Category Archives: North America

There’s An Amusement Park in Mexico Where You Can Illegally Cross The Border. #NotKidding…

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Have you ever wanted to get shot at by police, beaten up by narcs, and chased through a swamp of raw sewage? Well then, we have the tourist attraction for you! No, really.

Two years ago, when I first heard about the “border-crossing experience” in Hidalgo, Mexico, I did a double take.

“A what?” I asked.

“A border-crossing experience,” my friend said. “You pretend to cross into the United States illegally.”

“People do this? Willingly?”

“Yep.”

WATCH: Dodging Bullets In Illegal Mexican Border Crossing Amusement Park Experience

Freddie Agustin explains why anyone would want to do a mock illegal border crossing. (Photo: Andrew Rothschild)

Obviously, I had to go check it out.

Related: Watch: Mexican Wrestling Is the Most Fun You Will Ever Have in Tights

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Mexican Wrestling: The Most Fun You Can Have in Tights… and a Mask

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Lucha libre, Mexican wrestling, has long been a fascination of mine. Those masks! That hair! The overacting! The flamboyant dancers! It’s like the WWE on steroids. In fact, American wrestling was spawned by lucha libre, and, as a kid in Cincinnati, Ohio, I grew up obsessed with Hulk Hogan (pre-reality show), Ric Flair, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, and Jake “the Snake” Roberts. So when lucha libre superstarDragón Rojo Jr. offered to meet me in the ring, I jumped at the chance.

WATCH: Mexican Wrestling Is the Most Fun You’ll Ever Have in Tights

Paula Froelich and Dragón Rojo Jr. (Andrew Rothschild/Yahoo Travel)

I arrived at the Arena Mexico in Mexico City on a Tuesday night before the big weekly luchadores matches (think a south-of-the-border version of a weekly smackdown) and … got put in a headlock, spun around, and body-slammed. Not kidding. Watch the video. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in my entire life.

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How To Piss Off the Locals in Mexico

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http://youtu.be/CcVVgXKuqmA

The No. 1 rule of travel is pretty simple: Don’t piss off the locals. Most people know this — or at least they think they do, and they usually give it the old college try when it comes to not stepping on the toes of the people around them in another city or country.

Related: How to P*** Off a New Yorker in 12 Easy Steps

But what if you don’t know? What if you have no idea what irks the heck out of the locals? No worries; Yahoo Travel is here to help. With our How to P*ss Off series, we help you navigate those crazy cultural differences that can get you in so much trouble. So instead of getting bad karma and dirty looks, you can make friends and have a great time. This week’s episode is all about Mexico — everything you need to know to not rock the boat when visiting. We love our neighbors to the south, but do not piss them off. It ain’t pretty.

Related: 12 Ways to P*** Off a Nebraskan

Thanks to The Muddy Boot.

A Piece in Capital New York Made the Broad Cry Last Week

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Paula froelich

Ok! So I cried in a good way! – And here’s why. I spent 4.5 years in the wilderness after I left Page Six and had some of the MOST OFFENSIVE SH-T told to me (EVER!) by male media execs including:

  • “You’re too smart for our audience.”
  • “You know what your problem is? You don’t fit in a box…” [from a cliched dude who prided himself on thinking “out of the box’]
  • “Women don’t watch travel shows.”
  • “You are great and so dynamic, but you’re from New York and smart. Our viewers are in the flyover states and god are they stupid. I don’t even watch the shit we put up on our screen for them…” [Me: “i’m from Ohio and Kentucky.” Dude: “Really? i would never have guessed.”]
  • “We are focusing on the male demographic right now – it’s what advertisers want.” [me: so you’re only hiring male talent?; Dude: Pretty much. sorry. I know women are funny – youknow women are funny, but America doesn’t like funny women.]
  • “Yeah, but whats your angle??? Everyone has to have an angle or a shtick these days!”
  • “Women are really into getting married.”
  • “Women don’t want funny travel books or essays – they only buy travel books if there is a journey involved. You know, like Eat, Pray Love.”
  • “You are so smart and funny and cool… I just wouldn’t know what to do with you.”
  • “You know what women like? Women really like beach shows. Like where the best beaches are…”
  • “You have really sexy shoes”
  • “We need to start figuring out how to get people to start buying TVs again.”

So.. along came a piece by Joe Pompeo who… got me. And got my story. It made me cry. After the jump is an excerpt, but you should read the whole thing. It’s lovely.

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The Hot New Workout from Mexico? The El Jimador Burn! (aka How to Make Tequila in 6 “Easy” Steps)

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http://youtu.be/XvTflC3SMZs

I have to be honest with you, tequila was never my jam. In college there was too much of it, there was usually a worm involved and the smell just made me gag. It also causes a weird side-effect for me. It makes me go all vampire on people and try to bite anyone within a two feet radius. It’s not pretty.

However, in recent years, everyone I know has started drinking it – but on another level. Not as a cheap mixer for a margarita, or as a slammer (“lick it, drink it, suck it”), but as a high end liquor on its own, often without lime. I was confused. “But it’s so awful,” I said to my friend in Los Angeles.

Related: I Finally Learned How to Put on a Decent Skeleton Face For the Day of the Dead 

“Try it,” he said, offering me some 49-month, barrel-aged tequila. I took a deep breathe, steeled my stomach and… it was delicious. Like scotch. I was considering converting when an invite to the Herradura Tequila Factory in Amititan, Mexico came through.

