Alot of people don't know this, but there is some serious fighting that goes on in Mexico. I remember passing through deep in the interior and seeing charred earth with soldiers set up and fire still on the ground after a firefight. There is a "quiet revolution" revolution going on there..I remember going to the presidential palace in Guadalajara and it being taboo to talk about politics down there..very very different from what we're used to over here.

 

link works fine now...

 

I remember reading something like this in the Toronto Star. They had pictures of kids that were being smuggled over. The story was basically that these kids' parents paid for them to get inot the counrty so they could live a better life. The kids were stuffed into hidden spaces in the floors of vans. One picture showed a kid that was actually behind the dash of the car. They opened up the glovebox and bam, there is this kids face. Kinda like that maintenance commercial with the guy sticking his head out of the glovebox talking about the owner not taking car of the car.

 

I was actually there this weekend. The violence is apparently only around the border. I crossed there but continued deeper/further to Monterrey. It was an Arch. major field trip. Traveling through Mexico is weird. Once you cross the border, it goes from sanitary, to a complete dump with trash littering the streets. It makes you want to turn right the f*** around. But understand this, it's awesome/beautiful/artistic/etc. once you get further in, like to Monterrey. I was upset about it all at first, but then arrived in Mont. and was in awe of their culture and how friendly people were there, very much more than here. I'm a complete "whitey" and everyone was still patient with me even though we couldn't understand each other. I had NO problems getting access to anything I wanted.

.........anyways, it was my first real traveling experience and I'm still excited about it, so I felt like spewing a little info on what I experienced over the weekend. So like I said, well worth going, and if you do, go deep or not at all. lol

 

The problem with Mexico is that their is no middle class...it's the haves or the have nots..The towns are either very very poor or very rich. Monterey is very pretty at night..looks like a bunch of candles on a large hill..very dangerous driving. If you keep going south, like Guadalajara, it gets alot nicer...there was an underground mall that freaked me out. There was another one that I went to that was one of the nicest malls I had ever been to anywhere.. I've been to some fricken nice malls in the U.S. but the mall in Gaudalajara was as nice, if not nicer then the ones I've been in the U.S. Like I said, it's the haves and the have nots..

 

Very true. But it's not like there were very few "haves" though. I went through the mercados and there were plenty there that were well dressed. When we went to the clubs that looked nasty on the outside, it turned out that some were VERY nice on the inside. People started pulling up everywhere in BMW's and Mercedes wearing suits. It was so weird seeing that. lol