The tequila strikes hard and fast in the August heat after just an hour of perspiration from trampling the scorching Malecon. The humidity smothers each breath like those cheap Chinese disposable masks that deposit plastic particulates deep in your lungs.

Bar after bar, palapa roofs and ceiling fans, open to the great pacific ocean with its diving pelicans, but no relief from the summer of normal Mexican weather. The ceiling fans are too high to have any impact and definitely no air conditioning. "Definitely none," the waiter confirms.

"Sorry amigo, but I have extra cold Pacifico to help with the heat." The waiter wants me to stay. Maybe to move to a table after standing at the bar. "I bring a bucket with ice."

Tired of walking and cruising pharmacies for the cheapest options of prescription drugs that can be snagged without a prescription I finally relent and park myself near a mahogany wood railing with the best view of the bay.

The United States is a failed state I keep telling myself on the flight south. A dozen calls to doctors and urgent care clinics for a simple refill of a medication prescribed in Poland, with a letter from a Polish doctor and not a single place in a large American city would oblige, even with travel insurance so they can overcharge the insurance company as many of those clinics do.