The March 21 holiday switch won’t actually go into effect until 2007, because this year is the bicentenary of the birth of Benito Juarez. The May 1 Labor Day holiday was also to have been included, but lawmakers thought the date too important nationally and internationally to be moved.

Tourism officials are delighted with the change and estimate that each long weekend will generate additional tourism spending of $250 million. Hoteliers like it, since the fixed long weekends guarantee higher occupancy rates.

So, too, probably, do businesses in general.

Some years, when holidays fall on weekends to collective groans from the office and factory bound, the new holiday Mondays will guarantee some extra leisure time. Other years, when the holidays fall midweek, it will encroach on the time-honored tradition of the puente or ‘bridge’.

The puente makes a bridge from the national holiday to the nearest weekend — the previous weekend if the holiday is on a Tuesday, and the following weekend if it’s on a Thursday. (Wednesdays are a bit more complicated.) In the business place, companies that can afford to will often give people two days off. Those that can’t will risk, and probably suffer, high rates of absenteeism on the bridge day.

To illustrate, puentes can play havoc with the vital statistics on which so much time is spent contemplating, turning over, squinting at, adjusting, looking at from a different angle, etc. In 2005, the March 21 holiday fell on the Monday of Easter Week, in which Thursday and Friday are always holidays. To the trained eye of the employee, that called for some serious truss design. Industrial production that month fell 4.7% from the same month of a year earlier. Some of it, but not all, was made up in April.

Other national holidays will remain much the way they are. May 1 this year is on a Monday, anyway. The following Friday is May 5 — the Battle of Puebla — not an obligatory holiday but take-able and one more closely marked by Mexicans in the U.S. than in Mexico for reasons unclear. The 1862 battle was, after all, against the French. The September 16th Independence Day holiday will emerge from the weekend with full bridging rights in 2008. Christmas this year is on a Monday, but in 2007 it will be on Tuesday, a natural puente if ever there was one.

At one time, the stadium was home to four Mexico City first division teams, although Necaxa moved years ago to Aguascalientes where the team has a strong local following and high attendance at its games. Now the stadium houses Cruz Azul, the current champions, and América, nicknamed las Águilas or the Eagles. Atlante, which for years has been based in Cancún, is returning to the first division next season and will also play there.

There are two kinds of soccer fans in Mexico: those who support América and those who cheer on whoever is playing against América, regardless of who their favorite team is.

Among reasons given for hating the América team (apart from the head-scratching, “because it’s owned by Televisa,” the TV company), are that referees favor América in their decisions on the field. In years past, it was also claimed that other teams owned by Televisa let América win their games. This was frequently shown on the field to be nonsense, and now the point is moot, anyway, as Televisa no longer owns other first-division teams. In fact, Televisa doesn’t directly own América any more, either. The soccer club, along with the stadium and some gambling halls, was spun off in 2024.

The second most popular team in Mexico is Guadalajara. Among the liberal classes, the team of choice is often Pumas of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Admitting to one of these that you support América can be met with eyebrows raised in a look of incredulity, as much as if to say, “really, you ought to know better.” They suppose you must also watch soap operas.

Anyway, going to the Aztec Stadium is an exhilarating experience, particularly for a big match when there are likely to be anything from 60,000 to 80,000 spectators.

Some words of practical advice.

Get tickets before you go to the stadium, unless you plan to be there with plenty of time in hand. If you just show up an hour or so before a game, you will only be able to get tickets from touts for at least 50% more than the list price for regular matches, and double or more if it’s a “clásico,” such as América–Guadalajara or América–Pumas.

Buying from touts also risks being sold fake tickets which are checked and refused at the entry gate. Lines at the stadium’s box office —la taquilla— are long, ticket availability limited, and service painfully slow, even for games with relatively few spectators, so you are quite likely to miss the first part of the match. Tickets for events at the stadium can be purchased ahead of time from Fanki.

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You can take many walks by yourself and never actually speak to anybody you don’t know, much as you might do if you travel on the Metro or in buses. If you are in the habit —as many Mexico City residents are— of driving everywhere, your only communication with your fellow denizens may be a shaking of the head, blowing of the horn, or an untoward hand signal that goes unnoticed by its intended recipient

Striking up a conversation becomes more or less necessary, however, when you come face-to-face with someone who, like you, is on the defensive end of a leash being stretched to its limit by a pet whose intentions could be anything from simple acquaintance to a battle to the death.

