Is Mexico part of Central America or North America? The (non-official) UN geoscheme for the Americas defines Central America as south of the US, but historically Mexico is considered North America and according to Google from a geographic point of view Mexico is clearly in North America.
It is however definitely part of Latin America, and regardless of whether North or Central, Mexico was never part of our intention for this trip, but we didn’t want to just pass through, we couldn’t help ourselves but to carve off a couple of stops. We had to go through Mexico City (twice) and we wanted to explore, not have it just as logistical jumping off point. We also decided to visit one other Mexican town/city. From the bit we had read (literally not much) Oaxaca in Southern Mexico seemed to fit the bill, and when we found out United have a direct flight from Houston (where we were flying into from NZ) that sealed it. A bonus was it meant we’d do Mexican immigration at a small airport instead of Mexico City.
Houston was a stinking hot 38C. We stayed Downtown and had braved the heat to explore the neighbourhood the evening we landed. A Thursday everywhere was so quiet, there was hardly any life. Eventually we found a burger place so that sorted dinner, as we were thinking we might have to resort to Uber Eats (we’d seen a few more restaurants but they were attached to big hotels and too nice for a regular dinner) and on the way back to the hotel we found a small grocery store so that sorted us for provisions. The next morning we had a couple of hours to kill between checking out and needing to head to the airport, we chose to hang out in the hotel lobby knowing there wasn’t much to go see or worth walking round in the heat for before getting on a flight.
Houston George Bush Airport is split into a number of seperate terminals. Our terminal was small and super quick and easy. Weirdly they didn’t let us down to the gate until 30 minutes before the flight and then we went straight down and boarded. It was a small 50 seater plane which meant 2 seats each side – it’s always nice not to be sat next to a stranger.
The 2.5 hour flight passed quickly. We were the only international flight landing at that time so immigration was super fast. Though when we looked later they had only given us a measly 21 days entry, it’s a good job we weren’t planning a longer stay. We had to wait a while for our bags and filled in a biosecurity form. The form gets checked as you leave and you press a button which then randomly selects whether or not you get your bags screened.
The taxi desk was easy to find and the queue short. We paid for a collectivo (shared) taxi, a tidy modern minibus we didn’t have to wait long until it was full. It was a quick 20 minute journey and we were stoked to be the first drop. We peeled out in the dusk onto a lovely quiet street.
Marie & Emma's Travel Journal 