Oct. 5, 2005 — Last weekend I met an American woman who has spent a lot of time in Mexico, from Chihuahua to Oaxaca and in between — mostly in cities, I think. She said she could have lived there for the rest of her life… except for one thing.

Air quality.

In particular, the fumes from diesel buses creating bad air that spreads over a large area. She thought that recently, with the Mexican middle class buying cars much more, it might be better.

That reminded me of some friends of mine who went to Costa Rica to check it out as a place to move to. They were quickly back in Colorado, saying the bus fumes were too much for them. But since then, they have made another trip there, to a more rural area.

We’ve noticed that living in Bernal in the state of Queretaro, Mexico, the air is better than in the cities. Bernal’s population is only about 5,000. But still, there have been moments. Many Mexicans think nothing of burning plastic trash, and I remember one night in Bernal when a neighbor was doing just that around 10 PM, and we couldn’t sleep for a while.

There are many pros and cons in moving to Mexico, and this is one of them. Not that our country has completely pure air!

We expect to be back in Bernal in a couple of months, and will continue our own evaluation of all the factors that go into moving to Mexico permanently. We’re still weighing our choices.