A love affair with Mexico
Travel is an aphrodisiac. Even as a seasoned traveler, I can’t get enough of it. Delving into the unknown is what brings the excitement to the experience and keeps me going back for more. While we all have our reasons for traveling, the best part of being away from home for me is interacting with the locals. Their role as the trip protagonists, if you will, is to bring the history, culture, and cuisine of their homeland to life. How well they perform their role often determines how much you enjoy the visit to their country.
Why Americans love Mexico
I recently returned from Mexico for the fourth time in less than ten years. Yes, my heart belongs to France, as you all know. But my clandestine lover—metaphorically speaking—is Mexico. I’m not alone as many of my friends flock there annually to return to the regions they love as well as to explore new territory. Their guides, of course, are the people of Mexico from the hotel concierge to the street food vendor to the casual passerby who stops to lend a hand when you are lost or out of exact change for the coin-operated public bathroom!
What follows is a snapshot of why my friends and I find Mexico so compelling. Beyond being close to America, having glorious weather, and offering great value, Mexico has a plethora of other reasons why it remains amongst the most popular destinations for American tourists.
A country worthy of being admired
Thirty-something, Disney executive, Maisie Bornstein, sums it up succinctly. “As a self-identified (and friend/family-identified) overly critical person, it's hard to find a place where I want to keep going back. Besides NYC, Mexico City (lovingly referred to as CDMX) is the only other place I've ever deemed worthy of my learning another language. The food, both street and restaurant, is outstanding, the cocktails are lethal, the neighborhoods are unique and lively, the people are friendly, and the museums aren't boring. There's a never-ending list of places to discover, and I plan on never-endingly looking for them.”
Such enthusiasm for the country is echoed by Evelyn Poole, long-time California wine “ambassador,” who has visited Mexico at least twenty times. In fact, her sister married a Mexican national—who eventually became the head geophysicist for the Mexican petroleum company, Pemex—and moved there in 1970.
Mexico is all about the people
This is how Evelyn describes why she keeps going back starting from her days as a free-wheeling hippie. “Mexico is all about the people. If you are invited into their homes, consider yourself honored and lucky. They are gracious, welcoming, and the cuisine is outstanding. Bright flavors in food are also evident in their art - dazzling colors and forms. I never cease to be delighted by finding new manners of expression, both culinarily and artistically. And their children are delightful!”
Evelyn sent this blog contribution from the beaches of Campeche—once the site of a flourishing Mayan civilization—on her way to discover the colonial city of Valladolid. “A new stop for me!” she declared in her never-ending quest of discovery in her sister’s adopted country.
Being drawn to Mexico despite its dangers
British-born, Trish Gelles, who previously owned one of the best vineyard sites in Washington State, is another big fan of Mexico. So much so that she and her husband David purchased a home in Ixtapa/Zihautanejo, a resort town on the country’s Pacific Coast. As Trish likes to recount, “We bought it 2020 in the middle of the pandemic. We’ve been traveling to Mexico for years and been to many but not all of its 32 states. Obviously, some aren’t safe but even within the ‘unsafe’ states, there are spots one can still travel.”
Trish has many reasons for spending several months a year in Mexico starting with the people whom she describes as “always friendly and smiling.” She reckons this might be because they live in a warm climate!
Exposing the truths about the country
Trish revels in debunking some of the myths foreigners believe in about Mexico. “Depending on the state and even within a given state, the food varies so much. It’s always tasty, not necessarily spicy, but colorful and always fresh.” Referring to Mexico’s pre-Columbian past, she also likes to remind us that “Mexico’s culture goes back long before America even existed, and they knew so much back then about the stars, seasons, and planting.” They were master builders as well, Trish points out referring to their pyramids and temples. “They knew how to move large stones for their monuments, just like the Egyptians.” She marvels at “how they knew not to build one stone exactly on top of another to withstand the earthquakes. And the monuments, of course, are still standing!!”
