Mexico Guide
Introduction to Mexico
Mexico enjoys a cultural blend that is wholly unique: it's a patchwork of wildly different native American cultures, traditions brought by the Spanish five centuries ago and vast, modern industrial zones. Even the rapid change wrought by the "Mexican Miracle" has yet to erase the multitude of regional identities that make the country such a dynamic, constantly surprising place to travel.
You can see different aspects of this blend even within a space as small as a few city blocks: on one sidewalk Maya women lay out their hand-made wares on colourful blankets, while on the next street teenagers skateboard to a soundtrack of rock en español in front of the heavy buttresses of a colonial cathedral, the legacy of the Catholic Church. Occasionally the mix is an uneasy one, but for the most part it works remarkably well. The people of Mexico reflect it, too: there are communities of full-blooded indígenas, and there are a few – very few – Mexicans of pure Spanish descent. The great majority of the population, though, is mestizo, combining both traditions, and, to a greater or lesser extent, a veneer of urban sophistication.