This week, from Monday to Friday, I have been in Mexico for a business trip.

On Monday I flew from Toronto to Mexico City (now Mexico City, or CDMX). Upon arrival I went straight to a business lunch, where I ate escamoles (larva and ant roe).

The hotel was quite good, particularly breakfasts: from typical dishes such as maguey worms or tamales, to the most common smoked salmon or homemade pastries. With an impressive selection of juices, including natural banana juice, alfalfa, tangerine, and many more.

Apart from several visits and meetings in hospitals, the most intense day was Tuesday, as my client invited me to his hacienda: first we went through another hacienda that he is remodeling and turning into a hotel, and then we went to his own, where he was celebrating a bullfighting tienta (by Sebastian Castella). Personally, I prefer to see animals free and happy.

They showed me the herd of beautiful horses, and then we went to dinner, where he told me that his 700-acre ranch produces more than a thousand tons of corn, has 600 cows, 250 bulls … impressive and beautiful.

The next day, after seeing with my own eyes the destruction of the recent earthquake in Colonia Roma (they told me that the government reduces the official list of victims so as not to “scare” the tourists) a client took me to eat mole poblano and bone marrow in Antigua Hacienda de Tlalpan, a spectacular place, although somewhat kitsch, with lots of peacocks and swans loose around the garden and the pond.

With no time to try the hotel pool, which opened from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., on Friday I returned to Toronto on a red-eye flight.