Episode 33: Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta, & the Yucatán Peninsula with Tim Leffel & Lydia Carey

Mary Herendeen:

Mexico has something for everyone, whether you want to swim in the warm Caribbean, explore a bustling outdoor market, or savor made-to-order street tacos in a historic plaza. If you've been dreaming about a vacation to Mexico, then you're going to love this week's episode.

But first, I'd like to introduce you to Angie Orth. Starting today, she'll be leading your podcast travel journeys here on Traveling With AAA. Angie is a Jacksonville, Florida native, a PR pro, and an extensive world traveler. Her blog, Angie Away, has been going strong since 2006, so welcome aboard, Angie. Over to you!

Angie Orth:

Thank you so much, Mary. It is a pleasure to be hosting this show. I am so excited to share today's episode about Mexico with you. We've got 2 resident experts here to tell you everything you want to know about planning your vacation to the Yucatán Peninsula, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico City, and beyond.

Tim Leffel lives in Guanajuato and is the editor of the website, Perceptive Travel. If you've already devoured the new issue of AAA Explorer, then you've read his travel tips for Puerto Vallarta and the cenotes of the Yucatán Peninsula.

Lydia Carey is a freelance writer based in Mexico City. For all you foodies out there, you'll appreciate her expertise in finding the best street food and unraveling the mysteries of mezcal.

Grab your flip flops and your floppy hat. Vamos a Mexico!

Let's start with Lydia. Can you describe what makes where you live so special? What is it about Mexico City that drew you there?

Lydia Carey:

I would say the energy of the place. It's 28 million strong in the metropolitan area here, so there are a lot of people, noise, hustle and bustle, color, and street life, and that's particularly something I really love.

Angie:

Can you tell us about the culture and the pace of life?

Lydia:

In Mexico City, it’s a little bit of everything. It's a huge, sophisticated metropolitan city, but it's also got these moments where you feel like you've gone back in time. People have an attitude about life that's a little bit less tied to their schedules and their to-do list. No one would ever meet you in the street and tell you they were too busy to talk to you.

Angie:

That's a beautiful thing to have in such a busy city.

Now Tim, you're in a much smaller city. Tell us about life in Guanajuato.

Tim Leffel:

It's a UNESCO World Heritage historic city, a Spanish colonial city with buildings that are older than the USA, and so that attracts me. And it's a very pedestrian-friendly place, we don't own a car there and don't need one. For Mexicans, it's a very important city because it's where the revolution started and where they tried to start freeing themselves from the Spanish overlords, let's say. So, that's where the first battle was.

It's not very popular with American tourists, which is kind of nice in a way. Most of the tourists are Mexican, so it still retains a very Mexican feel, prices are quite reasonable, and the food is not geared to tourists.

Angie:

There's so much to Mexico, right? And if you just stick to the tourist trail, you miss a lot of what makes it special. I mean, these 2 places have completely different vibes and they're both worth visiting.

Lydia, let me ask you, so many people are going to Mexico City these days, but it's like you said, it's enormous and it's not a place that you can see in just 1 day. Where does somebody start? How does somebody eat well on their first day in Mexico City? Where do they go?

Lydia:

There are a handful of neighborhoods that are probably the most popular, the most tourist-friendly, relatively safe, and easy to get around walking. A lot of people do those central neighborhoods—Roma, La Condesa, Polanco, Downtown, Centro Histórico—which I think is a great way to start if you've never been to Mexico City. It's a great way to get a feel for the city and those neighborhoods are really walkable.

Tim:

They should go to the anthropology museum because it's up there with the ones in Cairo and London, and other great museums around the world, except I think it's $5 or something like that to get in.

Lydia:

I try to encourage people when they're coming to visit that they give themselves space for spontaneity. Space to take time to sit in a park, people watch, and walk around the neighborhood because it's really important to ground yourself for a minute, or half an hour, or an hour in a park or sitting outside a cafe and just take the time to enjoy the place where you are because you're not always there.

Angie:

What is the unmissable thing to eat in Mexico City?

Lydia:

Tacos and street food are really my number one. For me, there's nothing better than street food in Mexico City.

Angie:

What's your favorite street food taco?

Lydia:

One of my favorites is suadero, which is a classic chilango. Chilango is what they use to describe everything in Mexico City. The suadero is like a classic chilango taco. It's a very tough cut of beef that's then slow cooked in oil and fat and comes out tender, delicious, and amazing. Super, super good. The al pastor is another really classic Mexico City taco. That's the one that you'll see on the spit that's marinated in this bright red sauce that is pork. It's delicious as well.

