Mexico Trip

[Terry Hull]

Will be going to Mexico shortly, staying in Cuernavaca. I know I need to take all my film. Any other suggestions are welcome, nearby towns, or other suggestions for LF photography? I will also have a few days in the DF.

Gracias senores

[claudiocambon]

Near Cuernavaca, Taxco is a beautiful town clinging to a hillside. Makes for great views, one of which I have attached here.

In all the time I have been in Mexico, I have never set foot in the DF, unfortunately, but there is a lot to see there. Watch your back, as the city has become dangerous.

Also not too far from Cuernavaca is Tepoztlan, which is supposed to be enchanting.

Farther away than Taxco, near Chilpancingo, in Chilapa, there is a market on Sunday mornings that stretches on for at least a kilometer, and it's all indigenous handicrafts; the best part is they make it for themselves and each other, not the "outside world." Probably too far from you (about 4 hours?).

You're probably not that far from Puebla and Cholula either.

If you are going elsewhere, let me know via email, as I have criss-crossed a lot of the country, and am happy to give recommendations. I also recommend the Lonely Planet guide for Mexico. Happy trails!

[scrapbooker]

The above picture is very beautiful. Prepare a chart about Mexico places and it will be useful for Mexico going people.

[Donald Miller]

If you are intending near term travel you might consider a last will and testament.

[Ron Marshall]

Bring a few surgical masks, to be on the safe side!

[Michael Kadillak]

Hopefully, Terry completed his travel and already has negatives that he is currently printing.

If I had plane tickets to Mexico at this juncture, I would take the high road and cancel. Because it appears that nobody wants to take this seriously in this country because we do not want to upset anyone, it is cause for concern. Serious diseases should be isolated and studied not completely ignored. The rest of the world is moderately freaking out as they should.

[Frank Petronio]

I wouldn't go either, because on the rare chance that you fall ill, you'll be depleting resources that would otherwise go to sick Mexicans. This will pass soon enough, flu kills thousands of people every year already, this will be a rough year but it's cyclical.

Unless you think of it as nature's population control, like a big deer die-off.

I am kind of wondering about using air travel and visiting any American cities for a few weeks and seeing how it goes?

[sanking]

Really bad timing for me. My wife and I were planning to be in Xalapa, Mexico, for a week together in the middle of May, and then I was to stay on another week to teach a workshop on carbon transfer printing, with an exhibition of some recent work. We will probably go if the event is not postponed, which seems possible if not likely, because so far there has been no outbreak in Xalapa and our travel is directly to Veracruz and not through D.F. Still, I would be happier if the event is postponed to the fall.

Sandy




Hopefully, Terry completed his travel and already has negatives that he is currently printing.

If I had plane tickets to Mexico at this juncture, I would take the high road and cancel. Because it appears that nobody wants to take this seriously in this country because we do not want to upset anyone, it is cause for concern. Serious diseases should be isolated and studied not completely ignored. The rest of the world is moderately freaking out as they should.

[Michael Kadillak]

Really bad timing for me. My wife and I were planning to be in Xalapa, Mexico, for a week together in the middle of May, and then I was to stay on another week to teach a workshop on carbon transfer printing, with an exhibition of some recent work. We will probably go if the event is not postponed, which seems possible if not likely, because so far there has been no outbreak in Xalapa and our travel is directly to Veracruz and not through D.F. Still, I would be happier if the event is postponed to the fall.

Sandy

At the end of the day Sandy all any of us are concerned about is the health and safety of everyone. Postponing a trip is no big deal particularly with the way that the airlines are relaxing cancellation penalties. This concerns me that we are at the end of the flu season and it is just picking up steam so it is not your typical event.

We all hope that we have a robust immunity system. That said anyone with half a brain would not want to test that assumption unnecessarily. The risks are to great when it can (hopefully) be avoided if we are responsible to take it seriously.

I personally would like to have seen travel restricted to and from Mexico for a short time to be safe than sorry because when the condition gets to big for us to manage it is going to be to late. Walking around all day with a surgical mask on is not my ideal of living on my terms.

[sanking]

Mike,

Whether to go to Mexico or not was taken out of my hands as the organizers of the event elected to postpone it until late September. All things considered I believe they made the right choice.

Sandy




At the end of the day Sandy all any of us are concerned about is the health and safety of everyone. Postponing a trip is no big deal particularly with the way that the airlines are relaxing cancellation penalties. This concerns me that we are at the end of the flu season and it is just picking up steam so it is not your typical event.

We all hope that we have a robust immunity system. That said anyone with half a brain would not want to test that assumption unnecessarily. The risks are to great when it can (hopefully) be avoided if we are responsible to take it seriously.

I personally would like to have seen travel restricted to and from Mexico for a short time to be safe than sorry because when the condition gets to big for us to manage it is going to be to late. Walking around all day with a surgical mask on is not my ideal of living on my terms.

[Brian Vuillemenot]

This whole swine flu thing has been blown way out of proportion by the media. The waste of valuable resources to prepare for something that poses a miniscule risk, all the while ignoring real dangers that are far likelier to actually kill people, is the modus operandi of the media over the last few decades- scare people into watching the news, it's good for the ratings and brings in more dollars from commercial sponsors. Can you believe they actually landed a plane in Boston that was bound for DC because some woman had a few sniffles?!? And destroying 300,000 pigs out of ignorance and paranoia, even though there is no actual threat, is just morally reprehesible. In my opinion, now is the best time to take a photographic trip to Mexico. You'll have the whole place to yourself, and think of all the things you can photograph that you normally can't when it's congested with tourists! The Mexican economy was on the brink of total collapse before the swine flu thing hit. Now, with everyone avoiding Mexico like the plague, it is unfortunate to think of what might become of many of it's citizens.

[gevalia]

Agree completely Brian - although I would have used stronger words against those that spend 90% of our airwaves talking about it. But then again, governments control via fear.

[Terry Hull]

My wife and I had a great 17 days in Mexico-sorry I didn't do a follow up post after starting this thread. We went to renew our declining language fluency at a school called Chac-Mool in Cuernavaca, staying with a Mexican family. Plenty of time to do some LF work in Cuerna, Taxco, Tepoztlan and the DF. No problems with security. It is sad to see a country and people I am very fond of have economic decline for the "gripe porcina" reasons.

[QT Luong]

In my opinion, now is the best time to take a photographic trip to Mexico.

Isn't there a serious security problem in Mexico at this time ? A friend of mine told me that there has been an dramatic increase in violent crime since last fall with endemic kidnapings and 12 year olds running around with guns. He loves the country but cancelled his travel plans there after speaking to locals.

[Terry Hull]

QT- I think it depends to a large degree on where you are going within the country. Clearly the border areas, and parts of northwest Mexico seem to get more than their share of the problems. We used public transportation (excellent bus /metro service) from the airport in the DF to Cuernavaca, then to Puebla, also Taxco, and had absolutely no problem. The bus service is much better than the Manhattan bus I commuted on the last 20 years.

The government is making a huge security effort, that I think is paying off. I would travel again to the DF and other places-but not the border areas.