

Querétaro
The city of Santiago de Querétaro was a late addition to my itinerary, but the first stop on my trip. It caught my eye because it's an economically prosperous city, generally considered one of the safest in all of Mexico. It's also easy to get to, a mere hour's flight from Mexico City (I have since been mocked mercilessly by many a Mexican for not taking the much cheaper buses). But convenience and safety aside, there are some very real reasons to visit Queretaro. In 1996,


¡Bienvenidos a Mexico!
"Robert Sessions, please report to Gate G18". GULP. There's something about flying that always brings out my anxiety, that there's some minute detail I've neglected that is going to torpedo the trip. "You're flying one way to Mexico. Do you have an onward flight out of the country?" "Why yes, of course I do," I reply with a coy smile. I show the clerk the flight that I booked hours earlier from Mexico City back to the US, the flight which I would cancel just a couple hour

¿Vamos a Mexico?
If you can excuse a pun in bad taste, my trip to Mexico is off to a shaky start. I was set to fly into Mexico City last Wednesday. On Tuesday, I had gone through the full pre-trip checklist: the bags were packed to their brim (I travel carry-on only), I had my Mexican Pesos, I put in travel notices on the credit cards, I took screenshots of the itinerary, and I even booked an "onward travel" flight out of Mexico. Late that afternoon, a news alert popped up reading "7.1 magn