"Cyrus Afzali"
wrote in message>
> From what I've heard, the border towns aren't what you want to see at
> all. We go regularly to Riveria Maya, the area south of Cancun where
> there are many nice resorts. So we're away from the hustle of Cancun,
> but still have a nice town near us. It's great if you like sun, water,
> etc. Small towns nearby also have really good food of all stripes too.
> Puerto Vallerta is also quite nice and in some ways has more charm,
> but it's not as modern in appearance and is congested traffic wise.
>
Border towns are border towns everywhere. They're a "little different."
> We do the "vacation ownership" thing with a Mexican company that has
> resorts in most of the familiar areas. One area that a lot of people
> like is Puerto Penasco, but we've yet to check that one out. Most
> years, we do one week in Mexico and trade through a co-op for a
> U.S.-based resort for our remaining week.
>
> There are several cities you just plain avoid in Mexico, including
> Mexico City, which is one of the roughest cities around. In Mexico
> City and several areas in the countryside far away from the tourist
> areas, there have been big battles between the army and drug cartels,
> as Mexico's new president is leading a big crackdown and is sending in
> the army to takeover policing and root out the drug violence. Often,
> it's the local cops that are enconsed as much as anybody, since their
> poorly paid. So you'll have drug dens literally across the street from
> a police station. But we've never been remotely close to any of that,
> as you'd really have no reason to as a tourist.
>
I'd still love to see Mexico City some day, but yeah I know it is a very
dangerous city.
I used to know folks who liked to drive down there. Not advisable, as the
mountain regions between here and there are even more dangerous.
>
>>I've not heard anybody who's traveled to the interior or well-developed
>>coastal areas of Mexico who did not love it.
>>
> I'll say the people there are some of the friendliest I've ever come
> across anywhere. Our only negative experience was getting pulled over
> last year for allegedly speeding on Highway 307 just outside of
> Cancun. I may have been going 100 kilometers an hour rather than 80,
> as speeds change on that highway a lot, but I was being passed by
> people much faster. I strongly suspect we were picked off because we
> were in a rental. After some back and forth, we paid the cop 1,000
> pesos (about $100US) and were on our way. This year, cops weren't as
> visible on that stretch.
>
Routine trick of the Mexican policia.
Not that any small-town USA cop would ever try that, targeting out-of-county
or state license plates or rental cars for tickets. ;^)
> Anyway, we did have a fine time save for some flight turbulence coming
> back. Don't know what it is about Latin America, but every time we've
> been in the region this year, we've had some, but tonight's was
> nothing like Puerto Rico in December. I've written about and followed
> airlines for a long time, so I know that even in pretty rough
> turbulence, the only thing really likely to suffer is one's stomach.
> I've been through a fair amount, but we had an unexpected steep drop
> on that flight that had me white-knucking it.
>
I've experienced the same thing returning from California or Las Vegas,
especially when traveling over the area near El Paso. I've always figured it
was from the mountains and heat, creating some rather dramatic wind
conditions.