This is as good a time as any to establish your “dog-expert” credentials.

You could start out with, ¿qué raza es?, which would be OK as long as the other’s dog isn’t a German Shepherd, a Labrador, or some other well-known breed.

Many dog breeds are the same in Spanish as in English or their original language. Examples are Rottweiler, Doberman, Schnauzer, Bulldog, Boxer. Others are literal translations, for example, pastor alemán (German Shepherd), pastor inglés (English Sheepdog), gran danés (Great Dane).

For some breeds, the habit of using an English adjective and turning it into a Spanish noun is applied. So a French Poodle becomes “un french,” a Golden Retriever “un golden,“ and a Cocker Spaniel, “un cocker.”

A mongrel in Mexico is described as corriente, or callejero (street dog), criollo, or euphemistically, cruzado con corriente (cross with mongrel).

Another possible opener, ¿es macho o hembra? would show you know that, ordinarily, there ought to be no problem if they are opposites, although it could do severe damage to your pose as someone who knows all about dogs.

¿Muerde? is probably the most sensible, yet impractical question. Besides, the growling and barking may only be directed at the other dog, and could also be mere frustration at being held back by a chain.

Anyway, once the preliminaries have been dispensed with, and a decision made whether to allow the dogs to associate freely, come what may, the owners can then get introduced and share impressions on the one thing they apparently have in common—a love of dogs.

Where you would expect to hear things like, what do you feed it? does he sleep indoors or outdoors? has she been spayed? what you actually get are things like, she’s normally quite sociable, he only fights if he’s afraid, he thinks he’s bigger than he actually is.

The habit of attributing psychological or sociological characteristics to an irrational quadruped appears to say more about the owner than the dog, but in any case it serves to get people talking to each other who might otherwise not so much as exchange a “good day.”

Sometimes you’ll come away from these meetings shaking your head and saying to yourself, “I can’t believe I said that!” And the dog, now more settled after a romp in the grass or a bit of a scrap, would probably agree if it could.

Greene traveled in southern Mexico during the anti-clerical persecutions of the 1930s, and produced two books, the commentary Lawless Roads and the novel The Power and The Glory.  Lawrence visited in the 1920s, and wrote The Plumed Serpent, while Lowry in the 1940s wrote Under The Volcano, which was made into a film in 1984.

The three can be associated with specific places in Mexico: Greene with sweltering Tabasco; Lowry with Cuernavaca, the land of eternal spring; and Lawrence with Lake Chapala—to this day a popular spot for foreign residents living in Mexico.

The Mexican historian Enrique Krauze considers in a 2015 article on British writers that lived in or visited Mexico that the works of the male authors lean toward what is dark in the country, while the female writers —Rosa King, Sybille Bedford, Rebecca West— tended rather to reflect the day.

More recently, writers like Tony Cohan, author of the memoir On Mexican Time (and its sequel, Mexican Days) show how the country continues to deliver inspiration for writers who come to visit or live here.  A good number of the more contemporary books are about people escaping to a quiet life south of the border —oblivious perhaps to Mexico’s own version of the rat race— and some are fiction.

Another modern-day writer, DBC Pierre of British and Australian parentage, grew up in Mexico in the 1970s.  While Mexico appears briefly in the latter part of his prize-winning first novel Vernon God Little, it’s in a later work, Release the Bats, that he shares several of his personal experiences in the country.

Modern writers are still finding inspiration in Mexico for turning out prose (not to mention blogs), and writing courses are also popular here.

Use the comments below to share your recommendation.

Books’ row in Mexico City

In the south of Mexico City, where Miguel Angel de Quevedo avenue crosses Avenida Universidad —about five minutes from the Bohemian hangout of Coyoacán— is a mini paradise for bookworms.

Three major bookstores, Gandhi, El Sotano, and Fondo de Cultura Economica, and a dozen or so smaller ones, line both sides of the street. Outside are wooden trays with books at throw-away prices, and inside you’ll find special offers on those less likely to be thrown away.

