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Frommers.com Podcast: A Student's Guide to the Best of Mexico

Getting beyond the coastal craziness and into the heart of modern Mexico.

Jeff Spurrier, Ann Summa and Liza Monroy, co-authors of "MTV Best of Mexico," join host Kelly Regan to discuss their favorite places in Mexico. Despite their student leanings, the authors point out that there's much more for travelers of all ages than fiesta-heavy resort towns and over-developed coastlines. They share affordable ways to experience the thriving cultural scene in Mexico City, outdoor adventures in Puerto Escondido, whale-watching in Baja California, and more.

To listen this episode, click the "play" button on the MP3 player below.


To download this episode to your hard drive, click here. To listen to previous episodes or to subscribe, visit www.frommers.com/podcast/.


Top Tips from This Podcast

See transcript below for links to more information.

  • Puerto Vallarta: The dining here is on another level, the public transportation system is also very good.
  • Things to do (La Paz): Snorkeling, kayaking to see sea lions, whales, kitesurfing, windsurfing.
  • Puerto Escondido: The surf capital of Mexico. Has a very European feel to it. Head a little north and kayak in the lagunas to see over 300 species of birds, fish, and turtles which call the area home.
  • Mexico City: Currently going through a movement of art and culture. Visit both the public and private galleries.
  • Travel Safety: Exercise common sense -- don't flash expensive items, don't take taxi's off the streets, know where you are going. One of the biggest dangers is wandering into a remote neighborhood.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

Kelly Regan: Welcome to the Frommers.com travel podcast. For more information on planning your trip to any one of thousands of destinations, please visit us at www.frommers.com. Hi and welcome to the Frommers.com podcast, I'm Kelly Regan, editorial director of "The Frommer's Travel Guides." I'll be your host.

Today we'll be talking about "The MTV Travel Guides." And as we've talked about in podcasts past, MTV and Frommer's have collaborated on a series of guidebooks for students and twenty-somethings. My guests today are three of the authors of our newest guide, "MTV Best of Mexico." They're here to talk about the country's best beaches, clubs, adrenaline adventures and more.


Jeff Spurrier is based in Los Angeles and Mexico and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, writing for "Atlantic Monthly," "Details," "Outside," "Los Angeles Magazine," "ESPN Magazine," "Metropolitan Home," "Travel and Leisure," "Islands," and more. In addition to being the lead author of our "MTV Best of Mexico" guide, he's also the author of our book, "The Irreverent Guide to Los Angeles." He's received the Little Thomas Award for the best cultural tourism magazine article and for best magazine article on the U.S. and Canada travel.

Jeff's wife and partner, Ann Summa, has been a professional photographer for more than 20 years, shooting for "Fortune," "People Weekly," "Details," "Parenting," "Sever," "The New York Times," "The Los Angeles Times," and "ESPN Magazine," among others. Ann will have a one woman show at Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica this November. Ann has also built a second home in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where she also volunteers for Casa, a non-profit center advocating women's health and reproductive rights. And she's ridden for the last five years in the 600 mile AIDS Lifecycle Bike Ride, to raise money and awareness for those suffering from AIDS.

Finally, Liza Monroy is a journalist and writer whose work has appeared in the "New York Times," "The New York Times Magazine," "The Los Angeles Times," "Newsweek," "Jane," "The Village Voice," "Time Out New York," and the travel writing anthologies, "Mexico, A Love Story," and "Greece, A Love Story." She's lived, worked, and studied in Mexico, Italy, Holland, and the Czech Republic. Her first novel, "Mexican High," will be published in 2008. Jeff, Ann, Liza, welcome, thanks for being here today.

So this is a subject very close to my heart because I love Mexico as I love no other country on this planet. I'm always excited to talk about it and proselytize about it to people who are not as familiar with its charms as I am. I wanted to start out by asking all three of you a question, what is your favorite place in Mexico and why? Jeff, why don't you start?
Jeff Spurrier: It's hard for me to pick one spot. San Miguel de Allende, where we have a house, is I believe the one place I go to most frequently and that I feel most at home. It has culture, restaurant, friends, great biking. I would pick that probably as my favorite spot. If I'm going to be in Mexico, that's where I want to be if I want to be in my own house. If I'm going to be at the beach or at the coast and I want to just play in the water, I would say probably Puerto Vallarta or north on that coast. I would say the Nayarit coast or the Jalisco coast.
Kelly: OK, Liza, what about you?
Liza Monroy: OK, well, for me I'd have to divide it into two, with it being city and beach. So, of course, I went to high school in Mexico City, so it's a place very close to my heart. What I love about it is just that it is so not, for the first time visitor to the country it is just so not what you would expect at all. It's huge and initially seems so smoggy and overwhelming. And yet, when you get to know it and when you know where to go - which I hopefully tried to illustrate in the guide - less overwhelming and you find one of the most charming, special cities in the world, I think.

