Recently in Mexico Category

If you're in Mexico City and feel like you need some good luck, make your way over to the Mercado de Sonora. This quirky market is filled with vendors selling various amulets, charms, and potions designed to protect those who possess them, or bestow upon them health, wealth, and new love. Whatever you need, basically. Herbalists sell a wide range of curative herbs (pictured) along with special "witchcraft" herbs -- and the spells used to activate them. It's a little eerie if you think about it, but I'm sure it's the happy kind of witchcraft. Right? We can't vouch for the efficacy of these ancient talismans, but the market provides a vivid window into the belief system of a population whose underlying indigenous traditions often overshadow the western beliefs brought by the Spanish colonists. The Mercado de Sonora is a short taxi ride from the W Mexico City.

[image via worldisround]

The Xochimilco Floating Gardens are one of Mexico City's loveliest and most unusual attractions, drawing curious visitors to a festive yet tranquil oasis of shimmering waters and beautiful flowers. Considered the Venice of Mexico, visitors ply a maze of verdant canals in colorful boats known as trajineras (pictured), enjoying food and drink procured from floating vendors while mariachi bands play traditional music and some of the most beautiful plants, trees, and flowers in Mexico float by on all sides. The area of Xochimilco was the breadbasket for the early city of Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire. In the 15th and early 16th centuries, the Aztecs performed great feats of engineering and labor to create more than 80 miles of canals designed to move people and goods around the city and across Lake Texcoco. While much of the Aztec kingdom was destroyed during the Spanish conquest of 1521, the canals are a living reminder of the achievements of this ancient civilization. Xochimilco is located 28 kilometers south of central Mexico City, and is a perfect day trip for guests at the Sheraton Maria Isabel Hotel & Towers or any of Starwood's Mexico City properties.

We went over to Cabo San Lucas. Whew it is hot and humid. My hair dried in 5 minutes. My body has tanned in places you will not see. My husband is at the black jack game and I am sunbathing. I want a coke from the mini bar badly, but my old values of paying extra are getting in the way. Oh the heck with it. I have the ice, the can snaps open, the deed is done and I am sipping. Nice.

Tonight our room and balcony is positioned west so that the sun is stunning. Sip, sip, getting good at it and feeling guilt free. In Cabo, we sat in a place that only people who live in the town would sit. They were eating huge ice cream sundae bowls full of fresh fish in a red sauce. When each person received their bowl, they put in gallons of hot sauce. They ate like they were in a grand palace. They were enjoying their food. One man ate up a plate of tacos, then asked for another, down it and asked for more. Oh my, he squeezed lime juice over every little bite. He even squeezed the remaining juice on his little finger and sucked it. The sights of travel are priceless.

Starwood has two properties in Cabo San Lucas, including the Westin Resort & Spa, Los Cabos.

Mexico. Hand painted billboards; grandiose, half-finished buildings; cactus, tattered palm trees, and bougainvillea. Welcome to San Carlos - the photogenic, tourist-and-expatriate-oriented sister city to Guaymas, in the Mexican state of Sonora. Located about 250 miles south of the US-Mexico border, on the shores of the Sea of Cortez, San Carlos is a future resort town, full of retirees and boating enthusiasts, who shuffle contentedly across the two or three paved roads in this small Mexican town.

Sonora is a sparsely-populated, desert state with a convoluted coastline of several shallow anchorages that twist beneath jagged desert rock formations and mountains. The defining landscape feature in this area is Tetakawi, a large, multi-peaked rock outcropping that dominates the western end of the San Carlos harbor. Sunsets and sunrises are spectacular, as the stark red rock landscape positively glows with warmth in the low rays of the sun. In the evening, when the sun silhouettes the rocks, the thin clouds that dapple the autumn sky burst into oranges, pinks, and purples.

The most striking impression of San Carlos, however, is of silence - the town is small, uncrowded, and laid back. The crowds have not come to San Carlos. Christmas and spring break bring greater numbers of tourists, and there are the occasional tour bus stops, but for many, many weeks of the year, it's a pleasantly pokey kind of place, with lots of amenities, but few people.

Along Boulevard Beltrones, the main road in town, there are a number of good, simple restaurants: Rosa's Cantina is bright, clean, and the perfect place for a cheap, filling breakfast. For dinner, Blackie's Bar and Grill serves good fresh fish and delicious steaks, as well as decent salads and desserts. At the edge of the harbor, the sports-oriented Marina Cantina, owned by a young expat, offers wireless internet, good margaritas and sandwiches.

It's no great secret that a visit to the stunning Mayan ruins of Chichén Itzá in the Yucatan, just a few hours away from Cancun, is an experience one should have at least once in their lifetime. There is simply nothing like witnessing the sun cast shadows throughout the day on El Castillo, the stunning step pyramid that is at the center of this pre-Colombian civilization. This building, an architectural calendar of a structure, is especially noteworthy during yearly equinoxes and solstices and was a centerpiece of this pre-Colombian civilization from 400 to 1000 AD. While El Castillo, named one of the new seven wonders of the world, may be the most famous aspect of Chichén Itzá, it is by no means the only, and you can easily spend many hours, wandering amongst the multiple structures including the Great Ball Court and an observatory known as El Carasol, where shadows in the room predicted the solstice.

You will have to devote at least a few hours to explore Chichén Itzá, so I suggest if you're staying at the Westin Resort & Spa, Cancun, wake up at sunrise and get to the site early to avoid the crowds, the tour vans and most importantly, the relentless Yucatan sun. Pack some food for the road, and for snacking, as while there are options at the site, they are few. Anyhow, especially on hot summer days, bring along a bathing suit, as just a few miles away is the Ik-Kil Eco Park. Inside is home to the Cenote Ik kil, known as the Sacred Blue Cenote, a limestone sink hole, and it's a refreshing and beautiful stop before riding back to town.

If you're visiting Cancun, there's a fairly good chance that you'll find your way to the fabulous beaches and glimmering nightclubs, but this classic party capital holds a few secret cultural hot spots that are worth looking out for as well. A quirky little museum called La Casa del Arte Popular Mexicano, for example, is one of the few places you can view ancient Aztec-influenced sculpture, traditional Mexican folk art, and contemporary paintings and textiles under one (small) roof. Devoted to maintaining Mexican culture and popular art, the museum (and its accompanying museum shop) has objects of all kinds, from masks and figurines to miniature churches everything in between. The collection of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Day) artwork and iconography is unparalleled, with armies of skeletons and demons representing society's relationship with concepts of death and the afterlife. And you won't want to miss the antique tortilla press. It reminds you of just how good the tortilla makers of today have it. La Casa del Arte Popular Mexicano is located in the hotel zone, just minutes from the Westin Resort & Spa, Cancun, Le Méridien Cancun Resort & Spa, and the soon-to-open Westin Langunamar Ocean Resort, which will welcome its first guests on August 11, 2008.