Mexico for Dummies, The Missing Guide

Against your governments’ issued travel warnings, better judgment and your friends advice, you decided to visit Mexico. You ended up in a small, colonial town in central Mexico. Now what? What do you do? How do you proceed? After all, they don’t give you a guide at the entrance to this theme park. To fill the void, here’s one you can use in San Miguel de Allende. Or any other place in the World for that matter. It’s universally useless…

When abroad, don’t try to speak the language of the locals. They’ll laugh at you! Instead, speak English, but do it loudly and slowly, just like you would when talking to your Grandma, or a retarded person. Repeat every word several times. Use your hands often. Eventually they’ll get it! Roll your eyes and throw your hands in the air with a loud sigh if they don’t. Don’t forget, you’re doing them a big favor – how else would they ever be able to communicate?

When at a restaurant, make sure to complain about the food. If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it. Wipe the table with a disinfectant tissue and ask the people who serve you to wash their hands. Twice. Lecture them on the service you expect and leave just a minimal tip, you don’t want to spoil them.

When sight seeing, express loudly your disapproval. Compare everything to your home town and make sure the locals know, what’s wrong with their place. Obviously their funny, little town will never be as great as your neck of the woods, but at least they’ll understand what they need to improve. Sure, they have those old buildings and cathedrals, but they don’t even have a decent mall or a McDonalds for crying out loud!

Always offer your advice to those who are visibly in need. Lecture the beggars about the importance of having a regular job, or attending a school, so that they can lift their status and maybe, one day become a contributing member of society. Tell the store and restaurant owners how to run their business. Explain to the street vendors the importance of hygiene. Just for heavens sake, don’t buy anything!

Take a lot of pictures. After all you’re on a mission to document the poverty. Take close up shots of every beggar on the streets. Obviously, you don’t need to ask their permission. Make them pose showing their sad faces full of wrinkles. Even if you’re generous, never give them more then a few pesos, you don’t want to spoil them. If, on the other hand, you want to convince your friends and family at home that Mexico is great place to visit, shoot a lot of doors, cobblestone streets, colorful, adobe houses and windows with garlands of flowers. Frame or Photoshop the beggars out.

And the most important of all – never leave El Centro! The theme park is large, but it has it’s borders. Unless you’re extremely brave and adventurous, you should never enter the parts of town that haven’t been build for tourists. The locals living in the less picturesque parts of town all all believed to be zombies waiting for a lost tourist to be robbed, raped, killed or eaten for breakfast. Or so the legend says. So far, no one’s been brave enough to verify it. Those, who crossed the line, never came back. They turned… locals!