Mexico City remains the place where the widest selection of books and bookshops can be found, and some well-known chains have most of their branches in the capital.

Bookshops are still popular in Mexico

But while in many developed countries bookshops have been closing, Mexican chains have been opening new stores. Like bookshops everywhere, they have also added small gifts, toys, games & puzzles, and other paraphernalia to their offerings to make the business work.  This may annoy some purists, but somehow it’s hard to get worked up about a model that means the book business can continue going.

• Cafebrería El Péndulo —coffee shop-bookstore— boasts several branches in Mexico City, including in trendy neighborhoods such as Polanco, Condesa, Roma, and San Ángel.
• Librerías Gandhi has expanded with new stores in Mexico City, and also has branches in 24 of Mexico’s 32 states.
• El Sótano and Casa del Libro have more than a dozen branches.
• Gonvill Librerías is the biggest chain in Guadalajara, Mexico’s third most populated city and which is also host to a major international book fair each year.

These chains tend to stock the best selection of books, often beyond the capacity of the shelves so that many are neatly piled up.  You can find most books in Spanish at these stores.

And while many, especially Gandhi and El Péndulo, have one or two shelves of books in English and French, here it tends to be hit and miss.  You might find occasional books of interest, but you are less likely to find a specific title. (For some you can check availability online.)

Buying eBooks in Mexico

Since eBooks are virtually borderless, there are as many options in Mexico as anywhere else.

Amazon’s Mexico shop sells Kindles, and you can usually find almost any book published in English or Spanish in the local Kindle store.  Apple Books are an option for those who use Apple devices —iPhone or iPad— although they don’t have a dedicated eReader like the Kindle.

There’s no accounting for taste, and online reviews show some people are impressed with the Apple Books app, others not so much. For those using Android, Google Books is an option, and again, it has the disadvantage of not having a dedicated eReader.

In Mexico, the Gandhi and Porrúa book chains have an agreement with Kobo Books and sell Kobo eReaders, which are popular in Canada and parts of Europe like France and Italy. (The Canadian digital bookseller Kobo was acquired by Japan’s Rakuten Group in 2012, so the app says Rakuten Kobo, although people still widely refer to Kobo books).

Both Gandhi and Porrúa sell eBooks on their own websites, which can be downloaded onto the Kobo reader or using the Kobo app installed on devices, and you can also download eBooks directly from the Kobo website.

Depending on how budget conscious the reader is, it can be advantageous to keep open several options, as sometimes a title will be available on one platform and not another, or cheaper on one than another.

The Kindle, Kobo, and Google Books apps are available on Apple and Android, but the Apple Books app isn’t available on Android.

Finding books not published in Spanish

When you are looking for a particular physical copy of a book not published in Spanish —such as a new release— the options are to stock-up on a trip abroad, or order it from a book seller online—most of which will ship books to Mexico with no problems, but not necessarily that quickly. If you want a particular book right now, eBooks are the way to go.

Mexico’s department stores and big box stores have book sections, but these vary widely in selection and quality. There are about 150 Sanborns stores with magazine sections offering international titles published in English, but not much in the way of books published in English beyond current best-sellers.

Fancy browsing

Even the most bourgeois of us like to dig around for books in a bohemian atmosphere, and for that there are plenty of elegant bookshops—although that isn’t where most Mexicans go to buy reading material.

A bygone era of old-world coffee shops

In years past, the coffee shop/restaurants run by Chinese immigrants —of which there were several in and around the Chinese quarter of downtown Mexico City and more beyond that— were nearly always full.

The “café chino,” as these were only ever referred to, was typically a long thin hall moving back from the street front. Half of the façade would be taken up by a glass window filled with different kinds of sweet bread to eat in or take away (and the odd bluebottle).

Down one side of the entrance would be the coffee bar and the cash register, and the other side would be taken up by a row of tables or booths.  The specialty of the house would be café con leche: a small amount of concentrate would be poured from a metal coffee pot into the bottom of a glass mug, and hot milk from another poured on top, with the server lifting the spout farther and farther from the mug as it filled, creating, if done precisely, a frothy top.

Black coffee —café americano— was steam-pressed from the machine behind the bar, and each cup was charged at the same rate.  Hygiene was hardly of first importance to the café chino, and patrons did well not to be over-zealous inspecting the specks on the table or trying to steal a glance at the kitchen.

