I’m rethinking Mexico.
I’ve got this white middle class guilt situation going on with regard to Mexico.
Or, more specifically, resorty, Mayan Riviera-type Mexico, which perhaps I ought to refer to as “Mexico.”
I have never in my life been the kind of person who would stay in a resort. Having never been to a resort, I guess I’m not exactly sure what that kind of person is, since I’ve never seen them in their natural habitat, but I imagine them as people who want to visit an exotic land without ever seeing any poverty or doing anything slightly inconvenient. I was all about “authentic” travel, which I defined as doing things like staying at small, locally-owned hotels or renting apartments in actual neighborhoods, making a valient attempt at speaking the language, that kind of thing.
One time I even went to actual Mexico, as opposed to “Mexico.” My cousin and I went with a person we knew from Cuernavaca and stayed his family. It was super fun. We went places a couple of güeras probably wouldn’t have gone, ate interesting things, and had a generally good (and informative) time.
I was extremely conscientious about not drinking the water. I never had drinks with ice in them, I kept my mouth clamped shut in the shower, and I even rinsed out my toothbrush with bottled water. I still got the runs.
For that reason, I’ve kind of avoided Mexico since then. There are so many other places in the world to see with so much natural and cultural splendor. Many of them would require similar vigilance for my tender gringa gut, but many of them do not (c.f., all of Europe, Puerto Rico and many other parts of the Caribbean, Costa Rica).
I need a beachy-type vacation. The last time I saw the ocean was a year and a half ago at my cousin’s wedding in Sarasota, and while that was lots of fun, it didn’t scratch my itch for tropical fish viewing. I am also for the first time considering a resort. Adventure travel is great, but now that Miles is in my life, everything is about twelve times more complicated. I suddenly feel a lot less stuck-up toward people who want to take the easy route and just relax on their vacations. I did some research and was feeling good about the Cayman Islands.
But then I read about and saw pictures from a friend’s trip to Mexico. She assured me that she didn’t get sick.  It’s so close by, it’s so reasonably priced, it’s so easy to fly there. There are some resorts that have gotten really good reviews and purport to be family-friendly. But is it exploitive to go to Mexico and just do lite travel? Miles is probably still too young to really be swayed, but I don’t want to give him the impression that the world only exists for white people with enough money to insulate themselves from the challenges these countries face.
I don’t know. Ponying up for a resort is a pretty swell thing for the local economy. When Denny and I went on our honeymoon to tiny Nevis, we stayed at a locally-owned property and avoided the Four Seasons, but when we talked to locals, they kept bringing up the fact that the Four Seasons has been a huge boon to their island. They say if they get one more resort hotel, they’ll finally be able to secede from St. Kitts. I’m not sure if they’re joking or not.
What to do?
i am completely with you. i’ve traveled a lot doing the whole backpacking thing and then when john and i got married he suggested we try an all inclusive resort. it’s kind of the thing to do with his family (they don’t have the guilt we have 🙂 was that mean? ok john has the guilt, but not the rest of them… anyways) and then a couple years later his mom took us to jamaica. i’ll be honest, if you can’t relax enough not to feel guilty while you’re there then it’s not worth it. however if you can, well, it’d make life w/ an almost toddler so much easier. we left really good tips and were always really really nice to the people at the hotel. that helped. some. at least on our end.
one thing we did do was stay on the resort property. not to insulate ourselves so much as to avoid going on those tourist buses that are just so awful and going to the ‘market where the locals shop’. you know the one- where the locals don’t actually shop? those are the things that put me over the edge.
go. have fun. play in the water. you won’t get sick 😉
AND the money you save doing this – well put it into Miles’s fund for authentic travel that he can access when he will know what that means!
*cough*Isla Mujeres*cough*
Seriously. I know you’ve seen our pics from there. We stay at a super cute, super nice, super clean little local place about 200 yards from a gorgeous beach. Lots of local flavor. I’ve eaten all manner of stuff there (including the chicken roasted at the hole-in-the-wall “restaurant” across the street from the hotel) and have never been even slightly sick (full disclosure: I’ve been known to, as Col. Trautman would say, “eat things that would make a billy goat puke”). There are resorts on Isla, too, if you’re sure that’s the way you wanna go. We’re all heading down there at the end of the month. I recommended Isla to a friend here at the office, and she and her family went over the summer and loved it. Snorkeling, deep sea fishing, the works. And LOTS of good food. Oh mercy. I’d be happy to field questions, as, I’m sure, would your long lost friend Rachel.
You certainly know what I think…GO! We would love to go again and bring our boys and do more single locale activities. I think skipping Cancun itself and traveling a little further south would be advisable. We passed so many resorts between Tulum and Cancun. I think it would be way fun to go there as a family (versus our much faster paced couples vacation). Your friend’s pictures of Isla Mujeres are amazing. I have heard good things about there, Playa del Carmen and Cozumel. So, go go go! 🙂
There is a time and place for everything, and vacations have to be balanced properly so you don’t waste them. If you can arrange an “authentic” trip and have a really great, relaxing time, cool. But if you sacrifice relaxing, having a good time, and mentally unplugging for some sort of ideals or otherwise, then you’re not having a vacation, you’re having a crisis.
I’m a big believer in making vacations count, and counting for me means having the time of my life because work sucks. So, if an all-inclusive resort will do the trick, I won’t think less of you.
I second the Isla Mujeres idea, having been there two years ago. A) You can get the cheap flights into Cancun. B) There are a bunch of little local hotels like Roca Mar where I stayed, and they can go for around a hundred bucks a night – try doing that in a resort (which I have also stayed at – the Sandals Compound I called it.) C) It’s a lot more local, it’s safe safe safe, and it’s the best thing I’ve found in the Caribbean having tried the cruise, the all-inclusive and the small resort option.
I can also endorse Isla Mujeres having gone twice. GREAT time. Just one word of warning – avoid the beach dogs!
This reminds me of a post a few months ago from a blog I read:
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/08/19/the-ethics-of-tourism-an-informal-poll/
Of course, if you want to take a much smaller trip, Best of No Shame is this Friday…yeah, I know, you have a baby and the show’s late at night.
Katy Baggs
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