Everything from the Plaza Teohuacan to the Zocalo. The university area, there's amazing architecture and nightlife and restaurants and it's just really a cosmopolitan city that I think rivals any major European capital.
Kelly: Yeah, I would totally agree with that.
Liza: As for a beach, I have to say Playa del Carmen because I just love the water and the sand and the people. And also it's great for people who like to sail.
Kelly: I was in Playa del Carmen a few months ago, and I'd never been to the Yucatan before, and I'd always sort of felt it was a little bit overrated because, "How can it be that great? It's so overpopulated now, and Cancun is Cancun." You get there, and the color of the water and the beach, [laughs] you're just not really prepared for it to look quite that way.
Liza: It's a great alternative to Cancun.
Kelly: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. But Ann, I haven't forgotten about you. You need to give me an answer.
Ann: I also really love the colonial cities. And San Miguel, of course, since we have a house there, is one of my favorite places in Mexico. But the Costa Chica is really fantastic. It's a little bit harder to get to, so it's a bit more pristine, I think. And you can just drive along that coast, and you can almost go off on any dirt road and just find amazing, unpopulated beaches.

And the culture is still really intact there, too, I think--much more that some of the more developed beach cities, because they haven't been as overrun with tourists as much.
Kelly: Definitely, definitely. Well, it's interesting: you all named places that I wanted to talk more about. As we continue our conversation, let's stick with this whole beach notion.

Jeff, I wanted to ask you a little more about Puerto Vallarta. You rave about it in the book, and I have to agree: I think it is my favorite beach resort in Mexico. You describe it as a place that's very complex, diverse, and amazing--much less one-dimensional than a lot of the other beach resorts that are in Mexico. What is it that you think makes it so complex, and how can people escape that sort of uber-resortiness, if they're wanting to do that?
Jeff: It's complex because--unlike Cancun, which was really kind of built immediately as a tourist resort--Puerto Vallarta developed a little bit more slowly, with a big infusion of Hollywood money when "The Night of the Iguana" came there.
Kelly: Right.
Jeff: It was pretty much undiscovered prior to that. It has a very wonderful old town. It's all cobblestone streets. As you go into the hotel zone, and as you start to go north from the historical center...
Kelly: Right.
Jeff: You start to get into more touristed centers and big hotels, huge complexes that you lose yourself in. If you get into Nuevo Vallarta, which is actually in another state, then you're totally in Hotel Andia.

The nice thing about Puerto Vallarta is that it has a very strong and rich nightlife, restaurant life, and art life. The clubs there don't start till 11 PM; they go all night long. The weather is fantastic, always. It's a little hot in August. It's a little humid in August.
Kelly: Right.
Jeff: But beyond that, it's always kind of perfect. It has some of the best food that I've eaten in Mexico and the most varied.
Kelly: Yeah, I would agree with that. The restaurants are pretty much in a class by themselves.
Jeff: It really is. I mean, it really doesn't get, I don't think, the rating that people really should give it. Mexican cuisine, in general, lately, people have talked about it, and there have been shows and, definitely, books. But I think, in Puerto Vallarta, they really take it to a new level.
Kelly: Yeah.
Jeff: Almost as good as Mexico City. The art scene, also, is quite vibrant. And the Gringos who live there put a lot of their time into the local culture. There is a very thriving and strong Gringo population, which some people will say is a minus.
Kelly: Yeah. [laughs]
Jeff: I don't think that that necessarily is true in Vallarta. I think Gringos--and it's not just North American Gringos...
Kelly: Right.
Jeff: ...It's Indians. It's Canadians. It's South Americans. Just non-Mexicans. They've blended in with the town very strongly. Very little of the sense of poverty that you really see in a lot of resort areas. Vallarta seems to have really taken into mind the local population, sewage control, ecological concerns having to do with outwash. And then, if you go north, if you get out of Vallarta, then you're on the Riviera Nayarit they're calling it.
Kelly: Right.
Jeff: That's a whole new world.
Kelly: One thing that always struck me about Vallarta is that it always feels like a place where real people live.
Jeff: That's right. You can be there... The tourists come and they stay in the big complexes. They go to that one beach. The people who live there, who have a car or who take the taxis or the buses--the bus system is fantastic...
Kelly: Yeah.
Jeff: It is really good. You can get north and south very, very easily, very cheaply. And you can walk to a beach where you can take your mat and your fins, and you can walk and be doing some fantastic snorkeling in like 15 minutes.
Kelly: Yeah, exactly. I also wanted to ask you, Jeff, about the town of La Paz, which is north of Los Cabos in Baja. You call it one of the country's best beach vacations. And I wanted you to talk a little bit about that, because a lot of people are probably not familiar with the town. I mean, obviously, people know Los Cabos, but they don't think of extending their trip beyond the southern tip of the peninsula to kind of explore a little bit more. What is it that you like so much about La Paz?
Jeff: Unlike Los Cabos, which are primarily tourist resorts, La Paz is a working port. It's very much like Mazatlan, which is across the Sea of Cortez, on the coast of Sinaloa, which I also really loved. The two of them share a very similar characteristic in that they are working towns, and they do not rely upon tourism for their main source of income.

