Geo-Mexico, the geography of Mexico

According to a US Airways customer service agent in Phoenix, “US Airways does not charge for the first checked bag on international flights. Flights from the US to Mexico and Canada are NOT considered international flights because they do not cross water.”

This statement was made in response to a query regarding a charge of US$25.00 for a single checked bag on a flight from Guadalajara to Phoenix, following a Geo-Mexico fact-finding trip to Jalisco.

Hmm… does this mean no passports required? Does this mean that Canada, the USA and Mexico share a common currency, language and government. Me thinks not!

Defining “international” as requiring the crossing of water actually gave me a vivid flashback to my early days teaching in the Caribbean, where I discovered, to my great surprise, that some students had a similar idea. Because they knew that different Caribbean islands were (generally) different countries, they assumed that all countries were islands. In one extreme case, a student colored the political boundaries between all the countries of South America blue, justifying this by saying that each country was an island and must have water separating it from the next country!

Fortunately, the customer service agent’s interpretation of international is not echoed by the airline’s own webpage about Baggage Policies. In the circumstances, perhaps US Airways should consider upgrading its training programs for its customer service staff. Geo-Mexico would be pleased to assist.

Related post:

• National Post graphic enters our “North America” hall of shame

Our trusty server stats include these “top ten” search phrases. Each of them (when entered into a certain famous leading search engine) magically brought one or more viewers to Geo-Mexico.com:

• 10- parangaricutiro tongue twister – our post Geographic tongue-twister relating to a volcano explains this tricky-to-pronounce search
• 9- what kind of aztec indian would you have been if u lived in El Salto mexico – perhaps an Aztec Indian?? Or, given the qualifier of “El Salto”, possibly a leaping Aztec Indian? [salto = jump or waterfall]
• 8- what are the five countries in Mexico – We acknowledge that Mexico has suffered national identity crises various times in its tumultuous history, but fortunately never quite to this extent!
• 7- are canada and Mexico equally linguistically diverse -Even counting the languages spoken by the various “First Nations” groups (as Canadians call their native peoples), Mexico wins this one easily. Some 60+ languages (not dialects) are spoken in Mexico
• 6- what kind of cars do mexican cartels drive – hmm…hopefully, NOT the car you were driving just before they stopped you at a fake roadblock and took your set of wheels! [Unfortunately, this tactic has been used by drug cartels all too frequently in the past couple of years.]
• 5- non churches in the 1600s – this intriguing concept needs narrowing down slightly before we can venture a more detailed response
• 4- mexican cartel 1911 – possibly this was meant to be 2011 not 1911. However, Pancho Villa would indeed have been a powerful cartel leader, given half the chance; his cross-border excursions would have been very useful in that line of work, though his preferred method (horseback) was nowhere near as imaginative as the tunnels, catapults, aircraft and mini-subs used by cartels in 2011
• 3- geographical routes from mexico to US – beyond the obvious road, railway and airline routes, we think “Geo-Mexico, the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico” has this well covered, since our chapters are clearly linked to the four major traditions of geography in the USA, and the five themes identified by the Association of American Geographers and the National Council for Geographic Education in 1984 for the teaching of geography – click the link to buy your copy today!
• 2- names of all the volcanoes in mexico – definitely a challenging request. Assuming all categories—active, dormant and extinct—are included, the number must certainly run well into the hundreds
• 1- spanish speaking states in mexico map – The answer to this, or the parallel question of “How many English-speaking states are there in the USA?”, might not be as obvious as it appears. However, to clear up any possible confusion, click HERE for our map of Spanish-speaking states in Mexico, and HERE for a fascinating, interactive map showing the distribution of Spanish-speakers (and other languages) in the USA. Zoom in for detailed views of individual states.

Our previous “Top Ten” list:

• Our ten favorite phrases “googled” by readers en route to Geo-Mexico.com