Perhaps the king of coffee shops was Café La Habana, on the corner of Bucareli and Morelos, a stone’s throw from the historical Chinese clock.  La Habana brewed the strongest coffee, served in thick white cups that were slightly wider at the base than at the brim (awkward for stirring).  It was popular among intellectuals and, being about a block from such erstwhile giants of the Mexican press as Excelsior and El Universal, a frequent meeting place for journalists of the old school: threadbare suits, beaten-up leather briefcases stuffed full with dog-eared press releases, political “tips” several times removed from reality.

The emergence of contemporary coffee houses

Against this, the chain restaurant/coffee shops such as VIPS, TOKS, and Sanborns provided free refills on drip-brewed coffee, competing in quality with “Golden Cup” plaques awarded by the Mexican Coffee Council, and in convenience with quick-service bars where the temporarily idle could while away several hours loading up on caffeine without having to keep paying.  This is still true today, although people are generally much more rushed.

In addition to these places, with the advent of the mall culture there sprung up a number of smart coffee shops —Coffee House, Coffee Station, and so on— which added snacks, coffee paraphernalia, and an assortment of home-grown and imported coffees, ground or whole, to the standard offerings while also increasing the number of derivative beverages to their range of refreshments on offer.

And then Starbucks came.  Agreeable to the modern business class, the tourist looking for something familiar, and the lover of things American, this comfortable hybrid of convenience and recreation proliferated and also became a favorite daytime hangout of the country’s middle-class youth.

Straddling this period from local shop to chain to franchise is Bisquets Obregon, which developed from La Perla de Oriente on Alvaro Obregón Avenue in the historical Colonia Roma.  Like the café chino, Los Bisquets is also a place to get café con leche, and the house specialty, scones.  Brighter and cleaner, with its characteristic green and yellow décor, the restaurant also sports a selection of freshly-baked sweet bread at the front counter.

Small independent coffee shops continue to thrive

Perhaps the most famous of the traditional Mexican cafés is El Jorocho, that serves quality coffee principally sourced from Veracruz; customers can also buy the beans and ground coffee in bags for home brew.  This family-run shop was set up in Mexico City during the early 1950s in the heart of the bohemian district of Coyoacán—a neighborhood that remains one of the capital’s most popular quarters for friends and families to meet and spend an afternoon or evening out together.

In towns and cities across Mexico, small independently-run coffee shops continue to trade, and thrive.  Like the local neighborhood tienditas, they have prevailed even in the presence and growth of franchise coffee shops.

The owners of these independent establishments often create comfortable nooks where patrons can meet, socialize, and take light refreshment amidst informal and often homely surroundings that are usually more intimate and feel less rushed than the cookie-cutter franchises.

Serendipitous discovery of independent coffee houses can happen by taking an exploratory walk down side streets of any towns you visit or asking locally.  Digital generations are likely to consult their map-app, or search on Instagram.

Mexico has long been going smoke-free in public places, but at the same time alternatives such as patches and nicotine gum disappeared from pharmacies. While in the U.S. and Europe those products are readily available, in Mexico it became impossible even to order them online.

This coincided with the emergence of vaping, which had the advantage of not filling up the area with smoke or leaving a stale smell on fingers, clothes and breath. Vaping products have been banned by the Mexican government on health grounds.

One new non-vaping nicotine option appearing at convenience stores —being sold under the brand name “ZYN”— are nicotine pouches that you put under your upper or lower lip and keep there for a while, absorbing the nicotine through the mouth. Some people may prefer gum or lozenges, but when there’s nothing else you take what you can get. They are priced about the same as a packet of cigarettes.

ZYN is made by a Swedish subsidiary of the tobacco giant Philip Morris and is part of the company’s shift toward smoke-free products, which have become popular for reasons such as those mentioned above. Information about them in Mexico, along with the  different presentations and risks (smokers may be shocked to know that nicotine is addictive), is available here.

Another option is Velo, made by British American Tobacco, which has a similar product, and similarly priced, also available in convenience stores in Mexico.

Without delving too deeply into confessions of a smoker, it might be well to warn those about to celebrate that nothing is necessarily permanent.