La Paz is special because it has never been a major tourist spot. It's been someplace you drive to, or you take the ferry from on your way to the mainland. It therefore has the very small city characteristics. The people there are very proud. They know very much who they are...
Kelly: Right.
Jeff: Like the Mazatlan people, they very much know who they are. They welcome tourists, they are very friendly, but they are not 100 percent dependent upon them.
Kelly: Right, right. There's more going on to the town.
Jeff: Right. Even though, when you come into the town, it looks like, well, what's here basically a fairly narrow strip of street, you go six blocks away from the Malecon, and you're into dirt roads again.
Kelly: Right.
Jeff: On the other hand, there's amazing snorkeling around there. You can kayak all throughout the sea there. There are kayak trips that come down the coast for like five to six days, and you wind up in La Paz. You can go out to Espiritu Santo Island and take a week basically kayaking maybe two to three hours, finding a new beach...
Kelly: Wow.
Jeff: Back in. People make your lunch for you, or whatever...
Kelly: Yeah.
Jeff: ...Or you can do this by yourself, and you can go out and see the sea lions, and then you can kayak a little bit further. That's on the water. You'll see great whales, sperm whales...
Kelly: Oh! In the Sea of Cortez? Really?
Jeff: Orcas. Yeah. They all calf in the Sea of Cortez.
Kelly: Wow.
Jeff: And you can see them there.
Kelly: What's the season for seeing the whales? It's usually in the winter, yeah?
Jeff: The winter, yeah. Winter and spring, you have really great winds, also. It's getting to where kitesurfing is what's sort of taking over for windsurfing now, and it's really world-class.
Kelly: What's the difference between kitesurfing and windsurfing? [laughs] I've always wanted to know.
Jeff: Well, windsurfing, the sail is attached to a board. Kitesurfing is kind of like parasailing, where you have this parachute up in the air...
Kelly: OK.
Jeff: And you're really pulling it that way.
Kelly: I see. OK.
Ann: Las Ventanas is about an hour south, right, Jeff?
Jeff: Las Ventanas, yeah. The winds.
Ann: Yeah, it's the big kitesurfing center.
Kelly: OK. Ann, I wanted to talk to you for a bit. You talked about the Costa Chica, and that's about as unspoiled a beach area as I think we can find in Mexico, the beaches that are south of Acapulco, and includes both Huatulco and Puerto Escondido. And people might be familiar with this area, even though they don't know the names, because it's where the latter half of the movie "Y Tu Mam� Tambi�n" was filmed.

Give us a sense of what it's like there. I understand it's actually a great place to watch surfing. What else is there to do there?
Ann: Puerto Escondido is really kind of the big surf capital. A lot of surfers come up from South America and from Europe, and all over the States as well, and they have competitions. And it's a really cool town because it's also very European. A lot of Italians have settled there.
Kelly: Uh-huh.
Ann: There's really great food there. There's really wonderful nightlife and clubs. It's pretty laid back. It's a really small town.

Then, if you go north of there, there's all sorts of beautiful lagunas, where you can go at dawn and kayak and see 300 species of birds. You can visit fishing communities, and they'll make breakfast for you. And also, there's all the turtles, the turtle release places. I feel like, on that coast, too, they really are kind of getting it together with the eco-tourism.
Kelly: Uh-huh.
Ann: It's almost like eco-tourism has become a buzzword, so you see these huge buses that say "eco"-something. Actually, there's these little villages south, down by Bricon hill, there's this strip of villages there that got wiped out during the last hurricane. So then they all started helping each other rebuild. One village went to the other adobe.

