I only have a few more days left before I return to Canada from Mexico. I've been here for a whole month and this has been my longest consecutive stay. I've been here probably 20 to 30 times and have probably spent 3 to 6 months of my life here. Through the magic of high speed Internet, VOIP, and working for the world's first globally integrated enterprise, I have been working remotely from here while we visit family. I have also been able to take a little bit of vacation.

During this trip, I have visited one of the seven wonders of the modern world, swam in an underground river, danced the night away at a club "that puts Vegas to shame", walked on one of the best beaches in the world fed by the 2nd largest coral reef in the world, watched a giant cockfighting tournament at Colima's Megapalenque, bathed in a natural sinkhole with the clearest water you can possibly imagine, watched a movie in a VIP theatre with leather Lazyboy recliners and a personal waiter, watched Mistico (who recently signed with WWE - watch for him after June) and some of the finest luchadores in the world perform, and eaten some of the best food of my life. That is just on one trip, and visiting only 4 of 31 states.

If you are one of those people who "have never set foot in a third world country, and [plan] to keep it that way", that's your prerogative. It's also my prerogative to say that I truly pity you.

If you do plan to set foot in a third world country, don't be scared. What the media reports in Canada as people "getting thrown off of balconies" really means people "getting drunk and/or high and falling off of balconies". When they report a lady "getting stabbed in the face by screwdrivers by a roving gang at 6AM", it really means a lady who forgot to look both ways before crossing the street. Don't kid yourself - a third world country is dangerous and lawless, but if you don't go looking for trouble, it probably won't go looking for you. Millions of people visited Mexico last year, and a statistically insignificant number of them didn't come back (re: you have the same chance of being killed by lightning than being killed on your visit to Mexico) - and I would venture to say that most, if not all, of those that didn't were looking for trouble or weren't smart enough to realize things like "not all countries give pedestrians the right of way". Classifying the whole of a country based on one place is unfair. Mexico shouldn't get a bad rap just because Tijuana is basically hell on earth. What if the whole of Canada was judged after one visit to Surrey?

p.s. - (Bias) My wife is a Permanent Resident of Canada and a Mexican citizen.