Coming back, though, was a weird experience. It was a little bit like seeing a nephew that you last saw as a cute ten year old boy and finding him a troubled teenager: broke, juvenile delincuent, a drug addiction and a serious disease on top. Mexicans acutely feel the impact of their triple crisis: the worldwide economic crisis, the swine flu scare and the raging drug wars.

As a country whose economy depends hugely on tourism and manufacturing for export, the current economic crisis has hit Mexico particularly hard. People loose their jobs en masse and they do not have much of a social safety net to fall back on. And after a close friend and traveling companion came down with flu symptoms, it became impossible to simply write off that scare like most Mexicans do. In any case, even if the disease were not real, its economic effects on the tourism industry definitely are.

What most shocked me, though, was the incredible level of violence that has swamped the entire country within the last couple of years. When I left, Mexico had a few hotspots of trouble along the border and in Mexico City but was otherwise a safe and civil country. Today, it is ravaged by what at time seems like full-out war: soldiers and federal police, armed to their teeth, in every city; shoot-outs in the middle of the city, even in tourist areas, for example in Veracruz just a few days before we passed through — a cabby told us about his colleague who was riddled by bullets despite being an innocent bystander; the friends who tell stories of a shooting in the very house next door; reading in the newspaper about clans actively killing off any witnesses who dare speak up against commonplace extortion of small and medium-sized businesses; the people who put off the purchase of a new car for fear of appearing a worthwhile kidnapping target. And this is not isolated to any particular area: with few exceptions and varying degrees of intensity, this affects the entire country.

Now, I do not want to discourage anyone from visiting this amazing country. Mexico is very well worth your time and money! As a tourist, you are very unlikely to be affected directly by any of these problems. But as soon as you start speaking to the locals, it’s impossible not to notice this extremely troubling development. I don’t have any easy solutions and, as it seems, neither does anyone else. But I do know that Mexico finds itself on a slippery slope. I hope they can stop their slide.

The good thing is: it’s over soon. My flight to Singapore is May 8th and I won’t be back till September. Yay!

• Two hours to Ocosingo by comfortable first-class bus, then seven hours on the back of an oversized pick-up truck to a village near the lake. The pick-up truck was completely overloaded with lots and lots of cargo and about 25 people in total. Half of them were sitting on the roof of the pick-up’s cage, ducking their heads whenever we passed a low power line or tree.

• A seven kilometer hike to the lake from the village, along a completely muddy trail (it had rained in the morning…) reminding me acutely of García Márquez’ novels. It was humid as hell and once we got there I was covered in mud.

• The lake itself a completely untouched, pristine retreat from humanity. It is big and clean with awesome clear water. We shared it only with a local fisherman as we were canoeing across with our guide to find the most beautiful spots.

• Meeting locals — most of whom lived in the middle of the jungle all their lives. Some of the conversations were quite awesome, for example this one:

Local: So, where are you from?

Me: Germany.

Local: Oh, is that the United States already?

Me: Nooooo, that is even further. It is on another continent altogether, you have to cross the ocean to get there.

Local: (making big, unbelieving eyes) Really!? Even further than the US?

• And hearing lots of strange talk in the local indigenous tongue — tzeltal.

It was an awesome trip. Later, my butt hurt (from sitting too long on a wooden bench on a pick-up truck on the way there), my arm ached (from holding on standing for six hours on the way back) but I was glad to have done it as the trip is more than worth it…

UPDATE: I don’t know whether I just missed these yesterday or whether they were put up in response to yesterday’s “experience” but now there are signs on the wall proclaiming “dí ¡no! a la pornografía — ¡cultiva tu mente!” — “say no! to pornography, cultivate your mind!” At least I still know I am in a Catholic country…

BTW: If you want to know which parts of Mexico I have already seen check out this photo set where I will also add my future Mexico shots once I get back home (I am taking 2.25 GB of storage with me on that trip, so I should come back with sufficient footage.)