They have a crocodile farm, iguana farms. There's the turtle releases. The Body Shop has come in there, and they gave the women recipes so that they make their own lotions. So they have a little store there, but it's all done by the local people, by the community. That's a really great area, too, right through there. And then, Zipolite is pretty famous because of the nude beach--kind of a big European attraction.
Kelly: I was going to say, because the nude beaches are not really modest.
Ann: Well, when I was there maybe 10 or 15 years ago, it was really undeveloped, and there were a lot of palapas along the beach there. But when I talked to the local women they were like, "That's not right. This isn't correct."
Kelly: [laughs] Right!
Ann: Now it's still pretty undeveloped. They actually have on this dirt strip behind the beach, they've got Internet and you can pretty much find anything you want there.
Kelly: Nude surfing on the Internet, I guess. Well, you said it was a little bit hard to get to. What do people do? Do they go from Oaxaca? Do they travel down from Acapulco?
Ann: You could do it either way. If you go from Oaxaca, it is about five or six hours torturous drive, hairpin curves that make you vomit.
Kelly: Oh no, yeah.
Ann: There's all these Airbus's now. There are five new lines. We actually got a flight from Mexico City for $70, including the tax. The actual flight was only $30, the tax was $40. Just for flying within Mexico itself, not international. You could come down from Acapulco. I think it is about three or four hours. It is probably a really beautiful drive. I have never actually driven that way. The main place to fly into would be Watulko.
Kelly: Watulko, yeah, yeah. Liza, I wanted to go back to what you were saying about Mexico City. I too am a huge fan of Mexico City. It is one of my favorite cities in the world. The first time I went, I was completely blown away. It was so much more than I expected it to be. You have been going there, as you said, for 10 years. You lived there. You say, in the chapter in the book, the time has never been better to visit. So I am really curious as to why that is.
Liza: There is a movement of art and new culture, especially in the areas around Lasondesa and Colonia Roma. There are more galleries than ever before. You see new night life places popping up all over the place. Also it is very affordable, given the exchange rate. When I first moved to Mexico it was three peso's to a dollar and now I think it is around 10.
Kelly: Yeah, it is between 10 and 11, I think.
Liza: There are just so many galleries that you can go both for free, like the Tapalaan. The Colonia Roma has this beautiful exhibition staged. A lot of art has become more respectable, I think.
Kelly: There is such a fantastic and extensive and public art tradition where you can turn a corner and see this amazing mural on the side of a building. The Diego Rivera murals, the Orozco murals that are in places like Palacio de Bellas Artes, and the Presidential Palace, and things like that. It feels like art is imbued into the city's spirit.
Liza: Absolutely, I would say, the more that I see... The public art exhibits in the subway stations. So, you can take in art on your way somewhere, or even go down into the subway and check it out. They have all kinds of thing from modern to Aztec.
Kelly: Well, I wanted to also just touch on very quickly with you, as somebody who has lived there and who has visited there so often. People often hear that Mexico City isn't safe.
Liza: Yeah. I would say that it is comparable to any other major megalopolis-style city. It's an important policy to keep your wits about you. Don't go around flashing expensive jewelry or wearing a lot of expensive things, or looking like you stick out as a tourist.
Kelly: Sure.
Liza: But, I would say, for the most part, it is definitely important not to take taxi's off the street. That was one of the things that it seems, when devaluation happened, it became a little more dangerous...
Kelly: Right.
Liza: ...for a person to get kidnapped. My mother's job was the Citizen's Services Officer in the embassy...
Kelly: Uh-huh.
Liza: So there was these cases. Mostly it was people being robbed by taxi drivers or going to neighborhoods where they shouldn't be. Overall it's the neighborhoods where a traveler would stroll, like Cundesaar Roma, Folaanso, Poiyetaanzo, Polo. Those areas are safe.
Kelly: Right.
Liza: You always have to keep an eye out and keep your belongings close. I have never experienced the problem. When I went to rent a guide actually, it was during the election process...
Kelly: Right.
Liza: ... summer of 2006. People in my family were worried about me and saying, "Oh, don't go! It might be dangerous." When I got there the atmosphere was more like a carnival. They had blocked off the streets. There were braai's and food and all kinds of things. I was like, "Wow? This is protest?"
Kelly: It was a protest with food!
Liza: Yeah. It is not as dangerous as people think, as long as you don't wander off into some remote neighborhood. You have to plan out where you are going to go.
Kelly: Sure!
Liza: ...Which areas at night and to take taxis from CTO.
Kelly: Before we leave Mexico City, I have to ask you about this club that you recommend in the chapter in it has the rather dubious name of "Pervert Lounge." [laughs]

