Mexicans cross 'the border' – at a theme park

Sirens wail, and Rosa Estrada charges down a dirt path, down the side of a mud bank, then picks her way silently across the stinking, swampy earth.

"Get under the bushes!" someone barks in a whisper in the blackness of the night. "Immigration is coming!"

Twenty Mexicans scramble to the ground, crouching among thick branches and brambles.

"Hello, this is border patrol," booms a voice in English. Red and blue lights streak the sky overhead. In Spanish: "Are you Mexicans? It's too dangerous to cross the river. Remember your kids and families at home."

Ms. Estrada lies still, breathing quietly.

She is not on her way to "El Norte." About 700 miles from the US-Mexican border, she has paid $18 at a park in the central state of Hidalgo that offers a simulated experience of a migrant crossing.

Welcome to Mexico's take on adventure tourism, a five-hour trek that goes well past midnight. Residents pay to walk in mud past their ankles, balance on ledges – in pitch black – that drop steeply, and sprint across corn fields, kicking up dirt and rocks as they run from fake US border patrol officers dressed in camouflage.

The park was begun by the Hñahñu, an indigenous community in El Alberto that has been decimated by immigration to the US. Bernardino Martin, El Alberto's municipal leader, says the attraction has been criticized by some people as a training ground for would-be illegal immigrants.

But, he says, the purpose is to pay homage to those who must leave Mexico to earn money for their families, and, above all, to generate more employment so the rest of the community can stay put.

"It has been interpreted badly by some," says Mr. Martin. "It is misunderstood. This is so my neighbors prosper, so that no one else is forced to go."

"Come on, let's go! Be quiet, and turn your flashlights off," yells someone in the group taking the "tour" on a recent night. The pack walks the river's edge, then heads up a mountain and dashes into a gulch as immigration officers fan across the road ahead. "We have you surrounded!" the officers yell. "We will let out the dogs."

Ahead, another group of migrants, who are actually actors from the community, tries to run past the officers but are caught and threatened with deportation. Gun shots ring out. The pack behind them moves forward silently, until they find a tunnel and wait patiently.

"It's an adrenaline rush," says Alfredo Trejo, an accountant from Tlalnepantla, in the state of Mexico.

Some 3,000 Mexicans like Mr. Trejo have paid for this tour, called the Caminata Nocturna, or Night Hike, since it began two-and-a-half years ago. Far from picking up tips on how to cross the desert, Trejo and a group of family and friends came out of curiosity: "Someone recommended it; they said it was fun."

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