In 2024, a congressional committee approved a proposed constitutional ban on electronic cigarettes and vaping that was passed and is now in the process of becoming law. Meanwhile, notices have been posted in customs halls and some travelers are having vaping products confiscated when their personal items are examined.

Apparently, “but I thought they wanted people to stop smoking,” doesn’t carry a great deal of weight.

Changing tastes in coffee consumption

With the rising popularity of coffee-drinking for entertainment, the casual expert who knows that the good stuff is called arabica and grows on mountains is in ever-greater company, and the value of that knowledge as a conversation opener has dwindled somewhat.

The purveyors of the best coffees tend to print that kind of information all over the packages, and some even include rather sophisticated stories about how the coffee comes to be in the bag at all, almost rivaling the verbosity of the cereal companies who provide enough literature on the box to see you through a week of breakfasts without having to pick up a newspaper or speak to anyone else at the table, except to waffle something that sounds like “I’m reading” through soggy flakes.

There are many, if not infinite, combinations of roasts and grinds for the different coffees to make it impossible to say which are the best; besides, there is no accounting for taste.

Coffees grown in Mexico

Possibly the best known Mexican coffees come from Chiapas, which is the state that produces the most. But there is plenty to be said for Oaxaca state’s Pluma region, as well as coffees grown in Veracruz state’s Córdoba region.

For home consumption, a fair selection can be found at most Mexican supermarkets, although for a wider choice, the coffee shops that grind the beans on the premises are a good place to go: they also tend to have more sizes of bags, so you can try out different kinds quite frequently, ordering quarter-kilos (about a half-pound), “un cuarto,” or find one you always want, and buy a big bag of it. The handful of high-end food shops, some with branch networks across the country, also stocks ample ranges of high quality Mexican and imported coffees.

It’s probably fair to say, without being too nationalistic, that Mexico produces enough of its own good quality coffee as to make paying extra for imported grains a waste of money. Of course there is the Malinchista factor to consider, for which Colombian and Costa Rican coffees are readily available as well as the top Italian coffee brands, although generally speaking malinchismo doesn’t apply to hot drinks. That may be just as well as a majority of the coffee drunk in Mexico is still of the instant kind, and there you definitely want to stick with the Swiss company’s brand.

Instant coffee is still popular in Mexico

Not everywhere has good coffee, and some restaurants that specialize in other areas definitely fail in this. A number of taco restaurants have cottoned-on to the trend in customers’ demands for a decent coffee after a meal and now serve proper Café Americano, Cappuccino, or even Espresso, but there remain others whose only offering is “agua para Nescafé,” (they bring a cup of  hot water, a spoon and the instant coffee jar), or “café de olla,” which is coffee made in a cooking pot, la olla, and sweetened with treacle, piloncillo, and cinnamon. Tastes fine, but isn’t what you might expect.

The easiest way is to look up the event online at Ticketmaster, which tends to handle sales for the usual commission to most events. A number of store chains have Ticketmaster booths.

This is fine for a regular season game, a play, a ballet at Bellas Artes, or even a relatively little known group or singer.

But since the rock stars of old — old rock stars — discovered that Mexico is a profitable place to perform, the number of “big” concerts has increased. Mexican fans are willing, and frequently do, pay higher prices for their tickets than their counterparts in the U.S. or the U.K. Literally higher, not purchasing-power-parity higher.

For blockbuster events, such as soccer finals, big time artists, visiting theater or dance troupes, and Broadway productions, the normal channels can be impossible unless you happen to have a particularly fast Internet connection and can fast-type credit card details, or have a whole day to spend lining-up at the venue when ticket sales are announced.

This is where the ubiquitous revendedores – ticket touts – come in.

No one seems to know when and where they get hold of the tickets that no one else could find either at Ticketmaster or at the box office, but they do, and the price they charge can go up exponentially for certain events, particularly concerts.

If you decide to get tickets through this channel, and it may be the last resort, it’s better to do it with the help of a regular concert goer, someone who knows the ropes and may even have the mobile number of a reliable revendedor.

The higher prices commanded by the touts can be attributed to supply and demand, but the resale of tickets under false pretenses, for example lying about what part of the stadium or hall they are in, isn’t beyond some of these people.

