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Several weeks ago, with the world’s media awash with scaremongering reports of the latest new strain of animal uber-flu and the impending pandemic cataclysm it was about to trigger, news was fed to me that I would soon be travelling to the Swine Flu capital of Mexico City for a newly commissioned global study. Clearly several questions went through my head at this point; How safe will it be? What measures should I take to protect myself? Should I be happy about going? Will I be taken severely ill? If so, how much will I be able to sue Firefish for? (Joke – deadpan mode, there)

After weeks of feeling slightly nervy about my trip, the time came for me to enter the jaws of the beast and pray my historically flimsy immune system held up. Early signs weren’t good, a quick head count of those in the departure lounge about to board my flight clocked a whopping 17 – a quite paltry figure bearing in mind the Boeing 767’s capacity tops the 320 mark.
Arriving in Mexico City, I was intrigued to gauge the extent to which the shadow of H1N1 (which I always felt sounded more Star Wars droid than menacing, mutant influenza) still loomed large over the city. It became clear very quickly as I strolled through Benito Juarez Airport that reports of this city’s death had been greatly exaggerated. Where were the mask-wearing hordes? Where were the rigorous, draconian health checks? Where was the general over-riding feeling of foreboding doom? An early conversation with my taxi driver en route from Airport to hotel, helped shed further light on why my preconceptions (and those it seemed, of my entire nation’s media) had now appeared to be so enormously wide of the mark. The city had suffered greatly; deaths, widespread panic, international ostracism, businesses forced to close – locals were now ready to rediscover normality. This relied as much as on a sense of responsibility as anything else - my taxi driver told me that while people like him were ready to move on from the initial nightmare, they were still taking the threat of swine flu very seriously. Anyone who feels even the slightest twitch of a cold is now very quick to get themselves thoroughly checked and until given the all-clear, remain at home and in isolation. My driver explained that as a father he was clearly worried but knew that were his children to fall ill he would immediately keep them home until proven swine-flu-free, and that he hoped and trusted that other parents would be similarly responsible.

I saw yet more evidence of this sense of collective responsibility the following day when I read in a national newspaper that president Felipe Calderon had launched an initiative called “Vive Mexico”, for which he had enlisted the help of the nation’s leading lights of sports, film, music and TV to back a new campaign to help re-encourage tourism to the country and particularly its under-the-spotlight capital. With the cost to the nation’s economy of the first few weeks of the swine flu outbreak estimated at around $2bn (USD), it is unsurprising to see why the government have invested $92,000,000 in the new campaign, in the hope that stars such as actor Diego Luna and Barcelona defender Rafael Marquez can help inspire the tourists to return.

Across the course of my week in Mexico my own concerns began to wane, as I saw less and less evidence of the malevolent threat. Indeed the only people I saw wearing masks were those working directly with food (and one Japanese tourist), and the locals appeared to be going about their business as usual. Taco stands buzzed with businessmen and women, back at work and on their lunch-breaks, shops saw a decent trade of mask-free customers and by the fourth day of my trip, the city’s pubs were packed to the rafters with football fans gathered excitedly for the Champions League final. Indeed one local football fan I spoke to appeared entirely nonplussed by the apparent pandemic, and his only grievance was that his side Chivas Guadalajara (along with rivals San Luis) had been forced to withdraw from the Copa Libertadores (the Latin American equivalent of the Champions League).

Asides from one brief panic, when towards the end of my trip I felt a slight sniffle and couldn’t help but worry that I might have spoke too soon about the non-existent threat, I left the city happy and healthy. No tales of a crippled ghost-town to tell, and no shocking images of unparalleled suffering engrained in my mind, I returned only with memories of a vibrant city which, with any justice will soon shake its’ unwanted and undeserved reputation as a tourist no-go zone.