Angie:

Tim, what is your favorite Mexican food?

Tim:

I especially love going out for Mexican breakfast because they're hearty, spicy, crunchy, and interesting—it's going to be a good meal. I really enjoy eating those everywhere. Another kind of street food that will look familiar to Americans or Canadians is a torta, which is basically just a sub sandwich but it's made on these Mexican rolls and they put way more stuff in it in Mexico, so it's much more of a taste sensation.

Angie:

We are obviously going to need something to wash down all of this delicious street food. Let's talk about one of Mexico's most trending drinks, mezcal. Lydia, where does this smokey spirit come from?

Lydia:

Mezcal is a traditional drink that is made from agave hearts. They're cooked in an underground pit and that's part of the reason why it has that smokey flavor. But it's important for people to understand that mezcal isn't just smokey. You can get mezcal that's more herbal, you can get mezcal that's grassier. It just depends on all kinds of things: how they make it, where it's made, the soil that the plants are grown in. Part of the joy of it is that every year and every batch is going to be different, and you might never taste the same thing again.

I mean like two-thirds of the states of the country make mezcal. A lot of these small producers, they're not mass-producing so you travel out to these little tiny places where people have these little family distilleries, and you're there with the son, the father, and the grandfather, sometimes the sister and the mother. Everybody's making mezcal and you're tasting it with the people whose hands prepared it for you. It's an incredible experience. I highly recommend it to anyone. A lot of times, you just bring your empty Pepsi bottle and they fill it up for you, which is fantastic.

Angie:

OK, so note to listeners, don't forget to bring your empty bottles when visiting mezcal producers.

So, there is also this lesser-known drink that's making a comeback. Tim, can you tell us about pulque?

Tim:

Yeah, this is one of those stories about something that almost went extinct and then came back. Pulque is also made from a maguey plant, but it's not harvested and roasted the way the agave hearts are for mezcal or tequila. Basically, it's like a liquid that comes out of the middle once they cut it, and it just keeps flowing and flowing until it's tapped out. This has turned into a beverage that doesn't take very long ferment—just a few days and then you drink it. This was the working man's drink for a long time until Mexican beer companies started getting bigger and consolidating, and they basically went on a campaign to push pulque out of the market and it sort of worked. The reason they did that is because it was a very local product, and it was not something you could mass market and mass distribute. So, it kind of went underground and just fell out of favor for a long time, but now it's becoming cool again.

Lydia:

I think for a long time it was considered the poor man's drink and it was sort of tossed to the side and now it's really hip.

Angie:

Tim, I know you recently wrote for AAA about the Yucatán, so I want to switch gears and head in that direction and hear a little bit about Cancún and Tulum, and what is drawing people there? What keeps people coming back?

Tim:

Well, I think a big part of it is it’s so easy to get to those places. From almost anywhere in the USA or Canada you might even have a direct flight, so it's super easy, especially if it's the middle of January and you're really sick of the cold weather. It's easy to just hop on a plane and be in Cancún a few hours later.

Angie:

What's it like visiting these beachside destinations?

Tim:

If you want a busy place with lots of action, you can stay in Cancún itself or Tulum itself. If you want something more mellow, there are lots of places to stay along that Riviera Maya that's not so busy. Tulum is more of a young party crowd and it's quite pricey. There are a lot of people that come straight from New York City with their very high earnings and they're ready to spend, but it's a beautiful beach there and it's a fun scene. But all along that coast, you can't go wrong in terms of finding good food and having good service, and it's much easier to speak English than anywhere else in Mexico. People that don't know any Spanish will have an easy time.

Angie:

Tell me a little bit about the cenotes and why would a person want to leave their resort to go check those out?

Tim:

So, these are underground lakes and rivers. There are literally hundreds of cenotes all over the peninsula and they extend all the way across. There are some near Cancún, the Riviera Maya, and Tulum that you can visit. I'd say the biggest concentration of the ones that are easy to get to for tourists are around Valladolid, which is close to Chichen Itza. It's a small city, beautiful place to visit on its own, but there are a lot of cenotes there where you can go swimming. Some of them have a rope swing, one of them even has a restaurant right next to it looking down at the cenote.

Angie:

Is this a good spot to see the Mayan ruins?

