For thousands of years people in this area have been fermenting various strains of agave plant in an effort to speak with the Gods.  Or get drunk, as we understand it today. 

To travel to Mexico’s touristy coasts, like the Mexican Rivera (Cancun, Tulum, or Playa del Carmen) or Baja California Sur (Cabo San Lucas, San Jose del Cabo, La Paz), is to willingly accept you’ll be wildly overpaying at every available opportunity.

Modern day Mexico is a hodgepodge of ancient civilizations that inhabited its territory since Homo sapiens crossed the Alaskan land bridge and populated the Americas. And later Europeans, who screwed things up.

The summation most people from the U.S. know about Mexico can be expressed in a single piece of advice: Don’t drink the water. The subtext isn’t that subtle. Thankfully, I prefer tequila.