In a boomtown, money flows like a raging river. During the 1880s, young entrepreneurs flocked west to legendary boomtown destinations like Tombstone, Arizona. These outposts built luxurious saloons and hotels. In the general store, a traveler could find many of the same products sold back home in the established East. It was the beginning of the geographic expanse of corporate America. However, behind the facade of surging capitalist civilization existed a state of lawlessness and injustice. Sheriffs and marshalls followed their own laws, and often cashed in on the abundance of opportunity for wealth.
In the 1990s, a boomtown of a different sort exists in the Mexican Caribbean. As awe inspiring as the nearby Mayan temples, the vacation resort of Cancun boasts foreign owned hotels that spring up from the sand as massive achievements of design and construction. Young, impulsive, high rolling college kids arrive in a stampede at the airport. They are greeted by buses with cold Corona for sale by the driver. "Save water, drink Tequila," the guides recommend as the armada of buses rolls out towards the city of hotels. When the students hit the beach, basking in the warm sun and white beaches, surrounded by a foreign people, there is a tingling of exotic otherness and insecurity.
Then the students walk across the street to the shopping centers and discover themselves strangers surrounded by a familiar landscape. An at-home ease quickly develops as the tourists are blanketed by the products and businesses of American multinationals. The USA Today comes hot off the presses by 11 a.m. CNN, HBO and ESPN II are beamed to the hotels. Subway, Hard Rock Cafe, Pizza Hut, McDonalds and Footlocker await the throngs of patrons. Staffing the businesses are native employees. They are an industrious people who speak polished English and whiz around in Volkswagen bugs, locking their steering wheels with the American made Club.
At night, pumped up by adventure and hormones, students storm the clubs and bars. Money flows drink by drink till early in the morning. Spent and exhausted, the students climb in a taxi and head back to the city of hotels. If one decides to save the fare, and saunter home under cover of the flying bats while accompanied by lizards on the sidewalk, the veil of at-home ease begins to fade. Out of the alleyways the gross amount of garbage is dragged forth and put on the corner. Offers of drugs come from the shadowy corners. Threatening figures walk-by.
Late night in Cancun is a threatening and foreign land where the police prey on the unsuspecting. Patrolling the beaches, supposed officers of the law stop couples and threaten to arrest them if they are not paid $100 dollars on the spot. "What law is this?" the police are asked.
"No law, just money" they respond. Downtown at the police station, a sentry without a uniform stands with a rifle in the parking lot. The station consists of an alcove next to an abandoned mall. Inside, ten or so officers stand joking and gambling. By the truck load, American college students are brought to the station. Their wallets and shoelaces are taken from them as they are told to sit on a few crates in the corner until their friends can manage a cab fare to come down and bail them out. Their offense is neither known nor declared. When their friends finally arrive, they are told to pay a fine so that the arrested can be released. Nothing is in writing. "How much?" is asked in Spanish.
"$20 dollars" replies one officer.
"No, $50 dollars" declares another as he steps forward through a haze of cigar smoke.
"Seventy dollars!" his partner cackles. In an effort to communicate, a student scribbles a number on a copy of the local betting circular laying on the counter. An agreement is reached, the money is paid and the jailed are released. Two policeman throwing dice laugh and catcall as the students head out through the exit. In more ways than one, it is a sobering moment. The city of hotels is an imperfect market with no rules. May the traveler beware.
