�hola! �gracias! �destapador!

Directions: Soak the grasshoppers in clean water for 24 hours. Boil them, then let dry. Fry in a pan with garlic, onion, salt and lemon. Roll up in tortillas with chili sauce and guacamole.

Serves six, if you can find six.

3. Best bar in Mexico
Hussong's in Ensenada has been setting people up and throwing people out since it was a stagecoach stop in 1892. Just about any night you can go into Hussong's and meet dust-drenched locals, saddle-sore cowboys, sun-reddened tourists, wave-bent surfers, and burnt-lipped fishermen. When Ensenada had a casino, legend has it, even Al Capone bent an elbow here. This is a drinking bar, so don't look for any nachos or video games. Just take one of the 60 stools at the 120-foot-long wooden bar and sip Hussong's beer, the house brew. And don't worry about the policeman at the front door. They haven't had a good bar brawl at Hussong's since.... What time do you have, anyway?

4. Skimpiest bikinis
La Condesa Beach in Acapulco is further proof that the good folks who design women's swimwear are doing more than their fair share to conserve fabric. And not just on the women. This is also the No. 1 gay beach in Mexico.

5. Best hotel in Mexico

Las Hadas in Manzanillo is very good, but the most romantic, most secluded hotel in the land is Las Brisas in Acapulco, where everything is pink and white: the rocks, the jeeps, the gas station where you fill up the jeeps, the boats, the ballpoint pens, the free drink they give you when you're checking in, ashtrays, hangers, umbrellas, even the dividing fines on the resort's roads. Built into a steep mountainside, the hotel has 300 private bungalows, most with their own hibiscus-filled swimming pools.

In the morning, why order room service? Just open up the "magic box" that is located in the wall of your room and you will find fresh-baked rolls, Danish, plums, mango, watermelon, bananas and coffee, all free. (The box is replenished throughout the day.) Then open up your private refrigerator, pull out a bottle of champagne and some orange juice (both cost extra). Best of all, Las Brisas has a policy made up of the three sweetest words any traveler could hear: "No tipping, please."

6. Toughest Indian in Mexico
Forey (no known first name), an 85-plus-year-old Pericl� living near San Jos� del Cabo, walks through the cactus-filled desert without shoes (he drags his feet so as not to step on cactus). A rattlesnake once bit Forey, and the snake died, it is said. He is the only man in Cabo who can smell a hurricane coming. Forey once ran down a deer until it dropped from exhaustion. Now, that's hunting.

7. Worst caddie
Eddie at Ixtapa Golf Course will insist you take a cart so he doesn't have to walk. Eddie will stand so the shadow of his head falls directly on your ball. Eddie will yell at you for hitting with the wrong club. Eddie will call you "pork meat" in Spanish, which, of course, you might be. Luckily, Eddie can't mess up the best thing: The course, a Robert Trent Jones Jr. creation, is gorgeous.

8. Best rule to make sure Eddie reads to you in English
That would be Rule No. 13 at Ixtapa Golf Course: Precauti�n: En Los Lagos Habitan Lagartos, which means "Caution: Alligators live in the lakes." Now, how bad do you really want that new Top-Flite?