Travel Pager The Sol, the English Language source of News for the Riviera Nayarit Mexico, La Penita de Jaltemba, Rincon de Guayabitos, Lo de Marcos. Los Ayala, Lo de Marcos, and San Pancho

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - Thirty percent of the Mexican population is under age 14, according to the CIA World Factbook, so this is a kid-friendly country with a fondness for family traditions. Family life is celebrated often, but particularly on Sundays, the only day off for many Mexican workers. Friends and families descend on restaurants for a meal that can last several hours or gather at the park or the beach for an afternoon picnic.

A trip to Mexico can be a rewarding experience for your family as well, as long as you prepare yourself and your children.

Before You Go

Step 1 - Apply for passports for all family members at least two months before your vacation. If the permission of a former spouse is required, it will require additional time and paperwork. All Americans, regardless of age, must have a passport to re-enter the United States. Laws and forms can be found at the U.S. State Department's website.

Step 2 - Purchase an identification tag or bracelet and have it engraved with your child's name, a contact telephone number and any medical conditions or allergies your child has. Teach young children both their full name and yours. Mark their vacation clothing with name tags or a laundry pen and take a current photograph of each child with you.

Step 3 - Pack a small first-aid kit with over-the-counter painkillers and stomach disorder remedies suitable for children, plus bandages, antiseptic ointment, blister treatment, hand sanitizer and small packets of tissues. Take along a copy of any prescriptions and brief medical histories.

Step 4 - Study maps and online websites with your children to make a list of things to do, being sure to include activities for all ages. Plan to balance activities: a morning tour of a museum might be rewarded with an afternoon at an amusement or water park.

Step 5 - Buy a simple Spanish dictionary or download Spanish phrases. Look for books to familiarize children with Mexican culture. "Off we go to Mexico," by Laurie Krebs (2008), and "Look What Came From Mexico," by Miles Harvey (1999), are two books that introduce children to Mexican culture.

On Vacation

Step 1 - Encourage children to use their phrase books to spot signs at the airport and along the highway, or as they shop for candy and ice cream in Mexican shops. Help them use friendly phrases to meet Mexican children or greet hotel and restaurant workers.

Step 2 - Buy kid-friendly snacks at Mexican "tiendas," small neighborhood grocery stores, or at the "supermercado" - Gigante is a large Mexican supermarket chain, but Walmart also has a large presence. Buy a small cooler to keep drinks and snacks cool in your rental car and your hotel room if it doesn't have a refrigerator. Offer children only fruit that must be peeled.

Step 3 - Do as the Mexicans do on Sunday: Visit a local park or the town beach where musicians, vendors and street performers add to the air of fiesta. Check the calendar or ask at the hotel desk if there are any special local fiestas or national holidays during your stay that might include a colorful parade or firework show.

Step 4 - Shop at local markets for unique Mexican kid's souvenirs like lucha libre masks, the hoods worn by Mexican pro wrestlers. Toy stalls are filled with miniature versions of Mexican cookware, trucks, puppets, dolls and pinatas. Mexican candy stalls offer a new world of sweet treats.

Things Needed

• Passports
• Maps
• Children's books about Mexico
• Recent photograph of each child
• Identification tag or bracelet
• Laundry pen or clothing name tags
• Spanish phrasebook
• Family first-aid kit

Tips & Warnings

Don't overload your schedule and make sure to keep an hour a day for quiet time. Pack an extra bag to accommodate souvenirs your children are likely to haul home. Children are welcome in most places in Mexico, but it is not appropriate to take them to indoor bars or discos.

Prepare your children for some of the sights they might see in Mexico, such as begging by children and older or handicapped people, and homeless dogs. Avoid the meat stalls in the market if your family might be sensitive to the smells and sights.

Ancient Mexican culture featured human sacrifice and a preoccupation with death, and gruesome images can be seen in museums and at some ruins. Always accompany children to the restroom and take along hand sanitizer and tissues.

References:
Travel for Kids: Mexico
On the Road: Mexico with Kids
Trekaroo: Travel with Kids to Mexico

Resources:
National Geographic: Kid's Guide to Mexico
Smart Phrase: Online Phrase Book

About the Author: Robin Thornley has been a successful writer for more than 25 years, penning articles for national magazines, newspapers and websites. She specializes in a variety of topics, including business, politics, lifestyle trends, travel and cuisine. She also is the author of two guidebooks.

Tim Woodward: Caught in time-share hell in Mexico

Any American who has vacationed in Mexico has either verbally stiff-armed an army of pitchmen or succumbed to the horror of a time-share presentation.

Tourists in Mexico are repeatedly badgered to attend time-share presentations. As bait, the pitchmen offer jungle tours, booze cruises, even cash. And every tour, cruise and peso of it is earned the hard way — by surviving a hard sell from hell.