“Sign me up!” I said and a week later there I was at the distillery (housed in an old school hacienda)  in the agave fields surrounding the Amititan Mountains.

The Herradura hacienda has been run by the same family for 184 years and is the perfect blend of old school and new technology. My guide, Ruben Aceves, hoisted me on a horse and we rode out to the Agave fields, where I started my “How To Make Tequila in Six Steps.”

“It’s easy,” Ruben said.

Ruben is a liar.

Click HERE for all six steps. PS: My arms still hurt.

Art Basel, Shmart Basel – The Real New Art Capital is in Oaxaca, Mexico

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While we gear up for Art Basel in Miami – where everyone will OOOH and AHHH over graffiti art in places like Wynwood Walls and in the galleries – the real talent lies south of the border in Oaxaca, Mexico. Here, in almost every street, are miles of graffiti art, intricately painted Alejibres wood sculptures and embroidery most collectors would die for. It is the new Beco de Batman, and the secret of art collectors everywhere. Thank you to The Muddy Boot for taking me on the ultimate art tour of Mexico. Towns visited included Oaxaca and the Zapotec village of Teotitlan del Valle, where the masters of the Day of the Dead “carpets” (sculpture made of sand and flowers) reside. In this town, the main road leading from the cathedral to the cemetery is lined with Skeletal graffiti and shops that make special burial carpets – which can cost up to $300 a pop and only stay up for one day (a lot of money when your average annual salary is only $1K a year).

The area also specializes in textiles – hand dyed and hand woven carpets or wall hangings which are intricately embroidered. The process can take a year depending on how large the carpet/hanging is. For anyone who loves art, this is a must see. 

I Finally Learned How To Put On a Decent Skeleton Face

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk19KRj_AA8

I went to Oaxaca for the Day of the Dead celebration this year because why the hell not, eh? And because it was super cool and rocked the house. And because I wanted to do it right, I went full Catarina Dead Lady… For those of you who have never seen a Tim Burton movie or have lived in a shoe box, the Day of the Dead is, according to Frances Ann Day in “Latina and Latino Voices in Literature”:

“On October 31, All Hallows Eve, the children make a children’s altar to invite the angelitos (spirits of dead children) to come back for a visit. November 1 is All Saints Day, and the adult spirits will come to visit. November 2 is All Souls Day, when families go to the cemetery to decorate the graves and tombs of their relatives.”

Aaaaand they dress up just like Halloween. PS: DO YOU KNOW HOW FRICKING HARD IT IS TO TAKE THAT SHELLACK OFF? REALLY HARD! After the jump Check out more pics Continue reading →

A Happy Homecoming

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I obviously love to travel… but I love coming home to Karl Froelich even more. Especially as, every time he sees me again he reacts as if we’ve been separated for years behind the Berlin Wall circa 1982 and are reuniting for the very first time. Again. And again. There’s nothing like being really, lovingly missed. In the video above, I ambush Karl on the street after having been on the road for three weeks (in Afghanistan, Dubai, San Francisco and England)… see the adorably awesome reaction of a small dog who hasn’t seen his mother in three weeks.

After the jump, pics of the reunion:

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Spa Castle: Little Korea in Queens

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Anyone who knows me knows I love glamour. And nothing says sheer eleganza like Spa Castle in Queens, New York.  I mean, come on  – who doesn’t love a good, old fashioned, Korean scrub n soak in a Persian palace? Spa Castle offers things like “Chocolate Mud Wraps” (the mind boggles); Private “royal” body scrubs; and in “Sauna Valley” you’ll find Ice rooms and infrared saunas where “Each room, equally ornate in structure and design, offers specific healing affects through the combination of the infrared rays converted to heat with the natural essence of the room itself. The lining of each room is made from natural and authentic components, each organically beneficial to the body.” No, they are not kidding – sign me up!

Check out the sheer elegance after the jump:

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You Know What Would’ve Been Really Cool? If There’d Been a Miss Universe Contest Circa 1782

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unnamed

Oh Heeeyyyyyyyyy….

Throughout history, women have always had things done to them to make them “beautiful.” Nowadays,  we pluck, wax, shave, inject, and silicon bag ourselves all so we can be pretty. But the saddest part is, due to globalisation, everyone kind of looks the same.

When traveling and visiting historical sites or archaeological digs, you quickly start to realize that that chick to the left in the  Santa suit would’ve been passed over by pretty much every guy on the planet a few hundred years ago. Back in the day, before airplanes and all that, beauty was pretty subjective and every region had it’s own idea of what was hot. Most of which we’d find pretty hideously fascinating today.

Take for example the Mayans. Now they used to think women with flat foreheads, crossed eyes and razor sharp, piranha like teeth were the shizznit. So, according to my guide in Chichicastenanga (Guatemala), when Mayan girls were very young, boards would be tied to their heads with a bead hanging from it (so the eyes would be trained to cross) and their teeth were filed to sharp points to look like Jaws. Don’t even get me started on what their talent would be… I have no clue. But the imagination boggles – biting through trees? Severing chicken heads? Pillaging neighboring Incan villages?

Hello, gorgeous…

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