The 10,001 Reasons We Live in Mexico

And Why We're Never Leaving!

When my wife and I moved to Guanajuato, Mexico as forty-something American expats, we had a list of reasons for doing so. The list has been growing incrementally since moving here. I want to share an incident that caused that list to increase by one more reason. I think the list is now at 10,001 reasons why we now live in Mexico.

For our 24^th wedding anniversary (that's right, we are Americans and have been married for that long), we went on a little trip to a city in Central Mexico called Querétaro. It is a mere two and a half hours away by bus. And, by the way, going by bus is the preferred method of travel in Mexico. You are served food and drink, just like on a plane, but without the hassles.

Querétaro was founded in July 1531 when Spanish invaders (infection), led by Conquistador Hernán Pérez Bocanegra y Córdoba, came and took the city without so much as a fistfight. In the year 1656, the Viceroy, the Duke of Albuquerque, named the town "The Noble and Loyal City of Santiago of Querétaro." Try putting that as your return address when mailing your Visa bill!

This is a historically significant and charming colonial town whose growth has exploded in the last twenty years. We stayed in the area they've been forced to call "The Historic District." You would swear, if you didn't know there was a gigantic sprawling metropolitan city outside of the Historic District, that Querétaro is a charming little colonial Mexican town. It is not small.

In fact, there are almost a million people in the greater metropolitan area spewing smog into the air from their cars. There are also factories of various industries in the outlying areas of the city. It was choking and I am sure can give you a good case of lung cancer as well as Mexico City can.

We had a cheap hotel. The bathroom was exactly 39 inches wide. The toilet sat with only 5.5 inches between the bowl and the wall. I had to sit sideways to use it. Once during the night, I had to go and fell asleep on the toilet with my head resting, and I might add comfortably, on the wall. My poor wife almost had to have the paramedics to get her on and off the toilet.