies and crimes where we were headed. they said it was not safe. Years later, circa 2010, I bicycled from FL to CA. This happened on that stretch of highway between Van Horn, TX and El Paso. It was on that stretch of road where you must exit I--10. You know that road. It has all those small towns strung out along the way. Fabens is one town. Anyway, it was zero dark thirty. The border patrol stopped me at the side of the road. They told me this. If anybody waves or gestures to you in any way to stop, if someone or ones try to befriend, DO NOT STOP. Keep going. Recently two tourists had been lured to go party and drink and some fun time with the senoritas. What they got was robbed and murdered. After that I wrote about the possible dangers of cycling the Mexican roads along the border, naming Laredo/Nuevo Laredo as a possible danger zone. The people on the bicycling forum seemed to think the risk was negligible, and the threat exaggerated. Someone from Nuevo Laredo posted a sort of denunciation of my warning. She insisted theirs was such a good place to live. It was a decent area for tourists to visit. Shortly after that, several corpses were found hanging from a bridge in that decent safe little town. They had been horribly mutilated, some probably beheaded with their sex organs mutilated. Another time I bicycled from Florida to Brownsville, TX. It is right on the US / Mexican border, across from Matamoros, near the gulf of Mexico. I was in Brownsville in a cafe, drinking a cup of coffee and reading a a newspaper. This story was in the news. A Mexican border town had voted in a new chief of police. He had vowed that bribery would not rule the police in his jurisdiction. His position was anti illegal drugs and anti cartels. One day after his election, they shot him dead in the street in front of his office.