Surprising things I've learned about Mexico

Mexico is the 10th most popular tourist destination in the world

Mexico is the 11th largest country in the world by population

Mexico is the 14th largest country in the world by land area

We live about a 6 hour drive from a city called Cholula, the oldest still-inhabited city in all of the Americas. Cholula has been continually inhabited since sometime between the 6th and 2nd century B.C. (While the oldest continually inhabited settlement in the USA is the Taos Pueblo of New Mexico which was founded around 1075 A.D.). Mexico is just old. The first university in North America was founded in Mexico City (and is still there) in 1551, 225 years before the founding of the USA as a nation.

500 year old staircase at the ex-convent of Cuilapan. Mexico is just old.

14% of the people here in Oaxaca state (that's half a million) speak Zapotec, a prehispanic indigenous language. 9% speak Mixtec, another prehispanic indigenous language. A full 13% more of the population speaks one of the various other 14 indigenous languages still spoken here in Oaxaca. It's evident that the Spaniards took a much different view of indigenous relations in their conquest of Mexico than the Anglo culture did in their conquest of the north.

A ball court at Monte Alban. I've read that the ancients would sacrifice the losers of the game.

All of the words below come from Nahuatl, another prehispanic indigenous language.

avocado
cacao
chia (like the seeds)
chiclets (from chicle, a tree used for its gum)
chili
chocolate
coyote
guacamole
jicama
mesquite
mescal
mole
ocelot
peyote
shack
tamale
tomato

More to come, I'm sure...