My family and I had taken a trip to Mexico for Christmas and New Year’s vacation in 2009. My father decided that we should drive to Mexico instead of flying because it would be an experience to remember. I wasn’t too thrilled about being in the car for 2 days (36 hours) with my brother and sister because my sister can talk for hours and my brother snores so loud that no one can get sleep.
We left on a Wednesday evening because my father likes to arrive to Nogales, the Mexican border between Arizona and Mexico, in the morning. Since we drove during the night, I wasn’t able to see the cities of Phoenix and Tucson. To make our trip enjoyable my mother went to the store to buy movies and lots of snacks to keep us occupied, it worked for a while.
As we entered Mexico, we were in the state of Sinaloa and drove to the city of Hermosillo which is a big city and to my surprise we spotted a Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, KFC and McDonald’s. As we drove on, we passed several small towns that were nice and some that were very poor. We saw people living in small shacks selling candies, fruit cups and figuring just to survive. We drove through larger cities like Navojoa, Culiacan and los Munches, they have beautiful historic churches, buildings and homes.
We also passed through tourist cities like Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta. As soon as we arrived at Guadalajara, I knew we were close to my grandparent’s home in Michoacán. Three hours later we arrived to our destination safely. I was so happy to see my grandparents because I hadn’t seen them for a year.
The town where my father was born is called El Tigre (The Tiger), there are approximately 100 homes and everybody knows everybody there or they are related some way or another. The last time I was there in Mexico was in 2004; so many things there had changed. The roads were all paved and there was running water from the faucet and even a big brand new church with a plaza in front of it.
I met up