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Mexico
Mexico is a great destination, and has a lot to offer to travellers. Whether you decide to visit the beautiful beaches famous around the world, historical cities from the time of the Spanish colony and archeological sites of cultures such as the Maya, Olmeca and Azteca among others, beautiful national parks in deserts, mountains and forests, or just hang out in one of the modern cities, you will enjoy it.
Highlights in Mexico are the capital city of Mexico City, Monterrey, with its beautiful colonial buildings and Guadalajara. For colonial cities one should visit Oaxaca, Morelia, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, Merida in the Yucatan peninsula, among others.
For beaches, some of the best, most unspoiled are located on the Oaxaca coast, particularly Zipolite and Puerto Escondido. Cancun, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen located at the Riviera Maya, Mazatlan, Manzanillo, Ixtapa and Puerto Vallarta among others, are the place to be for all fun loving creatures. The peninsula of Yucatan offers an ideal mix of Maya culture, great weather and some of the world's best snorkeling and diving in places such as Cozumel and Cancun located at the Riviera Maya. For a truly Mexican experience, the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas offers a view of the indigenous Mayan peoples in a beautiful colonial city. Los Cabos in Baja California Sur has been a favourite get-away for Mexicans and Americans for years.
Archeological sites in Mexico are vast, one should keep in mind Teotihuacan, Chichen Itza, Palenque, El Tajin and Monte Alban among just a few.
For those looking for an active vacation, Mexico offers golf courses, scuba diving and lots of mountains to go hiking in, including cloud rainforest in Chiapas.
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Best of Mexico
Welcome to a Unique Land
Mexico is a unique country, providing visitors with an endless variety of choices. It offers big-city sophistication or small-town intimacy, a chance to frolic on shimmering beaches or trek through lush tropical jungles, an opportunity to kick back and relax or pursue a growing number of business ventures.
If you're looking for sun, sand and surf, you can jet to some of the world's most famous beach resorts, such as Cancun, Los Cabos or Puerto Vallarta, or newer resorts such as Ixtapa, Huatulco and Loreto. If you like to fish or hunt, Mexico offers ideal spots. If you'd rather shoot wildlife with a camera, it is one of the world's five most biologically diverse nations.
As growing industrial and financial centers, Guadalajara, Monterrey and, of course, Mexico City are handling an ever-increasing number of business travelers each day. Central Mexico's charming colonial towns, including Guanajuato, Morelia and Queretaro, invite you to explore the country's tumultuous history and struggle for independence, while cities in the southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas offer a look at the nation's Indian roots.
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World Heritage Sites
Mexico ranks first in the Americas and eighth worldwide in number of World Heritage Sites, with 26 in all. These sites, considered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to be "of outstanding universal value," include the historic downtown areas of the colonial cities mentioned above, as well as Zacatecas, Puebla, Campeche, Tlacotalpan (Veracruz), Oaxaca (and its nearby ruins of Monte Alban) and Mexico City (and its floating gardens of Xochimilco). In fact, Mexico has more cities with World Heritage Sites than any other country.
Other sites on UNESCO's list are: Teotihuacan, Palenque, Chichen-Itza, El Tajin, Uxmal, Paquimé, Xochicalco, Calakmul, Sian Ka'an, the whale sanctuary of El Vizcaino and rock paintings of Sierra de San Francisco in Baja California, the 16th-century monasteries on the slopes of the Popocatepetl volcano, the Hospicio Cabañas in Guadalajara, the Franciscan Missions in the Sierra Gorda region of Queretaro state, the former house and studio of Mexican architect Luis Barragan in Mexico City, islands in the Sea of Cortez, and the agave landscape of Tequila, near Guadalajara.
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Land of Contrasts
Mexico is a land of contrasts, geographically and socially. Indian communities nestled in mountain villages maintain centuries-old customs not far from where wealthy businessmen stride down the manicured streets of major cities. In Mexico you will discover beauty and squalor, wealth and poverty, efficiency and ineptitude coexisting in one of the world's most complex societies. These paradoxes make Mexico a truly foreign experience for the visitor, difficult to understand but always interesting. Add it up, and it could only be Mexico, so near, yet so different.
So, what can you expect in Mexico? Plenty! And that's what the rest of this guidebook is about. It invites you to find out more about this fascinating country, its people, culture, and wealth of new experiences.
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A Brief History
The first highly developed civilization to emerge in the New World belonged to the Olmecs, who flourished between 1200 and 500 B.C. in the lowland jungles of Veracruz and Tabasco, along the Gulf of Mexico. Today the Olmecs are most readily identified with the colossal stone heads they sculpted. They are credited, however, with originating much that would be adapted by later cultures, principally the Maya. The Olmecs developed a calendar and hieroglyphic writing. And aspects of their religion, architecture, art and an elementary numerical system were expanded on for centuries to come.
The dominant culture in central Mexico belonged to those who built Teotihuacan, a true city that at its peak, around 500 A.D., may have reached a population of 200,000. It maintained extensive contacts throughout Mesoamerica, but was long in ruins by the time the Aztecs arrived and gave it its name, meaning "Place Where Gods Are Made."
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The Aztec Empire
When the Spanish successfully defeated the Mexicas in 1521 and toppled Tenochtitlan, which had about 300,000 residents, the area had already known the horrors of wars of conquest. When they arrived in the Anahuac Valley around 1300 A.D., the Mexicas found many different groups of people who, within time, they conquered violently. Atop the rubble of war they erected the mother city of the Aztec Empire, Tenochtitlan, in accordance with the legend of the eagle and the snake. In 1345 the god of war Huitzilopochtli told the priest-king Tenoch that where he found an eagle perched atop a cactus devouring a snake, he should build the definitive home of the Mexicas. Destiny was in a hurry: the vision occurred the following day. The spiritual heart of the future Aztec empire would take hold here, where a temple in honor of the god of war was immediately built.
But Mexica dominance over the area would take a little longer. They were at first subdued by the Tepanecas, to whom they paid tribute. In 1428, however, under the command of Nezahualcoyotl, they finally gained the upper hand and defeated their enemy. This poet king of almost mythological fame established the Mexica capital in Texcoco. His rule would give rise to the so-called Triple Alliance involving Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Azcapotzalco. Additionally, he introduced a new legal system, presided over enormous feats of hydraulic engineering and encouraged the flourishing of the Mexica language, Nahuatl.
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