Mexico enjoys a cultural
blend that is wholly unique:
among the fastest growing
industrial powers in the
world, its vast cities boast
modern architecture to rival
any in the world, yet it can
still feel, in places, like
a half-forgotten Spanish
colony, while the
all-pervading influence of
native American culture,
five hundred years on from
the Conquest, is
extraordinary.
Each aspect can be found
in isolation, but far more
often, throughout the
Republic, the three co-exist
- indigenous markets, little
changed in form since the
arrival of the Spanish,
thrive alongside elaborate
colonial churches in the
shadow of the skyscrapers of
the Mexican miracle.
Occasionally, the marriage
is an uneasy one, but for
the most part it works
unbelievably well. The
people of Mexico reflect it,
too; there are communities
of full-blooded indígenas
, and there are a few - a
very few - Mexicans of pure Spanish
descent. The great majority
of the population, though,
is mestizo ,
combining both traditions
and, to a greater or lesser
extent, a veneer of urban
sophistication.
Despite encroaching
Americanism, a tide
accelerated by the NAFTA
free trade agreement, and
close links with the rest of
the Spanish-speaking world
(an avid audience for
Mexican soap operas), the
country remains resolutely
individual. Its music, its
look, its sound, its smell
rarely leave you in any
doubt about where you are,
and the thought "only
in Mexico" - sometimes
in awe, sometimes in
exasperation, most often in
simple bemusement - is
rarely far from a
traveller's mind. The
strength of Mexican identity
perhaps hits most clearly if
you travel overland across
the border with the United
States: this is the only
place on earth where a
single step will take you
from the "First"
world to the
"Third". It's a
small step that really is a
giant leap.
You have to be prepared
to adapt to travel in any
country that is still
"developing" and
where change has been so
dramatically rapid. Although
the mañana mentality
is largely an outsiders'
myth, Mexico is still a
country where timetables are
not always to be entirely
trusted, where anything that
can break down will break
down (when it's most
needed), and where any
attempt to do things in a
hurry is liable to be
frustrated. You simply have
to accept the local
temperament - that work may
be necessary to live, but
it's not life's central
focus, that minor annoyances
really are minor, and that
there's always something
else to do in the meantime.
At times it can seem that
there's incessant,
inescapable noise and dirt.
More deeply disturbing are
the extremes of ostentatious
wealth and absolute poverty,
most poignant in the big
cities where unemployment
and austerity measures
imposed by the massive
foreign debt have bitten
hardest. But for the most
part, this is an easy, a
fabulously varied, and an
enormously enjoyable and
friendly place in which to
travel.
Physically, Mexico
resembles a vast horn,
curving away south and east
from the US border with its
final tip bent right back
round to the north. It is an
extremely mountainous
country: two great ranges,
the Sierra Madre Occidental
in the west and the Sierra
Madre Oriental in the east,
run down parallel to the
coasts, enclosing a high,
semi-desert plateau. About
halfway down they are
crossed by the volcanic
highland area in which stand
Mexico City (or México) and
the major centres of
population. Beyond, the
mountains run together as a
single range through the
southern states of Oaxaca
and Chiapas. Only the
eastern tip - the Yucatán
peninsula - is consistently
low-lying and flat.