My wife and I survived one years ago and emerged looking as if we’d spent a day of torture in a Mexican prison, which in a sense we had. We vowed that never, under pain of death, would we be suckered into another one.

That, however, was before we met the irresistibly charming and cunningly sneaky Javier on a recent vacation. Javier wasn’t at the beach or any of the usual huckster hangouts, so our guard was down. We met him in an American-style, big-box supermarket, a nice little man we initially thought was the store interpreter.

When we asked a clerk about a product that was advertised but not on the shelves, he produced a walkie-talkie and called Javier — who was wearing what we thought was a store uniform. He was friendly, helpful and spoke excellent English. If we couldn’t find a product or a label confused us, there was Javier. Need an ATM? Directions? Help in translating? Javier was delighted to oblige.

As we were leaving the store, my wife happened to spot some zipline brochures on a counter near the exit.

“You want to go on a zipline tour? I can set one up for you. It goes 7,000 meters from one mountaintop to another. Beautiful! You will love it!”

“I don’t like heights, Javier. Do you have anything that stays closer to the ground?”

Javier was not the store translator. He worked for a posh resort, which had an arrangement with the store to let its hawkers work the crowd. This has become common in Mexico; it was just our first exposure to it. A bit sneaky, if you ask me, but apparently legal.

“I don’t know, Javier,” I said, feeling my stomach tighten. “How much does it cost?”

“Normally $225,” he replied, “but for you — today only — a special price of only $40. And I’ll throw in some beautiful T-shirts. What size do you wear?”

“No catch at all. All you have to do is attend a 90-minute presentation at a beautiful resort only five minutes from here. It’s not a time share — it’s a private residence resort. And the people are very nice. It’s not a hard sell; no pressure at all.”

The difference between a time share and a private residence resort, of course, is the same as the difference between cow dung and horse poop. We should have seen it coming. I was starting to sweat and could feel my blood pressure rising dangerously. But just when I was about to sprint for the safety of the nearest cantina, my bride, ever the optimist, blurted the fatal words:

Going for the throat, Javier arranged to meet us the next morning in the village where we were staying and drive us to the Jaws of Hell Resort. That isn’t its real name; I made it up. But hell is what I was dreading, an expectation that did not go unfulfilled.

The next morning, Javier was waiting at the village square to take us for a ride, literally and figuratively. After winding over a jungle road, he delivered us to the palatial doors of a resort that appeared to have been designed for Mayan royalty. It was heart-stoppingly beautiful, sinfully opulent. You half expected to see Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian fox-trotting in the lobby.

Our “guides” were Pepe and Lupe. They began the inquisition pleasantly enough, treating us to a sumptuous breakfast of everything from made-to-order omelets to sushi. Then we were whisked away in golf carts to a Fantasy Island setting of palms and coconuts, lakes, tropical birds, crocodiles, interconnected swimming pools and a waterpark-style river bobbing with overstuffed Americans on floaties. It was groomed and manicured to the point of being almost too pretty, as if it wasn’t quite real. If you have a seven-figure bank account and “The Stepford Wives” is your favorite movie, you’d think you’d found paradise.

After dazzling us with Lincoln Memorial-size Mayan statues and suites where everything but the toilet handles was made of marble, Pepe and Lupe escorted us to a conference room filled with other victims, sharpened their calculators and got down to business — meaning us. As resort members, they said, we could enjoy a two-bedroom unit with room for friends and family members for up to six weeks a year for a mere $800-a-week maintenance fee. A one-bedroom or a studio could be had for somewhat less. If we didn’t want to use our weeks, we could sell them and make money. And as anyone knows who owns a time share, that’s about as easy as selling used underwear.

It took awhile for Lupe to get to the bottom line, a.k.a. the membership fee. Pepe for the most part remained silent. I think he was a trainee, or maybe he just didn’t have the stomach for what was coming. To fatten us up for the kill, Lupe produced a gleaming iPad and showed us pictures of other five-star resorts we could enjoy by doing a simple exchange with victims in, say, Italy, Fiji or Dogwater, N.D.

The membership fee, when she finally got around to it, was only $61,000. In the unlikely event that we didn’t have that much up front, we could pay in monthly installments of roughly a third more than our house payment. Putting it another way, we’d be paying $61,000 for the privilege of paying $800 a week to stay in a marble palace with a view of a golf course we would never use. Airfare, meals, taxes and gratuities not included. If that sounds reasonable to you, I have a great deal for you on fox trot lessons with Donald Trump.

As politely as possible, we told Lupe and Pepe it wasn’t in our budget. Along with a new Ferrari, a Gulfstream G650 and spa dates with Paris Hilton.