Tim:

Yeah, they're all over the peninsula as well. The ones that get mobbed tend to be Tulum and Chichen Itza because that's where all the excursions go from Cancún, but there are plenty of others inland from there that aren't nearly as crowded. Even Uxmal, which is west of Mérida and pretty well-known, unless you're going on a school holiday or something, it's still not all that crowded. You maybe see 1 or 2 tour buses in the parking lot and the rest of the people are driving there.

You can go down levels from there like Ek Balam, which is also outside of Valladolid. Then there's a whole Mayan route between Mérida and Campeche where there are 3 or 4 of them you can visit in a row. So, if people are into that, there are plenty of options and sometimes you'll have it almost completely to yourself. Some of them have places to stay nearby, so you can get there right when it opens or come back in the evening. Like Uxmal is open at night; they have a light show and when I went there, I think there were a dozen people.

Angie:

Do you think it's better to book a tour, or can you see cenotes and ruins independently? What do you think is better for a first-time visitor?

Tim:

If you don't know the area well, a tour can make a lot of sense because they know where everything is and which ones are open to the public, and that kind of thing. It's flat as a pancake in the Yucatán, so there aren’t a lot of landmarks to look for. It's kind of easy to get lost.

Angie:

Tim, you recently wrote about Puerto Vallarta for AAA Explorer and Westways. Let’s talk about that for a moment. How does it compare to the Cancún vibe?

Tim:

Puerto Vallarta is a bustling, fun place and it feels like more of a city than Cancún does because it was not purpose-built, it's been there for a while. It was a port; it's not super historic, but at least it has a real feel of an established place, and it's a lot more walkable. You could go to Puerto Vallarta on vacation and never rent a car or have to worry about a shuttle, whereas that’s kind of hard to do in most of the Riviera Maya.

It’s the leading gay destination in Mexico, it's got a great nightlife scene, it's got great beach clubs, but it doesn't feel as jam packed as Tulum does for those beach clubs, restaurants, and everything. It's got a really nice malecón you can walk down with all these statues by Mexican artists on it. It's just a nice, pleasant place to spend some time with good food, good bars, and plenty of things to do. Then, if you want to go on an excursion, it's easy to get out of there and go on a boat, or drive south or north or whatever.

Lydia, maybe you could talk about one of those places you took a boat to.

Lydia:

Yeah, I was going to add that I like Puerto Vallarta a lot, and I've been there quite a few times. There's the hotel zone in the city, and south of that, there is this little, tiny town I think it’s called Tomatlán where you can take boat ferries out all along the coast because the little tiny coastal villages are really difficult to get to. Some of them are inaccessible by car and you have to take a boat, so you can take a boat ferry that’s $5 or $6 and they will drop you anywhere along the coast to any of these little towns. There are also a bunch of little, tiny virgin beaches where no one's at and they'll drop you wherever you want, which is fantastic. It's also the area's school bus, so kids are on it, and people are on it, and gas tanks are on it. There are all kinds of things being transported to these places because the only way to get to them is on the water.

Tim:

There are so many choices, and if you go north, a lot of people have probably heard of Sayulita. There's another town called San Pancho, there's this luxury development called Punta Mita that's full of high-end villas, a Four Seasons, and a St. Regis, if that's your thing. There's more going up all the time north of there. There's a One&Only now that's opened way north of Puerto Vallarta, but more are coming in, Auberge and some other resorts. So, if you're worried that you won't find a nice place to stay, that's not an issue, but you can do it on a budget as well. There are plenty of places to choose from, or you can get a middle-of-the-road, all-inclusive, come down with the family and send them off to the kids’ club and have fun.

Lydia:

And on the west coast, you don't have to worry about the sargassum seaweed invading your vacation like you do in Tulum and Cancún. On the west coast, you don't get it, so that's something.

Tim:

It's also more dramatic, too. I like the west coast better because while the water is beautiful on the Gulf side, I like that drama that you have with cliffs, mountains, and big waves coming in. It's more dramatic than the super flat Gulf area where the water is pretty, but there's not much else to look at.

Lydia:

There are a lot of great surf spots on the west coast, too. So historically, I think that drew a lot of people to that side of the country.

Angie:

That's a great reason to go visit, as if you haven't told us enough reasons, but here's another one. I want to talk about cultural festivals. A lot of people have been adding these cultural festivals onto their itineraries and that's a good reason to go and a good way to figure out when you want to go.

Tim, maybe we'll start with you. Tell us about some of the festivals people are traveling for.

The one we all know about is Día De Los Muertos because if you're a fan of the movie Coco, which of course we all are, that's one that's really obvious and popular, but there are other ones that people are traveling for. Can you tell us about them?

