How to Avoid the Mexican Two-Step

You must have heard the horror stories about Mexican hygiene, especially the water. Well, they are all true, so be very careful with what you eat and drink.

Let's look at the water first of all, because it is the one issue that all tourists have been told to worry about.

The water tends to leave the purification plant in a drinkable condition. By the time it reaches you, it has past through several miles of worn-out pipes that have been tapped into by any number of people, all trying to avoid paying their water rates. In other words the water gets contaminated between the plant and your tap.

If you are staying in a decent hotel there should be a tap marked drinking water (agua potable), and you should use that. The hotel will have its own filtration system and no desire for its guests to start dancing the Mexican Two-Step.

On the street you will find any number of people selling bottled water and soft drinks - they are all safe, so drink away. If you do have to drink tap water, then you should purify it first. Most chemists, supermarkets and chain shops such as 7-11 and Oxxo sell water purification liquid. The most common is Microdyn, which comes in a 15ml bottle. Add one drop to a litre of water and wait 10 minutes.

The water you can control but the food you can't; not unless you plan to do all your own cooking, that is. Funnily enough, you tend to be safe eating at the street stalls. You watch the raw ingredients being taken out of a storage bowl, then they are cooked on a hot plate right in front of your eyes. If the food is sizzling hot when it arrives, then it is probably safe to eat.

Problems tend to occur in restaurants, and don't be fooled into thinking that the more you pay the more hygienic the establishment will be. The manager may very well have been trained to western standards, but he doesn't have eyes in the back of his head, and as soon as he is out of the way the natives will revert to type. Just make sure that whatever you order arrives piping hot. If it doesn't then send it back to the kitchen. The waitress will be on your side as she wants your tip when you settle the bill. If for any reason she doesn't want to help, demand to speak to the manager. That usually does the trick.

After all that, the loo! Toilets in chain restaurants like Sanborn's and VIPs tend to be acceptable in the former and fine in the latter. The difference between them is that most of the Vips outlets are fairly new, but both are well maintained. Outside these establishments, you should find decent public toilets in museums, art galleries and other public buildings. This is a new trend, but one that is to be welcomed. However, in none of these places will you find hot water, so you will have to get used to washing your hands under a cold tap.

Street toilets tend to be indescribable. Someone will be sitting at the door to take your money. They will give you about 18" of toilet paper. There will be no soap provided and probably only a dribble of cold water from the tap. That is if you are lucky: many public toilets have an oil drum full of cold water with a bowl floating on the top. Just help yourself. Needless to say, there will be no towels of any kind.

To make matters worse, even though most of the city toilets are now connected to the main sewer, the people who use them come from homes that only have a septic tank. So they are used to putting the used toilet paper into a bucket. Guess what? The bucket in public toilets only gets emptied every now and then...

Many women carry a small cake of soap in a little plastic bag as they go about their daily routines. The small soaps that hotels provide are perfect for this. I would also suggest that you buy a pack of baby wipes - they come in a resealable pack of about twenty.

Finally, and just for the ladies, what follows comes courtesy of a very good friend of mine who, when she knew that I was writing this article, insisted on the following being added:

If you have to use a public toilet, always flush it before you use it. Often the toilets get blocked and this causes the water level in the bowl to rise. The last thing you want it is that filthy water touching your body while you are sat down. Flushing fills the bowl with slightly cleaner water, and hopefully lowers the level if the water is high. Slightly cleaner water, ladies, but probably not very much cleaner.

For that reason most women try to avoid actually sitting on any toilet that is not in their hotel room. If you absolutely have to sit, use the small amount of toilet paper that you have been given to create a seat.

As you can see, standards in Mexico are much lower than they are in Britain, but don't let that put you off. Just take the basic precautions that the Mexicans themselves take and enjoy your stay.