For particularly popular concerts where even the regular revendedores say they can’t get tickets, there will be others offering counterfeit tickets, known in the trade as chocolates, which will be found-out at the gate. One thing to watch for here: if more ticket touts are asking if you have spare tickets to sell than offering to sell you tickets, chances are that they are genuinely sold out, so beware.

Every so often, public outrage will be such that authorities will announce a crackdown, a couple of touts will be “arrested” and their tickets recovered, but as surely as it rains in the rainy season, they will be back the next week.

Mexicans don’t eat that much ice cream

The proliferation of fancy brands —Häagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry’s, Santa Clara— might lead you to the wrong conclusion about just how much ice cream Mexicans consume.

According to some reports, Mexicans only eat on average 1.5 liters of ice cream a year, a small fraction of what Americans and New Zealanders —the world’s top consumers— guzzle down.

Also somewhat surprising, for a relatively low-wage country, is the amount of business done by ice cream brands of which a single serving cone or tub can cost around four or five US dollars.

Market studies here can be incomplete in a country where there is a large informal economy, and products such as ice cream and popsicles are often made by individuals whose sales are off the marketing-experts’ radar screens.  It’s ice-cream franchises, however, that are expected to generate the growth in product consumption in the country.

Buying ice-cream in Mexico

If you visit or live in a large city or tourist resort, the most likely place you’ll find ice cream is at one of these chains, many of which are located at malls.  Local grocery stores —las tienditas— convenience stores such as Oxxo and 7-Eleven, as well as a majority of pharmacies have fridges with prepackaged ice creams and popsicles, mostly in single servings.  Multi-packs and larger presentations are found in the freezers at supermarkets.

The best known brand of ice cream in Mexico, and apparently the one with the largest market share is Helados Holanda.  These tend to be cheaper than the boutique brands, whether bought in individual servings or in larger packages.  This makes a lot of sense when buying ice cream for a family, but for those particular about quality —all natural ingredients, for example— this apparently won’t do, and those who can afford it prefer to buy the expensive stuff.

Flavored popsicles are popular in Mexico

It’s almost impossible not to come across a popsicle shop —paleteria— called La Michoacana.  These shops sell a wide range of fruit-flavored paletas as well as cream ones, paletas de crema.  A word of advice, go for the water ones.  Although originally from the state of Michoacán, apparently just about anyone can call their paleteria La Michoacana, as this interesting report suggests.

In smaller towns, and still occasionally in large cities, you can find the traditional ambulant purveyors of helados, or nieves in the case of  lime sorbets, being served from a pushcart or from a container placed in ice on the front of an adapted bicycle.  These vendors are famous for crying out “de limón la nieveeeeee!!!”

Soft ice-cream for passing refreshment

Soft ice cream from a machine is also growing in popularity, not only because of the flavor but also because of the price. McDonald’s offers a range of these ice creams at its restaurants, but also has separate ice cream counters at many of its outlets (and kiosks at shopping centers) for those who just want to pick-up some passing refreshment.  If your budget is somewhat strained and it’s hot out, this can be quite a useful option.

Wide assortment of sweet and savory bread

It’s not unusual in the evenings to see people hanging around inside the shop, metal tray and tongs in hand, waiting for the next batch of hot rolls —oval-shaped bolillos or flat teleras— to be wheeled out from the ovens and tossed into the bins.

Then there are the shelves organized with a large variety of pan dulce —sweet bread— each piece with its own particular name.  Among the most popular are chocolate or vanilla coated conchas (shells), the sugar-covered bigotes (moustaches) or moños (bows), the plain mantecadas (cup cakes), ear-shaped pastries called orejas (ears), and the inevitable cuernos (croissants).

Then there are the crumbly cookies called polvorones (in various colors), the long, glazed pastries known as banderillas, and chinos, largish splodges of cake baked in wads of thick grease-proof paper, usually sprinkled with small pieces of walnut.

Bread shop scenes of a bygone era

In an era gone-by, the local panadería would often be the focal point of a bustling street corner, and in more innocent times than these, an evening meeting place for young lovers, particularly among the working classes. This was so common that the expression “¿a qué horas vas al pan?” (What time are you going for bread?) became a joke as a chat-up line.

