That’s what everybody said when we told them we were going to Mexico. I’m so glad we didn’t listen. Many other people did however change their travel plans due to the swine flu. Our flight from Newark to Houston was on a huge Boeing 777 aircraft (marvelous plane!!) that was not even half full. So many empty seats! Our flight from Houston to Leon/Guanajuato normally held 35 people and we had 15 on board.

When we got to San Miguel the local people were not wearing masks and you would never know there was a threat of contracting the flu. A few places were closed, like the library, but otherwise all the restaurants and shops were open. They tell us that May is normally their slowest month (and hottest) and many businesses close anyway and it was the Mexican equivalent of Labor Day while we were there. Wait staff in the restaurants sometimes greeted customers at the door with hand sanitizer and took orders with masked faces. By mid-week the face masks had been abandoned completely although the odd person here or there might still be wearing one. I saw one gentlemen on our last day that had a white mask on with a drawn-on large mustache and a mouth, suggesting that this is what he looked like under his mask.

Many people had a sense of humor about the whole thing like the book store:

Coming home we did have to go through a little medical check at the airport. We had to fill out a form and answer questions such as if we had had a fever, been on a farm, etc. We had to stand in a certain spot as an infrared camera took our temperature. No big deal.

I am so glad we went. We would have missed out on a wonderful vacation and that would have been a shame indeed. And all because of a pig ...