Our Mexican Connection or Why We Love Mexico

All these years later after our first trip to Mexico as newbie ‘backpackers’, when I just even get a whiff of corn tortillas or hear a Mariachi band, I get nostalgic. So when people ask us why we love Mexico so much, here’s a few reasons why.

5 Reasons We Love Mexico

1. Mexico was the first country* we ever visited, backpacking its length and breadth. How much did we love it? It inspired our wanderlust. How badly did we want to go? I said I’d resign from my writing job if I couldn’t get eight weeks off for the trip instead of the usual four weeks annual leave. Thankfully I still had a job when I returned…
2. The guidebooks told us that Mexico was dangerous and to wear money belts under our clothes. Being the naïve travellers we were then, we did. They smelled like a wet dog after a couple of days and our money, travellers cheques – yes, travellers cheques! – and passports were soggy. That was the first and last time we followed such advice.
3. In Palenque, nursing tequila-induced hangovers, Lara ordered fried potatoes for breakfast in an effort to curb the pounding headache and settle her stomach. She had to nod, smile and swallow whenever the kind old lady who had made them proudly asked how she liked them. You see, the dish turned out not to be the patatas fritas Lara thought she was getting, but fried plantains – fried green bananas drenched in a cream sauce. Not exactly a hangover cure. Trust us on this one.
4. We became so ill with Moctezuma’s Revenge on the way to the surfing town of Puerto Escondido that the only raging currents I faced there were the ones that occurred every time I flushed the toilet. Which was often. It was our first bout of traveller’s belly! It’s funny now. It wasn’t so funny on the 12 hour bus ride when it occurred.
5. Despite this, we were so inspired by the food, I bought my first cookbook, The Art of Mexican Cooking by Diana Kennedy, as soon as we arrived back home in Sydney, Australia. I can still make a couple of recipes from it from memory to this day.

• We actually visited Tokyo first on a 24 hour stopover on our way to Mexico. Don’t ask why we took a flight to Mexico via Japan. The authorities when we landed at Vancouver airport (no, really, we also stopped in Vancouver!) already did. Over and over again. Our first bout of nasty immigration officials!