| | |  Travel & Outdoors | July 2009 
For Travelers, Mexico is a Delight and is Safe Too
 Janine Melberg - Denver Post
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July 19, 2009
Fear of the swine flu and drug trade violence are preventing foreigners from visiting Mexico. From all accounts in the Puerto Vallarta area, no one has the flu or knows of anyone with the flu, and drug related violence is not in evidence in this scenic Pacific coast tourist mecca.
Instead, American's fears on these matters are harming our neighboring country. I recently returned with my young daughters from a once-in-a-lifetime, three-month immersion in Puerto Vallarta. All three of us were distraught that we had to leave our beloved, newly adopted home in Mexico.
Since our return, we keep hearing that Americans should not travel to Mexico. The warnings imply that American tourists will not be safe. We would like to go on record that the parts of Mexico to which we traveled are safe! And without American tourists, the Mexican economy is in great trouble.
Our family has traveled to Mexico with another family for the past seven years. During these trips, our two families, each with same-aged daughters (now 11 and 13), stayed in all-inclusive resorts. Last year, our family wandered off in search of a community where two moms and four girls could live for three months and the girls could enroll in a bilingual school for the ultimate plunge into another culture.
As 2009 dawned, my daughters and I landed in Puerto Vallarta. The other mother spoke Spanish well. I could get by with a fair vocabulary but very poor grammar. Our older daughters had taken beginning Spanish in their public middle school in Denver. The younger girls could barely count in Spanish, much less carry on a simple conversation.
Life was a bit unsettled at first. Our housing plan fell through a week before we arrived. So, our first order of business was to find housing for two families. This detail was settled fairly quickly, and we ended up renting condos across from the Cruise Ship Terminal and Sam's Club and Wal-Mart. Within a week we were used to the colorful pesos and began to mentally calculate our true cost of living, based on the peso's changing value.
Fortunately for us, the exchange rate for the peso ranged from 13.3 pesos to a low of 15 U.S. dollars during our stay. Public transportation was another huge learning experience, which was learned quickly and used voraciously!
Shopping for groceries and daily goods became a delightful scavenger hunt as we tried to translate labels or recognize their contents by labels and pictures.
All four girls were enrolled in a Mexican, bilingual school, the Colegio Mexico Americano, which caters to the general population of Mexico, and offers classes for pre-kindergarten through high school.
Our families were the first students to "pop in" and stay for a prescribed, 3-months period of time. There were several full-time American and Canadian students enrolled but no one had come for a short-term immersion experience.
Our older daughters had studied basic Spanish for one to two years in middle school. Our younger daughters knew virtually nothing. We made sure that the girls were in the non-honors classes, which were taught (supposedly) half in Spanish and half in English.
Fortunately for us, classes were taught more in Spanish then English, so the girls' immersion was more intense. By the time we left, our children were fully-involved in their classes, making new friends, and writing and speaking (albeit very basic) Spanish!
In addition to learning Spanish, we learned an important cultural truism about Mexican schools: parents drop their children off, but are not involved in their schooling.
A few times each year, parents are invited to attend parent/child events. Other than these few occurrences, contact with students in the classrooms is not a norm! This was an eye-opener and an important lesson I will take into account as we try to involve Hispanic parents at our children's schools here in Denver.
We were trying our best to really "live as residents" in Mexico and glean from our stay what it means to be a foreigner: to learn a new language, to decode street signs, to learn a new currency, to learn new rules about how to pick-out bread/sweets at a bakery, to cook using new spices and herbs, to find different produce, dried goods and meats at the grocers, to rely almost entirely on a public transportation system, and to live in a community where we were the outsiders/foreigners/strangers.
I am happy to say that we thrived! Weeknights, when there was little homework we hopped on the bus, went downtown, mingled with the locals and were awed by spectacular sunsets over the Pacific.
Twice a week the girls worked out with the swim team at their school. Their coach spoke no English.
Weekends included excursions: a one-and-a-half hour bus ride to Sayulita for surfing which costed 20 pesos, a weekend at a friend's sloppy, big beach house in Litibu for 10 pesos, a forty-five minute bus ride to Bucerias for great beaches and Chiapas textile shopping, four days in Guadalajara, three days in Tepic, and two days in San Sebastian.
We never slowed down and we were never bored! Fortunately for us, we had no cable TV. Although the girls managed to watch some cheap, pirated DVDs, screen time for e-mails and internet surfing was greatly limited. We were in Mexico to explore, meet the locals, play at the beach, eat, and experience. And that we did.
We ate everything, everywhere. My husband, who was able to visit for a couple of weeks, was afflicted with Montezuma's revenge for three days, but the rest of us never suffered more than a few hours of discomfort if any at all.
We became adventurous diners and each found a favorite spot, including a tortilleria, a taco stand, a fancier restaurant, or a fruit stand on the beach.
Our culinary interests focused mostly on homemade salsas rich with tortillas, tasty guacamole with shrimp or fish ceviche (which we liked the most), greasy pastore meat, and a variety of chocolate croissants.
After a while, the answer to our persistent question, "Are the veggies washed with disinfectant?" And the answer was was always, "Oh, sí señora." So we lived large and ate the lettuce, tomatoes and other fresh, water-cleaned produce.
A fondness for good, homemade, simple food from our newly-adopted state of Jalisco, was our favorite in the end.
So, were we safe? My answer is a resounding yes! Never during our 3-month journey did we ever feel unsafe, victimized, or stalked, haunted, or otherwise personally affronted. Did we get whistled at? Yes! Would we have been whistled at here in Denver? Probably yes!
Did we leave our house early in the dark of the mornings, at about 6:30 a.m. and often not return home, on the public transportation, until later in the evening after 10:00 p.m.? Yes!
Did we walk all over, for miles upon miles, through the streets, up the hills, in nice neighborhoods, in working class neighborhoods, in poor neighborhoods? Yes! Did we take a 3-day trip to Tepic and another four-day jaunt to Guadalajara (both by bus) to walk for hours around the cathedral then another day each walking throughout Tlaquepaque and Tonala? Yes! Would we go back to travel, visit, or even live in Mexico? Most definitely. My answer is, "How soon can we go back?"
I hope that those of you who have visited Mexico before or are curious about our neighbor to the south take the time to go to Mexico. The border towns have serious safety concerns, and local Mexicans conceded that parts of Mexico City are unsafe. But there are so many lovely communities, especially those geared towards tourists that are extremely safe.
The Mexican government works hard to make sure the tourist towns and corridors are safe. Police and military personnel drive in open-bed pick-ups throughout the communities, guns pointing out. Their visibility is an added protection for us, the tourists.
The Mexicans have built their communities on the knowledge that we, visitors from their northern neighbors, would come to take part in their economy. Our economy is in bad shape. The Mexican economy has been hit even harder - a bad economy compounded by lack of Americans who are scared to travel south.
Please revisit your concerns about traveling to Mexico. Consider the reality of safety in your own community. The Denver Post is full of stories about homicides, burglaries, carjackings right here in Denver and throughout Colorado. We live in a big city, know where we should be when, and we live smartly. The same can be done in Mexico. And in Mexico throngs of people are outside, walking, visiting, smiling and saying "Hola," as you pass by.
Visit Mexico. Meet the locals - shopkeepers, restaurateurs, school children. Eat the food, take in the gorgeous scenery, the beaches, the blue skies, and the flora and fauna. Expand your horizons. Live life now, because life is short, and south of the border there are years of exploring waiting for you!
Janine Melberg lives in Denver. |
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