When I visited Mexico for the first time, I remember thinking that it was not the third-world country that everyone had described to me. After a couple of days there and a little more venturing into Mexico, I realized that it was really everything that had been described. While we were in the vacation areas and hotel resorts the atmosphere was very nice. They are decorated with festive ornaments, they play loud music, have plenty of gift shops, and many attractions for people to see. When we ventured outside of these areas things took a drastic turn from pretty and festive to dirty and poverty-stricken. I realized that the pretty images that Hollywood gives people of Mexico are only true in certain places and that it is actually a third-world country.
             When we arrived in Mexico at the airport I really could not tell that it was a third-world country. The one thing that really caught my attention while at the airport was that it was not air-conditioned. The airport was dreadfully hot, not humid, just very dry heat. I remember while standing in the customs line I was sweating as though I had been running a marathon. I was sweating so much that my shirt was sticking to me. The airport was decorated nicely with a mural of sea animals painted on ocean-colored walls. The airport was very similar to the airports I was used to in America. It had all sorts of gift shops, restaurants, and many stands with brochures of places to visit while in Mexico.
             The ride to the hotel was also very nice, and the scenery did not appear to be that much different than here in America. The roads were paved, much like ours, but there were swamps all around us that reminded me of the Everglades in Florida. The bus had most of the luxuries that our buses have and one additional feature that I was really not accustomed to. It had a cooler that was filled with Coronas and bottled water for sale. I had never in my life seen alcoholic beverages for sale on a bu...