No problem, she said. A more modest plan could be had for $40,000 and change. Still too much? Plans C, D and E were available for less money up front, offered a variety of accommodations and features, and came with a barrage of financial options that would have confused an accountant. As the bombardment continued, I realized that what was happening was nothing other than the time-honored Mexican tradition of bartering. It was exactly what happens on the streets and beaches of Mexico, except that instead of necklaces and T-shirts, the stakes are colossally higher.

By the time we said no for the fifth or sixth time, I was sweating like a nun at Hooters on Amateur Night. I’d have paid a thousand bucks just to get the hell out of there.

At last, when we said no to even the cheapest plan, Lupe reluctantly introduced us to her manager — who trotted out still more plans. When even he gave up, she icily drove us to the resort’s “travel agency” to collect our free gifts and a cab ride home.

But we were far from home free. After stonewalling some of the best time-share sales people in the business, we were now in the clutches of the travel agency people.

I won’t bore you with the details except to say that the final pitch — by then our “90-minute presentation” had taken the whole day — seemed almost reasonable.

“It actually sounds like a good deal,” said my wife, who is smarter than I am about such things. “I think we should do it.”

And so … we did. No time-share or private residence membership, no ownership of anything. Just a travel club that, if we live long enough and go to enough places, should be worth almost what it cost to join.

The important thing is that it got us out of there, clutching party-cruise tickets and the world’s most expensive cheap T-shirts. By then I was so battered from sales pitches that I felt like an iguana squashed on the highway.

We were glad we had opted for the no-pressure presentation Javier had promised back at the supermarket. The hard sell would have killed us.

Chiapas, Mexico - Rodolfo Trampe, Executive Coordinator of the Mexican Association of Coffee Production Chain, announced that Mexico was the 6th largest coffee producer in the world in 2011, just after Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Mexico is also one of the largest producers of certified organic coffee.

Coffee arrived to Mexico in 1790 and it was adopted immediately. Currently the major producing states are Chiapas, Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Puebla. These states produce 90 percent of Mexico’s coffee; but it also grown in Guerrero, San Luis Potosi and Hidalgo.

Mexico's main coffee producing area is the state of Chiapas. Consequently, this is also Mexico's poorest state. There are over 400,000 farmers of which 90 percent are small tracts of land with less than 12 acres and 30 percent of them are women. Most of the small farmers were moved off the most fertile land, in favor of the large coffee plantations owned by foreign investors.

Coffee Consumption

Mexico’s per person average coffee consumption is just under three pounds per year Rodolfo Trampe said, a low figure compared to Guatemala’s and Columbia’s consumption of 5.5 pounds per person, and Brazil’s and Finland’s per person consumption of 12+ pounds and 26.5 pounds, respectively. Even though Mexico’s coffee consumption is small, it has doubled since 2000.

Coffee Export

Rodolfo Trampe said that production this year would be between 4.2 and 4.4 million - 132.3 pound sacks bags of green coffee.

In terms of export Mexico is in eleventh place with 2.8 million bags exported; a figure representing around $900 million. Mexican coffee farmers are the number one suppliers of coffee to the United States.

Coffee is the second largest traded commodity in the world, only behind petroleum.

Climate Change

According to Amecafe (Asociación Mexicana de la Cadena Productiva del Café), a major growers’ organization, global climate change is expected to have an adverse long-term effect on prices and on the sustainability of coffee-farming in Mexico.

In an effort to raise yields of coffee to at least 19 bushels per acre within 3 years and to 32 bushels per acre eventually, Mexico’s Agriculture Secretariat has announced financing of $16 million for a program to gradually replace aging coffee groves in 12 states.

Source: Mazatlan Messenger

Tonalá is known throughout the country for its lively Thursday and Sunday outdoor marketplace.

Specializing in pottery and glass, Tonalá also has treasures to trash. You can find it all here in Tonalá.

Daily glass blowing demonstrations. The market has a plethora of hand made glass for sale.

Location – Located in central Mexico on the east side of the Guadalajara metropolitan area

Tonalá was founded by the Zapotec Indians who intermarried with the Toltec and other Indian tribes. They spoke their own indigenous language mixed with Nahuatl.

DO NOT BRING EITHER GUNS OR DRUGS INTO MEXICO. Mucho problema! Don't try it - think about it or even toy with the idea. If caught you most likely will end up in prison for a very long time.

If traveling by air you are allowed a $300 customs allowance in addition to the above. If traveling by land you are only allowed $50.

Be reasonable and don't bring in quantities of anything that might look like you are planning to resell them. You really don't have to load up on food anymore as there are enough Supermercados with a good supply and variety of food.

When you cross most borders you will be asked to push a button or your car will automatically trigger one. If your light is green you will continue to pass through. If you hit a red signal your luggage and vehicle will be searched. Additionally if you look suspicious or a guard has the desire - you can be searched regardless of the light.

a) after 24 hours $50 CAN in purchases duty free; after 48 hours - $300 CAN duty free; or after 7 days - $750 duty free.