Mexico’s rich, textured history is yet another reason people keep going back. It’s easy to forget that Mexico’s history had seven, not a mere one, major civilizations—the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Toltec, Aztec, Zapotec, Mixtec, and Maya—long before the Spanish conquistadors took over the country in 1519. Lesser known is the influence of the French who invaded in 1862 when Napoleon III installed Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria as Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. However, by 1867 the Mexican Republic was restored, and the French were thrown out. The Mexican Revolution and the Mexican American war between 1846 to 1848, followed by the American annexation of Texas, are yet other complex historical topics for discussion. Mexico’s modern history with its endless successions of leaders of opposing parties is far beyond my comprehension but feel free to delve into it on your own!
Little known facts of Mexico’s past and recent history
While recently in Mexico, I uncovered several interesting pieces of history during the country’s colonial past which merit mentioning. For example, did you know that the Conquistadors brought over slaves from Africa as well as skilled Arab-Islamic craftspeople to supplement the indigenous population under their rule? Together they labored under the oppressive dominance of Spain, its settlers, and Catholic clergymen to build the abundance of spectacular, exquisitely ornated churches still standing today. While cruelly subjugated, the skilled native workers and imported craftsmen and women surreptitiously managed to sneak images of their gods into their work. When the priests were not looking, the locals were able to pay homage to both their new Christian “Lord” as well as to their ancestorial deities.
The mistreatment of the native people
The cruel treatment of the indigenous people by the conquering Spaniards, who dominated for 300 years, is another fact of history which cannot be overlooked. Despite being descendants of great civilizations, the Spanish conquistadors devastated the indigenous population during their reign. It dropped from a peak as high as 25 million in 1519 to as little as 2.5 million in 1600! No wonder Spain needed an infusion of slaves from Africa!
Fast forward, and today, about half of Mexico’s people live in poverty—many of them indigenous—and about a fifth live in dire poverty. The cause is a combination of modern-day unemployment and low wages with declining purchasing power.
What is equally astonishing, however, is that the modernization and development programs pushed by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the U.S. and the Mexican governments over the last 20 years have not always brought progress to the country. In fact, they have had a devastating impact on the indigenous children many of whom suffer from malnutrition. Across Mexico in the poorer states, for example, certain groups of children have been getting shorter and lighter!
Shades of hope
As in many other countries, the indigenous population is often overlooked by local government. However, when recently in Oaxaca, our city guide pointed out long lines of young Mexicans in front of a bank. As he explained, these people were waiting to receive checks from the government to incentivize them to go to school so that eventually, they could work in more highly skilled jobs.
But, let’s come back to the discussion of why so many people return to Mexico year after year. Lila Gault, retired writer-marketer, has been going for years. In fact, her son, married a Mexican woman when they were both working on their PhDs at UC Berkeley. She and her husband Bill were so enthralled with the country after multiple visits that they bought a time share and return each spring to “PA,” as she calls it, or Puerto Vallarta, to golf, bask in the sun, and travel to new, undiscovered regions.
A checklist of reasons for loving a country
What Lila enjoys most in her month away from Manhattan is the generous and welcoming nature of the Mexican people. To that she adds to this quick check list of other reasons including, “the flavorful food from many different regions; its beautiful cities - Oaxaca, Merida, Mexico City - and so many more; its beaches, mountains, and rainforests; classic and contemporary architecture; rich tradition of artists including Diego, Frida and so many other artists; as well as the country’s Tequila, mescal and other exotic beverages.” As a former wine guru, Lila also singles out the delicious wines of Valle de Guadalupe.
There’s more to come
Each time I speak with someone new who travels frequently to Mexico, the list of compelling reasons to love the country just continues to get longer and longer. On my recent trip, I kept comparing my experience to that of peeling an onion. Day after day, there would be a new layer of discovery of something which further enriched my appreciation of the country’s history and culture. And yet, I knew there would be years of visits ahead of me before reaching Mexico’s inner core, if that were ever possible.
Next post we will talk about what I learned last month on my trip to CDMX, Puebla and Oaxaca. As a preview, we will discuss the discovering of several local traditions which I had not fully understood from previous trips: the Mexican fetish for sweeping the streets; their love of bright colors; and the country’s long tradition for stunning architecture, old and new. But the thing I look forward to most, as pointed out at the beginning of this post, is exploring the character of the Mexican people and what makes their hospitality so enduring, welcoming, and world-famous.
These are just a few of the topics we will examine together on the next blog posting of TarteTatinTales. In the meantime, Hasta luego, amigos!
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