For $10 a pop, you, too, can run for border

EL ALBERTO, Mexico — Gunshots ring out and sirens shriek, mixing with the ragged breath of muddy, panting humans. Suddenly, the full moon reveals a disturbing scene: a group of illegal immigrants being handcuffed and led away by U.S. border agents.

But the U.S. border is 700 miles north of this rugged municipal park in Hidalgo state, a three-hour drive from Mexico City.

The spectacle unfolding here isn't a real border-crossing attempt but a live simulation that tries to give participants a taste of what it's like for the thousands of Mexican and other undocumented migrants trying to enter the promised land of "el norte."

Dubbed the "Caminata Nocturna" (Night Hike), the three-hour simulation is a combination obstacle course, sociology lesson and PG-rated family outing.

Founded in 2004, it's run by members of a local village of Hnahnu Indians, an indigenous people of south-central Mexico, whose population of about 2,500 has been decimated by migration to the United States.

The hike takes place within 3,000-acre Parque EcoAlberto, a recreational park and campsite owned, operated and staffed on a rotating basis by the Hnahnu.

The complex was developed by villagers without government help, said Delfino Santiago, 33, among the park's group of overseers.

Although the simulation can only approximate the dangers and hardships of crossing the border, it reflects a harsh economic reality. Most of this village's residents spend all or part of the year working illegally in places such as Phoenix, Las Vegas and Tampa, Fla.

They created the Caminata in 2004 as a cooperative business to help compensate for the collapse over the last generation of the local farm economy, from crops of tomatoes, corn and chilies.

As in many parts of Mexico, mass migration from here began in earnest in the 1980s, when Mexico's farming sector went into decline. Since the late 1990s, the North American Free Trade Agreement has aggravated Mexico's job losses as competition from industrial farming has driven out small growers.

Every Saturday night, dozens of the remaining several hundred villagers take part in the Caminata. Many work as costumed performers impersonating Border Patrol agents, fellow migrants and masked "coyotes" and "polleros," the Mexican guides who escort migrants for a fee.

The 7-½-mile hike, which involves quite a bit of running, costs about $10 per person. The money raised from the Caminata, and other park activities such as cabin rentals, rappelling and boating trips, is shared evenly among villagers.

The event has drawn thousands of visitors, the majority from Mexico but also from Europe, the United States and Asia.

Among the recent participants were two middle-aged Mexican teachers, an Ohio college professor, several extended families and small clusters of giggling teenagers snapping cellphone pictures.

Several of the roughly 50 participants in a recent outing said they hoped to gain insight into what migrants endure during their trans-border odysseys.

"It's part of our culture, and it's important to know it," said Sergio Mendieta, a secondary-school teacher from the state of Mexico.

Marcelo Rojas, a Mexico City biologist, knows "many, many Mexicans, some of them my relatives," who have crossed back and forth between their country and the United States.

"What pushes them is to have the prospect of a better life," he said. "I know at least three people that went and didn't make it, that wanted to cross the desert. They died there."

Apart from the occasional sprained ankle or cactus spine lodged in a hand, the perils of the course are make-believe. But the Caminata isn't without challenges.

The route takes participants up steep mountains studded with spiky cactuses and sharp-edged maguey plants, along the banks of the swift-flowing Tula River, through cow pastures and ancient Indian burial grounds.

For much of the journey, participants are pursued by ersatz border guards (also known as "la migra"), racing along in pickups, barking commands to surrender and firing guns loaded with blanks.

Some artistic license comes with the price of admission. In reality, border guards seldom use sirens or discharge firearms.

A few media reports have raised the question of whether the Caminata is a kind of boot camp that trains Mexicans and Central Americans how to sneak into the United States.

Hike organizers pump up participants with vaguely worded speeches about Mexican national pride and solidarity with migrants.

Even so, the Caminata probably prepares a person to cross the border about as much as playing a game of paintball would prepare someone to take part in a U.S. Marine sweep of Sadr City.

The Caminata reflects an assumption that poor, desperate migrants have a right to seek work in foreign lands — an attitude shared by most Mexicans, who adamantly oppose extending the U.S. border wall. But it seems intended more as a homage to migrants than an overt political statement.

Santiago said he first crossed the border at 16 and regularly shuttles between his home and Las Vegas, where he is legally employed with a landscaping company.

Speaking in English (his third language, after Spanish and Hnahnu), he said villagers wish they could work legally in the U.S. but that immigration policy makes it extremely difficult and time-consuming to obtain legal status there.

"I pay taxes. I understand the laws," he said. "But they don't allow us to become citizens."