You know, name notwithstanding, what is the reason to go there?
Liza: Yes, it's actually my favorite lounge. It just has a really cool decor. It has DJs and all kinds of dance music. And inside, it's very funky. It's a colorful place. Last time I was there, there was a whole row of lamps, all down the wall, with Barbies on them.
Kelly: With Barbie dolls.
Liza: ...Barbies just sticking up...
Kelly: [laughs]
Liza: Like little lamps. And they had chairs that are like hands, kind of like "A Clockwork Orange."
Kelly: Oh, right, right.
Liza: It had a strange, futuristic decor. And the name, I think, is just to draw attention. [laughs]
Kelly: Right, right.
Liza: It sounds like it would be a strip club or something...
Kelly: [laughs]
Liza: But there's nothing perverted about the Pervert Lounge. It's a really hip dance club.
Kelly: OK. And hopefully, it's not drawing the wrong kind of attention with that name.
Liza: Right.
Kelly: Yeah.
Liza: No, I think people get it's kind of tongue-in-cheek. It's a young, funky, artsy crowd.
Kelly: Yeah, yeah.

Ann, I wanted to jump back to you, as we're kind of talking about non-beach destinations. You also covered Oaxaca for the book. And Liza touched on the protests that were happening in Mexico City that had kind of a carnival atmosphere, but not all of the protests are quite so care-free and fun-loving.

Oaxaca was the site of some significant violence during some protests that were rather ruthlessly cracked down on, and there was still a lot of violence and tension when you were traveling there. I mean, can you give listeners a sense of what it's like? Are people going to see the effects of the violence? Does it feel like Oaxaca has rebounded a little bit from that?
Ann: When we were there doing the book, we could actually sit on the roof of our hotel and see the fires down in the selebelo below, where some of the teachers had set up their barricades. It was a little scary because somebody was shot the week after we left. A photojournalist was shot and killed the week after we left.


But when we'd walk through the protest area, I would not say it was a carnival atmosphere at all, but I didn't really feel afraid or threatened in any way. And it was disturbing to see the graffiti on the walls, because you've got these amazing colonial buildings, centuries-old churches that had graffiti scrawled all over everything.
Kelly: Right.
Ann: So you still have to be pretty sympathetic to what they want and what's going on there because it's their point of view.

Now, from what I've heard from a friend who lives there, I think they've pretty much cleaned up most of the graffiti. He's saying it's really safe, and there's been no problems. I imagine that you would still see some of the after-effects, like the big stage that they built for the Guelaguetza that they have every year had been burned down. And I think that could not happen this summer either. You can go see the mini versions of it in the hotels around town. [laughs]
Kelly: Right, right, right.
Ann: It's still happening. And one of the effects, for tourists there, it's not really crowded. It's still, really, pretty unspoiled. It's much less-traveled there than the north is. It's just a beautiful city, and it's really a unique city. The architecture there is really different than any place else I've really been in Mexico. The people are really sweet and friendly, like everywhere in Mexico. That's like the number one attraction really. And you've got these amazing crafts: all the textiles and pottery.
Kelly: It's a real center for local art and crafts. It's not that you're not going to see any of the effects of what's been going on, but that, at the moment, it's a lot more safe.


We're winding down our conversation, but Jeff, I didn't want to end without asking you about some of the adventuring things that you can do in Mexico. You touched on that a little bit before, when you were talking about the sea kayaking in Baja. You covered Northern and Southern Baja for the book. And I was just curious to get your take: for outdoors-y types, or more kind of adrenaline junkies out there, what should they be looking to do?
Jeff: For most of Mexico, water seems to be the big attraction.
Kelly: Right.
Jeff: The kayaking, scuba diving. Amazing surfing--some of the best in the world. That really begins right outside Tijuana and goes all the way down to Oaxaca, all along that coast.
Kelly: Right.
Jeff: Most coast of Baja and the mainland, there's amazing surfing. There's surfing starting in Sinaloa. You can basically be going from beach to beach to beach to beach, all the way down to Acapulco, and see a break where nobody has ever been before. So the water is the primary attraction.

