That’s such a shame.

I passed on the opportunity to go down there to study the pyramids back in my college days. I was a few years into anthropology studies and really would have loved to go, but came up with too many excuses not to go… My Spanish wasn’t good enough. I didn’t want to fall behind on classes and push back my graduation. Fucking idiot that I was passed on an opportunity some people only dream of.

One of my Mexican friends was just saying how worried she is to go back down to visit her family and boyfriend.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

But two tourist guides in the southern state of Chiapas, near the border with Guatemala, say two other sites that the government claims are still open to visitors can only be reached by passing though drug gang checkpoints.

“They demand your identification, to see if you’re a local resident,” he said, describing an almost permanent gang checkpoint on the road to Lagartero, a Mayan pyramid complex that is surrounded by pristine, turquoise jungle lagoons.

The government seems unconcerned, and there is even anger that anyone would suggest there is a problem, in line with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policy of playing down gang violence — even as the cartels take over more territory in Mexico.

The National Guard — the quasi-military force that López Obrador has made the centerpiece of law enforcement in Mexico — has been pelted with stones and sticks by local residents in several towns in that region of Chiapas in recent weeks.

The other tour guide said that was because the two warring drug cartels, Sinaloa and Jalisco, often recruit or force local people to act as foot soldiers and prevent National Guard troopers from entering their towns.

The guide said the ruin sites have the added disadvantage of being in jungle areas where the cartels have carved out at least four clandestine landing strips to fly drugs in from South America.

The original article contains 930 words, the summary contains 227 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!