When I say crappy, I mean crappy for ME — a gringo traveller.

This phrase — Mexico is a crappy country — started to ring true after I was overcharged US$20 by an otherwise lovely hotel manager. Then duped by an otherwise friendly taxi driver into taking 2 cabs instead of the one large vehicle I had requested.

Now I write this after spending 4-days on a pristine island paradise here. This land has great potential. But it is woefully underdeveloped for the most part. It is astonishing how far it lags behind big neighbour, the USA.

Seems to me Mexico has most of the worst attributes of the first and the third worlds. It’s expensive — but there is no recourse available to the customer when wronged. (Except to blog the culprits.)

A (bad) muffin cost more here than in Canada — and the bakery salesgirl systematically shortchanges you. Yeesh.

Wages are perhaps 15% of those in Canada. Yet prices are the same for most things. Where is the money going? Not to pay Mexican taxes, that’s certain.

A woman I met on a kayak tour was suffering buyer’s remorse. She recently retired. Her husband died last year. The sharks met her arriving at the Cabo airport. She bought an expensive condo from that first salesman.

In Mexico you are vulnerable if you are recently arrived, elderly, if you don’t speak Spanish.

It ticks me off.

I’m one of the few who feels that the best thing happening in Mexico is the inevitable domination of McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Applebee’s and the ilk. Efficient companies with fixed prices & quality control.

Mexico is a crappy country for the long-term traveller.

I wish I was in Laos.

Next travelogue on this trip >> Island of Women