Beyond that, there's biking. I'm a big mountain biker, and a road biker as well. Road biking in Mexico is a little hairy...
Kelly: [laughs]
Jeff: You don't want to do it. Mazatlan was one of the few places that I went where you could go road biking and there was a group of road bikers. Because the shoulders are very narrow, the drivers, they're used to dealing with bikers, but they're not necessarily used to dealing with a big group of bikes.
Kelly: Right, right, right.
Jeff: And will not [inaudible]. Mountain biking is popular throughout Mexico, and you can always find a bike store someplace that has fairly decent mountain bikes to rent. Mazatlan was good for that.
Ann: Also, Valle de Bravo.
Jeff: Valle de Bravo...
Ann: It has great mountain biking, and so does San Miguel.
Kelly: Yeah.
Jeff: Yeah. Valle de Bravo has spectacular, world-class hang gliding and, not parasailing...
Ann: Parasailing.
Jeff: Yeah. They call it parasailing, but it's mostly hang gliding.
Liza: Yeah. I covered that area for the book, actually. And there's one called Fly Mexico...
Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah...
Liza: And Alas del Hombre. They're great places to get certification and go flying.
Ann: Yeah. You know what? They strap you onto this guy, because I did it, too. They run, and you run and jump off a cliff, basically.
Kelly: Oh...
Ann: Some guy that you're strapped to, and they said, "Don't touch the metal." I said, "Why not?" And they go, "Those are the clips. You can un-clip yourself." [laughs]
Kelly: [laughs] Oh, no!
Liza: Yeah, you've got to trust those guys.
Ann: And you can do, also--excuse me for jumping in here...
Jeff: That's all right.
Ann: But you can do parachuting over the Cabo San Lucas the same way, where they harness you to the guy and you jump out of the plane, and so you don't even have to know what you're doing.
Jeff: Ann, you met the bikers in Los Cabos?
Ann: Yeah, that was really fun, too.
Jeff: Who was that bike group? A group of waiters...
Ann: It's in the book, [laughs] the bike story in Cabo San Lucas...
Jeff: You could go biking with local guys...
Ann: Yeah.
Jeff: And go out on trails that nobody's been on. You go early in the morning because it gets hot.
Kelly: It gets hot, right.
Jeff: But like all of mountain biking in Mexico, you're getting a side of Mexico that no tourists usually see. You go up to San Sebastian...
Kelly: Yeah.
Jeff: You asked me about my favorite places. That was one of them that I haven't really talked about a lot because I really want to keep it a little secret. And they've improved the roads, so more people are going to go there. But it's a very small, colonial town from the silver era, like San Miguel was at one time. And you can fly up there and stay at this Hacienda where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton used to stay, and bike back to Vallarta.

It's downhill the entire way. It takes four to five hours. And it's just screaming downhill. You're going through little villages and people's backyards and way out in the jungle.
Kelly: How long does it take to get out to San Sebastian?
Jeff: If you drive, they've put this new road in and a new bridge, so driving it takes about three and a half hours.
Kelly: OK.
Jeff: Flying it takes about 20 minutes. If you do drive, there's a series of little towns: Mascota; Talpa de Allende, I think it's called. There's another one along there. It's a series of horse and ranching towns, but it's also a big marijuana-producing area.
Kelly: Oh, wow!
Jeff: You don't want to get off the road too much.
Kelly: [laughs] Yeah, don't go too far off the beaten path.
Jeff: But it's very alpine. Horse culture is very pronounced there. People come out and then talk about their horses, first thing in the morning. You go outside into any small town, through their main square, and you'll see a bunch of cowboys standing out there...
Kelly: Wow!
Jeff: Having their hot chocolate or their cinnamon coffee and talking about their horses.
Kelly: That sounds fantastic. That sounds fantastic. I had heard about San Sebastian, just as a place to do just that: to do mountain biking, to have more of a horseback riding-y kind of outdoor experience.

So that's great. Well, we've covered a lot of ground today, from beaches to adventure sports to the Pervert Lounge. [laughs]
Jeff: [laughs]
Kelly: But that's all the time we have for today. So, I've been talking with Jeff Spurrier, Ann Summa, and Liza Monroy, three of the authors of our new guide, "MTV Best of Mexico." You'll find other MTV guides on sale now, to Italy, Ireland, Europe, Spain, France, England, and "Road Trips USA," in addition to this new title. Jeff, Ann,
Liza: it's been good to talk to you. Thanks so much for being here and talking about Mexico, my favorite place in the world.
Ann: Thank you.
Liza: Thanks, Kelly. Good talking to you.
Kelly: Join us next week for another conversation about all things travel. I'm Kelly Regan, and we will talk again soon.

[music]
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