Mexico (Dec 06, May 07, July 08)
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I went on a backpacking trip to Mexico during the Christmas/New Years break, 2006-07. I did not plan anything ahead of time except that I was flying in and out of Mexico City. I met a wonderful Mexican couple on the flight to Mexico City and they suggested that I visit Guanajuato and Chiapas. I was sold. For the next two weeks I extensively toured through Mexico City, Teotihuacan, Puebla, Guanajuato, St Miguel deAllende, Dolores Hidalgo, San Cristobal de las Casa, Palenque, Chamula, Chenalho and Zinacatan. On average I slept about 4 hours a night and was on the road rest of the time, either walking around with my Pentax K1000 and Canon 350D or riding the public buses to different destinations or making new friends in the cafes and bars. I strictly stayed in beat-up hostels (and bus stations a couple of times) and stayed away from the beaches (First off, beaches are boring except for the bikinis and second, I really do not need any more of a tan).

Although I was aware that Mexico is an extremely diverse and interesting country I was not ready for the depth and breadth of the cultural experiences I would encounter, especially the similarities with my homeland, India. In his classic "In Light of India" Mexico’s Nobel prize winning writer Octavio Paz noted, "The strangeness of India brought to mind that other strangeness: my own country". I found in Mexico a mirror for reflecting on my own homeland. Everything about Mexico was fabulous. The people, the cultural diversity, the architecture, the riot of colors, the fascinating history, the modern socio-political ethos, the indigenous communities, the ruins, the food, the nightlife, the tequila (The music definitely has room for improvement), and the list goes on. I do not speak a word of Spanish except that I can pronounce my name with a cute Latino accent which didn’t make ordering food any less challenging. However, I discovered that if you order something right from the center of the menu, you will most likely get some well cooked mammal flesh.

Following are the pictures of this fabulous country categorized in three galleries. I traveled extra-light and half of the weight of my worn out backpack was due to two cameras. I shot both film (Pentax K100 equipped with a 50mm normal lens, Film: mostly Tri-X 400) and digital (Canon Rebel 350D equipped with an EF17-40 lens). If you like what you see, please do come back for more.