Tim:

Día De Los Muertos is the big one, and it seems like the movie actually made it a lot more popular with people that didn't used to come to Mexico. I would say the best places to go are where I live in Guanajuato; Oaxaca; Pátzcuaro, which is near Morelia south of here in another state, and Mexico City. Those are probably the best places.

If you could be in Mexico at that time, it's definitely interesting. Everybody paints their faces and gets all dressed up in the costumes, but it's also a very serious time. It's when people go to the cemetery and think about their ancestors, and sort of party with them, talk about them, and have their memories. So, it's also solemn in that sense, but then you walk out of the cemetery and there will be like 50 food vendors and people selling toys and stuff. It's always that weird Mexican mix between the sacred and the not-so-sacred.

The Guelaguetza Festival in Oaxaca is a great music and culture festival, and if there's any way to be there at that time of year, it's a great experience because the main event is this dancing performance on stage where all these villagers come from different villages and they put on their village dance with the full costumes, a live band, and everything. Then they throw stuff from their town into the audience, like snacks, bread, or whatever that they make in their area.

It's a really fun thing, but then there are concerts before and after. And they have these mini festivals around town, like there will be a molé festival, a mezcal festival, an artisan festival. So, all this stuff is going on at the same time and it’s a great time to be there. I think it's in July.

The other one we featured was the Festival Cervantino in my city of Guanajuato. It's the largest festival in Latin America for music and arts because it's 3 weeks long, so it's quite a marathon. Daily and nightly performances for almost 3 weeks. It's all kinds of music, dance, and performances. A lot of the events are free and then some of the big-name ones you have to pay for, and it's in a whole bunch of different venues. And again, there are all kinds of stuff going on around it at the same time, but it's a lot of fun.

There's usually a host guest country and then a guest state. For instance, maybe Norway, Korea, or Japan will be the guest country, so there will be a lot of performers from there, and then there will be a guest state from Mexico, so they'll have more performers from there. Then there are a lot of general ones, people coming from France, Canada, Africa, or South America. It's just a whole mixed bag of world music, Mexican music, classical music, and all kinds of things.

Lydia:

Another thing that I think is becoming more and more of a big deal in Mexico City is the Zonamaco, which is a huge contemporary art festival that happens every year in February, and it's really excellent. There's a main location where you can go and mix and mingle with artists, and you can see people's work, but then they also have gallery openings and showings all over the city and there are other types of art events.

On top of that, there are hundreds, probably thousands of religious festivals and patriotic festivals, and things where the town is celebrating their anniversary. It seems like there's always something going on here.

Angie:

I don't know about everybody else, but I am very excited about my next trip to Mexico. You both shared so much good information with us, and I love that it's all coming from a local perspective since you both lived in Mexico for so long.

Before we wrap up today, what other advice do you have for people who are planning a trip south of the border?

Lydia:

I've tried to encourage people when they come to be good guests, be good visitors, learn a little bit of Spanish, don't try to pay people in dollars, talk to locals, get in touch with people who are living in the place where you want to travel and see if they have any suggestions for you.

Angie:

You guys are expats in Mexico, so I'm sure you hear a lot that folks maybe think Mexico is a dangerous or a controversial destination. What do you recommend to people who want to visit, but maybe are a little bit nervous about what they've seen on the news?

Lydia:

I would say Mexico City is a big city, so it has big city crime. The most common thing that probably happens to tourists is they get pick pocketed. I would say be smart when you're traveling, know where you are, know where your things are, don't carry around a bunch of cash, don't carry your phone in your back pocket without paying any attention to what you're doing. At the same time, I would say that people probably should be less paranoid than U.S. media leads them to be.

Tim:

My wife and I have lived in Mexico on and off since 2010 or 2011, and never had the slightest thing happen to us. My daughter went to school in Mexico. I know a few people that have had some minor issues like being mugged or something, but it was normally 3 in the morning, walking home drunk. You know, something that probably wasn't too smart to do anywhere. You're going to be OK if you're just being sensible and leading your life in a way that's not kind of asking for trouble.

Lydia:

Mexico City is the heart—the economic heart, the cultural heart of the country—so there's a lot of work put in to keeping it as safe as possible.

Angie:

Thank you so much for your insight. Tim Leffel and Lydia Carey, thank you for being here today, and thank you to our listeners for being with us.

If you're planning a trip, be sure to connect with a AAA Travel Advisor, check out AAA.com/travel, or visit your local branch. If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe. I'm Angie Orth, thank you for traveling with AAA.