Do Not Vacation in Mexico

My most recent vacation in Mexico was a week in Acapulco (2003). We stayed downtown and had a wonderful vacation. We visited some of the places in the Diamond district and the major resorts closer to the airport. We enjoyed being downtown much more than we would have had we been isolated at a resort.

We prefer Cozumel, mostly because it's quieter and closer to all the great scuba diving spots for my husband. It's easy enough to take the ferry over to Playa for more action.

The old grey mare has gotten away from doing resorts when I travel - maybe a mix of age, done a lot of that, and having growing professional interest in how cities and towns work and look.

For a while I started to dislike resorts, however beautiful, as to some large extent they keep visitors in a capsule of real unreality, which gets pretty weird when much around will be the scene of poverty. But I'm getting over that, resorts have their place, and my view was a kind of inverse snobbery that was closed minded in its own way.

So now I'm back to where I'd like to see both cities (and of course countryside) and the occasional small resort village, had I both money and time.

I guess I'd like to see the tourist money better distributed to benefit a larger number of people besides the individual waiters who arrive from small poor villages but have no ideas on how to do that, except that I'd guess most of those waiters send some money home to family, and things trickle along. I don't know enough about where the tourist income goes.

I also don't feel as strange about resorts in Italy because the wealth disparity isn't as clear to me, at least in the parts of Italy I've been in, central to north. In the case of Italy, there is so much else I want to see, the resorts aren't a priority. Now, if I could live there six months of the year, I'd check the resorts out.

I meant that about the individual waiters as a way to get money to poor villages, not that they are the main ones benefitting from tourist dollars.

Yes of course, I'd be delighted to take you there, husker.

I go to T.J. with rolls of nickles just to give to little kids. The only problem is it cauese a mini mexican little kid riot. There I am an American tourist being chased down the street, Nickles flying everywhere with 15 dusty barefoot Tiny mexican kids chasing me down the street.

It sounded like a good idea. Eventually I ran out of nickles and the tiny army cought up to me and we all took a breather on the corner. The tourist thought it was some kind of bazzare demonstration or tradition.

The running or the tiny mexican kids and the Loco gringo.

I'm just glad to see that the majority of a2kers are not as fear driven and mentally deranged as Cj, Hey in south africa they sell pot every where, it's always been a bit of a problem since it grows all over the bloody place(Durban Poison, Swazi Red, Malawi Gold, Jo'burg jut) . Drugs, gangs and illeagal immigrants are a big problem in S. Africa as we have one of the best economies in africa but hey i'm still going to Mozambique come June they got great beaches despite the landmines and surplus of AK47's, hey Cj welcome to the real world there is no utopia.

oh another thing that cracks me up is trying to explain to an African why Latino isn't white, they don't get it. (nor do i) to an African you all white.

Well, the Spanish and Portuguese (and Italians and Greeks) have the same difficulties here in Europe. As do other Europeans.

Difficulties explaining that they aren't white, or what?

pretty much

Damn this thread's still going on?

Though I notice it has been warped beyond recognition. :wink:

That happens whenever I go to Mexico, too!