Seldom lacking outside would be the vendor of tamales —sweet or savory corn dough served in a natural leaf wrapper— from a steaming pot settled into the front of a large tricycle; and not far away the wheeled oven-cart loaded with camotes (yams) and baked bananas would come trundling by, announcing its imminent arrival with an ear-piercing screech from a steam whistle mounted on the mobile stove, accompanied by the reassuring smoky odor from the smoldering charcoal embers inside.

A common and natural next-door neighbor to the bread shop is the grocery store —tienda de abarrotes— selling cold cuts, canned foods, soft drinks and liquor, and some have installed a rosticería: a roast chicken stand mesmerizing customers as they wait and watch inordinate amounts of grease drip from anemic-looking fowl going round and round on a spit.

Contemporary bakery stores in Mexico

Some of these scenes have been replaced over the years by the proliferation of multi-purpose supermarkets with their own in-house bakeries, particularly in the cities. The fancier supermarkets like CityMarket purvey a wide variety of sweet and savory breads baked in-store throughout the day.

Many of the old traditional corner street bread shops have closed, or their quality has gone downhill. Some are unable to compete with the variety of fancy doughnuts, and the slick presentations, or the price advantages of buying in bulk enjoyed by the large chains and many, if not most of the them, have lost their charm.

In their place, supermarkets with their own bakeries, specialist local independent bakers (most often advertising on social media), and larger bread shop chains like Esperanza have emerged to fill the never-ending demand for sweet and savory bread.

Strays in Mexico

Stray dogs in Mexico are generally not treated very well, and the most common reaction of street dogs is to dodge when humans come close, probably a conditioned response to having been frequently kicked or stoned or hissed at to scat.

One overblown fear is that you could catch rabies. Years of government vaccination campaigns —since 1990— has reduced this probability to practically zero. In 2005, officials noted 125 cases of rabies among dogs and cats in nine states, compared with more than 3,000 cases in 1990 in 29 states. The latest data from Mexico’s health ministry demonstrate that in 2017 there were just three cases in three states—and not every case affected humans.

According to estimates from health officials, there are around 100,000 reported cases a year of dogs attacking humans, of which nearly half were vaccinated dogs, suggesting that dogs with owners are just as likely (or unlikely) to bite you as strays. This is in a population of 130 million people, and an estimated 18 million to 20 million dogs.

Concerns about stray dogs that have been mentioned by different local governments carrying out round-up campaigns include health problems caused by feces, and in one case in northern Durango state, dogs were said to be a threat to drivers as they crossed the highway.

Precise data are hard to come by

While there appear to be fewer street dogs every time you look, the number of dogs with owners seems to be increasing, along with other security measures in residential areas. (Keeping a dog is a deterrent to burglars.) Statistics in this case don’t go very far—the maze of data on the country’s National Statistics Institute web site turns-up little meaningful data about man’s best friend.

They don’t say, for example, how many dogs get taken for walks every day and how many are left to rot on rooftops, barking in desperation at anyone who walks below, and raising their level of excitement if the pedestrian is accompanied by a dog.

Trends observed by watching dog walkers

A walk in the park —or in one of Mexico City’s trendy neighborhoods where younger generations can be seen walking their dogs instead of pushing baby buggies— of a morning or an evening turns up a fair amount of anecdotal evidence about the habits of people and their dogs. The ‘poop scoop,’ for example, is becoming increasingly common, although it’s still sensible to keep an eye on the ground before you.

In middle-class suburbia, there is a good deal of oneupmanship when it comes to owning a dog. It’s not very practical to staple a pedigree certificate to the animal, and so the more obvious implicit superlatives are biggest, rarest, most expensive—things that people just know and dogs just don’t care about.

With many city dwellers living in apartments, sub-compact dogs appear to be more plentiful than the larger breeds. Schnauzers and Pugs enjoyed a period of popularity in recent years, although their fame has become overshadowed by the Bulldog. But most likely, as more and more people get Bulldogs, and their novelty wears-off, a need will arise for a new “in” dog.

Learn more about caring for pets in Mexico

Mexperience publishes guides and articles about bringing pets to Mexico and caring for them here:

• Latest articles about pets in Mexico
• Dog walkers in Mexico
• Bringing your pets to Mexico