Last day in Mexico...

My eyes memorized the streets, the smells, the sounds. "Jesthers," a pasteleria in downtown Monterrey, was buzzing with customers. The store window displayed an endless array of round, white wedding cakes, topped by faux flowers or princess-like girls in colored dresses.
The smell of fresh donuts invades my nostrils the second I step foot through the door. Rows and rows of Mexican pasteries fill a stand in the middle of the shop.
Horacio Montemayor works the counter taking pesos from his customers who fade out the door with bags of empenadas. They're the few that still regularly come. The rest have moved on to American-owned businesses like WalMart, which stock their shelves with Sara Lee ready-made cakes and pies. It's cheaper there and, in some cases, more convenient.
Montemayor's shop boasts "The best quality and the best prices" on small, color-printed business cards. The small bakery is even on the Web.
With profit slowly declining as customers dwindle, Montemayor worries about his childrens' educational futures. How will he pay for college for the 17-year-old and what about the others who are approaching teen-hood?
I thank him for his time and slip out the door, past the old man selling cigarettes and gum, which are haphazardly perched on milk crates. A bus meanders by, leaving a plume of dark brown smoke in its wake. The familiar neon-green taxis whiz by, dodging through traffic.
I stick my arm out with my index finger pointed, the signal most use to hail a taxi. A bright green Volkswagon bug pulls beside the curb and I lean against the window and say "Por favor, al hotel Holiday Inn Express Tecnologico en Avenida Garza del Sur---cuanto cuesta?"
"Treinta pesos" he answers, and I open the door.
Hot air flows through the car from the open windows as the bug turns the corner to leave the downtown area. I think of Montemayor and "American progress" in the world abroad. He's not sure what the future holds, I recall him telling me. Right now he's focused on the things WalMart can't give its customers, like personal attention and relationship. It's the universal conflict in business: big brother corporations putting small entrepreneurs out of business; and, in Mexico's case, sometimes taking local tradition and culture with it.
I don't know what to think, but I see both sides of the equation. Maybe it's the journalist in me.
"Derecho," I tell the driver as he asks me where to go as we reach the intersection near the freeway. My American hotel is straight ahead.