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Mazatlan, Mexico.

- Flickr -

Then, we visited some really pretty lakes.

Nacional de Mexico, No. 739

Photographed by Hugo Brehme, ca. 1905-1920

The Garbage Dumps of Tijuana, Mexico

CA Bipartisan effort 2end Mexico crossborder truck program-SanDiego Examiner.com http://ping.fm/JMOcu WETHEPEOPLE immigration madeinUSA

Plane Friendly

A journey to Mexico really begins in the waiting area for your flight.  Mexicans take friendliness to a new level by British standards.  After asking a lady what time she thought we would arrive in Mexico City, a conversation ensued in which, 15 minutes in, she gave me the phone number of her cousin who lives near San Cristobal de Las Casas (now the first point on my trip after Mexico City) and told me to phone him.  Now, am I wrong on this?  If I was flying in the opposite direction and met a Brit who had a cousin living in Oxford and told me to visit him - I would probably think he was a bit nuts.  Am I a cynic?  Unfriendly?  Or just British?

Once on the plane a mexican man pointed to the empty seat between us: “¡Tenemos suerte!” he said (we’re lucky!) and we started talking.  Turns out his daughter who was next to him was half mexican, half-irish, so any words or meanings that were getting lost were translated by her.  By the end of the flight I had an e-mail address and a firm invitation to go rafting in Veracruz (where they are from).  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some belters of a conversation with randoms on a train, but I’ve never invited them to come and stay!

Taxi Farely Frightening

It’s probably best to keep your eyes closed and your seatbelt firmly on during a taxi-ride from the airport to wherever your “final destination” is, or at least that’s what I did once the speedometer had reached three-quarters of the way round the dial and the taxi driver was overtaking a car by squeezing through a space between another two on the right.  And this was using the “official” taxi rank at the airport: “Sitio 300”, not some maverick outfit.  At M$152 (£7.90), it’s a tad on the expensive side, especially when compared with the metro (M$3 - 16p) but it’s the safest and most secure way of getting to where you’re staying and when you’ve got a ton of luggage, laptop and other valuables, it’s well worth the money, though the chances of death are probably ten-fold. 

New Hostel, New Sensations

The thing I always notice first about a new country is the smell.  Warm countries definitely smell different and as I was speeding past tall neon signs and even taller construction sites, the smell reminded me of Bangkok.  It’s got a strange sweetness to it that’s more pungent than pleasant, but not intolerable until you get the whiff of a drain - which happens a lot more than it does in the UK.  The sensation of it being dark and warm at the same time is always strange for me.  If it’s dark at home, you put your coat on.  You wouldn’t even ever test that.  If it’s dark - it’s cold.  But Mexico is different.  It’s dark and warm.  Your body just doesn’t expect it and heightens as a result.

Entering the hostel, I thought that the journey to México, I suppose, summed up the reasons why people get “shocked” with culture, and very reasons why I’m here and why I love to travel.

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