During the summer of 2025, I went on a trip to visit various places in Mexico. I went through both beautiful and stressful experiences, but I have no regrets about the trip. Both sides of the coin came to create what I remember as a beautiful summer getaway and an interesting, funny story from my life.
It was my first time flying alone. I arrived in Mexico and collected my baggage. Unfortunately, one bag had been marked with a red ribbon. I was told by an officer that this meant my bag had to undergo an inspection before I could leave. Sounds normal enough, right? The caveat being that I needed an adult family member present since I was a minor.
This didn’t sound like too much of a problem since I had family waiting outside the airport. I explained to the officer the situation, and one of them tried to come through in order to run the inspection with me. Except, no officer let them through. Everyone they talked to said they weren’t allowed through, and everyone I talked to said I needed an adult to come through. This back and forth lasted for a whole hour. Finally, an uncle, who worked in a local police department, managed to make it through since he had been told by my family that I had been detained by the airline agency.
With that taken care of, I was finally able to meet my family and join them for lunch. There was a dormant volcanic crater not far from the house, so we went to visit that next. On the way up, we saw the beautiful sights of the town below. The weather was warm and breezy, with the top of the crater just in sight. But just moments afterward, a group of terrified children, ages probably under 13, came running towards us. Their faces had been beaten and bruised, one was crying, and two were shoeless. They explained to us that on the path to the crater, a group of older boys had been camping out nearby and threatened them at gunpoint. They had taken their cellphones, shoes, and any valuables they had on them. I had an expensive camera in my hand. We realized if we hadn’t been warned by these kids, my two cousins and I could have been their next victims.
We went home for the day, and I set up the room they gave me and went to bed. The next day, we woke up early to visit central Mexico City. To say it was beautiful would be an understatement. It’s larger than NYC in both size and population. The streets hold so much color, and its monuments are stunning. We saw the statue of The Angel of Independence, a statue erected to celebrate Mexico’s liberation from Spanish rule.
We got caught in the rain and so had to start the 2-hour car ride home, where I decided to take my first shower of the trip. Unfortunately, the place I stayed had a toilet that didn’t automatically flush, and no shower. Showers in this part of Mexico were taken by pouring water on yourself with a bowl. Though the most surprising thing was how intuitive this sort of bathing was. There wasn’t, in my experience, a significant learning curve with mastering the art of showering with a bucket.
After my bucket shower, I wanted to go to bed, which is when I saw that the dog had peed on my bed.
Anyway, our next stay was at the “Magic Pueblo” of Cuetzalan (kwet-sah-lan) in Central Mexico, around 5 hours away from Mexico City. To my awe, this town lives up to its name. Being established in 1547, though lived in for thousands of years, the town felt ancient, with roads of cobblestone, buildings built with stone, and colorful markets. Despite this, I believe the name is most fitting due to the magical waterfalls that emerge during the rainy season. During the daytime, we walked on dry roads. But at night it rained, and if we happened to be outside at night, we got to see the streets flood lightly, and water cascade over the smooth and shiny stone staircases.
The first day of exploring Cuetzalan was tiring to say the least. We were fortunate as a family friend of ours offered us their spare bedroom. Upon entering, we were greeted by the warm smell of unbathed chickens, and we hastily headed to our room, which was on the roof, and were accompanied by a rooster and a turkey. I slept on a deflated air mattress that I had brought from the US but broke, and woke up the next day to the sound of crows and gobbles.
After waking up, I headed downstairs for breakfast and noticed there were significantly fewer chickens in the coop, and a lot of blood on the wall.
We booked a nearby hotel for the rest of our stay…
Whereas the first half of our stay was spent exploring the town, the second half was spent exploring the nature surrounding it. We walked through beautiful jungle, marvelous cascades, and unexpectedly slippery caverns. We ate locally made passion-fruit ice cream and had to fit 8 people in a 5-person car.
The 3rd quarter of our overall trip was spent at an even more remote town, about an hour from Zacatlan, another city we would visit. The family we were staying with made it a point to emphasize that the area surrounding the town we were staying at was not that safe, however, our town was safe. Comforting. Our stay was largely uneventful, with us mainly visiting the historical sites of the family and such. It was near the end of our stay that we were informed that a young woman had been murdered 10 minutes down the road from where we were staying, just two nights before our arrival.
Our last tourist destination was the city of Zacatlan (sah-kah-TLAH-n) in central Mexico. It had similar colonial architecture to Cuetzalan, but a notable pride in its apple production and watchmaking, as seen in the images. We enjoyed a beautiful meal on the rooftop after we had shopped for souvenirs.
The last hurdle of the trip came when we had packed up and arrived at the airport in Mexico City, CDMX. I arrived 5 minutes before the bag checks for our luggage closed. If they had closed, I would’ve completely missed the flight. I was pulled aside to be taken directly to the luggage scanner room, since the normal check-in process would take too long. Everything went downhill after they told me they found two objects that looked like guns in my luggage.
I blamed nothing but my own ignorance when, at some point in the trip, I decided it’d be a good idea to buy two gun-shaped keychains and leave them in my luggage, where I then forgot about them. I was unable to leave the room I was in, as I was told nothing could be done until the US and Mexican marines came to inspect the luggage themselves.
I’m lucky nothing else happened after that. They checked the luggage, told me I was okay, and ran to my gate. I made it in time and arrived in Newark 5 hours later. Now. Despite the ups and downs of the trip, I look back at it all with delight. I saw beautiful sights, ate amazing food, and experienced interesting stories. At the time they may have seemed unusual or disgusting, but in the end, I’m left with a funny memory of “that one time this happened.”
