What To See And To Do In Mexico

Mexico is a big and old country. Everyone can find something interesting in this land. Ancient pyramids and temples, big modern megapolises and tropical resorts – it’s all here waiting for you to come.

The trip to Mexico can be started with visit to its capital – Mexico City. It’s the third-largest metropolis in the world. Only Tokyo and New York City are bigger. This expansive city of 20 million and over a mile high is built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, the ancient Aztec capital. Reminders of past civilization pervade the city, particularly at the Templo Mayor excavation and Anthropological Museum at Chapultepec Park. This very Tenochtitlan was founded in 1325 by Aztecs. Speaking about modern Mexico City, the district called the Zona Rosa is famous for its shops.

One of the must-sees in Mexico are pyramids of Teotihuacan and Chichen Itza. Teotihuacan is located 50 kilometers northeast of Mexico City. Teotihuacan is not only a monumental city, but also a place where the mural paintings allow the visitor to delve into a world of mythical figures of Gods, jaguars, nocturnal beings and liquid skies.

The ruins of Chichen Itza lie about midway between Cancun and Merida, so that the journey from each city takes around 2 or 3 hours via the new autopista. This place was a settlement of Maya tribe. The tribe itself sank into oblivion, but its creature still attracts millions of tourists and hundreds of investigators seeking for their archeological glory.

When you feel tired of ancient ruins and dust roads you can direct your steps to one of the Mexican resorts – Cancun, Puerto-Vallarta or Acapulco.

So, meet Cancun. Very popular resort among US citizens situated on the Yucatan peninsula. The city of Cancun is only 35 years old. This fashionable resort was built on the place of the former fisherman’s village. Cancun is world famous for its beaches, surrounding the whole city.

Puerto Vallarta is nestled between palm-covered mountains, a river and an azure sea. The city is full of cobblestone streets and whitewashed houses. Like Cancun, once it was a fishing village.

One of the most exciting resorts in the world, Acapulco is famous for its explosive nightlife, golden beaches, unlimited watersports, world-class hotels, restaurants and the breathtaking beauty of Acapulco Bay. Acapulco is located on the Pacific coast of Mexico and unlike Puerto Vallarta and Cancun it’s a big city with 2-million population.

Mexico is enjoyable year-round, but October to May is generally the most pleasant time to visit. The May-September period can be hot and humid, particularly in the south, and inland temperatures can approach freezing during December-February.

About The Author Ann Corba If you like to know about how to book hotel in Mexico or in any other country, please visit http://www.allrez.com.

Recommended  Reading

The Rough Guide To Mexico - 6th Edition (Paperback)

Book Description
INTRODUCTION

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 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; see the box on p.ix) 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.

WHERE TO GO

The north of Mexico, relatively speaking, is dull, arid and sparsely populated outside of a few industrial cities – like Monterrey – which are heavily American-influenced. The Baja California wilderness has its devotees, the border cities can be exciting in a rather sleazy way, and there are beach resorts on the Pacific, but most of the excitement lies in central and southeastern Mexico. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review - I 've just finished a month of travelling through mexico (Oct 1999). This guide gives a lot of interesting and essential information about live in Mexico, food, Mexicans' attitude, transport, health... It's a real pleasure to read it as it is written in a very understanding and fascinatingly way. I was really surprised of the accurate price information of hotels and restaurants in the Guide. Moreover, the useful tips about what transport facility to take, saved me a lot of money, which is of course important when travelling on a budget. Also citymaps and the plans of the ruins are very detailed and an indispensable tool when entering new places. Furthermore, I visited some less known, but wonderful places, mentioned in the Guide, where almost no other tourists came. Summarized, I'd suggest this book to everybody who plans to make a trip to Mexico!