Sometimes you get an education in the damnedest places, and Spring Break might be the most improbable of them all. But after seven days in Cancun, I've learned more about the ways of the world than in seven years of higher education. "Travel the globe," our instructors say, with visions of sun-soaked beaches or majestic palazzos gleaming in their eyes. Swim with dolphins, bungee jump, pet a shark, climb a pyramid and pay up-American dolares, gringo…er, amigo. Down in Cancun, thrills, whores, booze and drugs will cost you, but the pain and suffering-the locals' and your own-is on the house.

We were 1,500 miles from Cancun, but nobody likes a procrastinator. Drinking began in earnest at the airport lounge, $5.75 for 20 ounces of Budweiser, like manna from heaven as it poured from the tap. One was fun, twice was nice, three was glee, and after four I wanted more; but the plane beckoned.

Sufficiently intoxicated, we boarded the plane to the general amusement of both passengers and crew-college kids drunk on youth and Budweiser embarking on the adventure of a lifetime. Shortly after we left the runway, one stewardess validated every lusty stereotype of her profession and offered my friend a night of casual sex aloft. He never sealed the deal, but he managed to score countless complimentary drinks throughout the flight. Surely, this was an omen, a sign that Bacchus himself was smiling upon our voyage south of the border. Meanwhile, Christ was shaking His head. We were mistaken.

Culture shock rattled my senses the second I exited the plane. The climate is stifling, humidity so thick that the air could almost be grasped. I was nowhere near water, but I felt drowned anyway, aided in no small part by the menacing glares of the federales-quintessential boogeymen of every Mexican horror story.

Since Sept. 11, military presence in American airports has become as ubiquitous as Cinnabon and Starbucks. It shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was. Unlike the smiling, baby-faced soldiers who act embarrassed by their firearms, the federales are damned proud of them. They stand in the ready positions, hands white to the knuckle around a nightstick, Beretta, or AK-47. Sheer contempt distorts their face, a legion of mustachioed, tanned, pint-size hatemongers who won't hesitate to grease a gringo in plain sight. "Bienvenidos" my ass.

Clearing customs was a hassle, but the real circus began in the airport lobby. Little girls nearly beg you to purchase cheap strands of beads while you are retrieving your luggage, and grown men nearly hold your privates while you are relieving your bladder. And you pay them both, consumed by a mixture of fear, guilt and good ol' fashioned Midwestern politeness. I hadn't left the airport yet, and I was already down five bucks.

Outside the airport, my initial uneasiness surrenders to total claustrophobia. Imagine every rental car and taxi service parked outside Lambert Airport running toward you, screaming in a primal patois of Spanglish and telling you to hop in. It's suffocating, so all I can do is clutch my wallet in a death-grip and pray that one of my friends can find order in the chaos.

Eventually, we arrive at our lodging for the week. Two hours later, most of us are a dozen cervezas and cigarettes in the can-vainly trying to self-medicate the airport insanity. The brews give us confidence and intelligence, both of which were false. Suddenly, every one of us is an expert on foreign policy. Yeah dude, everything's cheap as s– down here, you just gotta know how to f— bargain with 'em. Sunburned, modern-day Vikings we were, set to conquer this feeble town and bend its residents to our will. We were mistaken.

Screw everything you've heard about the Mexican economy in the pages of some candyass, glad-handing high-school geography textbook. The country is firmly attached to Lady Liberty's teat and would die otherwise. With a minimum wage of $4 per day, the spare change we piss away in America is a matter of life and death in Mexico. Locals will take your money, legally or otherwise.

Perhaps it is true; perhaps somewhere retirees really do stretch their dollars further in a nice Mexican homestead. But not in Cancun. Here, you'll get slammed harder and longer than a first bivouac at boot camp. Walk a few blocks in St. Louis and you may be robbed with a gun; walk a few blocks in Cancun and you will be robbed…with a grin.

Enter a restaurant and you are treated like a king-sultry senoritas will fetch your next beer before the first grows warm. Then you get the bill, and pay accordingly. Later, someone laughs at the check.

You paid sales tax, which doesn't exist in Mexico-apart from the buttons on cash registers purchased in America. Chump change, pissed away in America-big deal. Suck it up and consider it a charitable donation; maybe someone prepared a family dinner with that money.

Enter a bus and you should pay 65 cents. However, like virtually anything in Mexico, there's no such thing as a flat rate. Your fare is determined by your complexion. Sunburned white boys staring at pesos for the first time in their lives can be charged as much as $5, but as you tan the gringo tax subsides. And God forbid you actually ask for change. Suddenly, the driver is stricken deaf and motions you toward a seat. You were mistaken.

Enter a taxi and you have a death wish. There are no meters in Mexico. Your fare is determined by your complexion and inebriation. A five-minute drive from a bar to my condominium cost $20; I had $15. The bastard locked the doors and told me to give him my watch or he'd call the federales. Mexican jail, shit; take the watch, I'll be back with more money. I returned with his five-spot, but he wanted another $20 for his inconvenience. Amazing how quickly the locals' English improves when you threaten to kill them. I got my watch back and never rode in another cab.

Enter a bar and you'll be seduced by the siren call of barre libre, open bar. Whoever said there's no such thing as a free lunch could easily apply this rule to free booze. "Barre libre" translates as "cover charge." For $35, you gain access to all the liquor you can handle-as long as you tip. Unfortunately, while a dollar tip keeps the barkeeps at Humphrey's happy, their Cancun colleagues literally threw it in my face. Muchas gracias, pendejos, but expecting a $5 tip after the $35 I've already dropped is Ken Lay-level extortion.

Drugs, alcohol and whores are readily available, in that order. Neon signs scream "VIAGRA" at one pharmacy, which red-faced businessmen devour like breath mints. The horny horde proceeds to a liquor store, slamming pints of cheap tequila and quelling any lingering guilt about the impending conquest of a woman young enough to be their daughter. Inhibitions drowned, they enter the whorehouses-whoops, strip clubs.

Personal differences with the current White House administration notwithstanding, I have never been ashamed to be an American. But there's a first time for everything, and I lost my nationalistic innocence amidst the smoke, fog and neon lights of a Cancun "gentleman's club."

There were three of us, escorted by an American expatriate reliving his misspent youth. Entering the bar, a promenade of strippers molested every inch of our bodies. A blissful beer buzz instantly ceased, replaced by a mounting fear. These were the harlots of the Old Testament, the very women our mothers told us never, ever to consort with. Yet here they were, in the flesh. Time for another beer, then another, trampled underfoot by a juggernaut of Catholic guilt.

I remained frozen that night, trapped and bleeding in a shark tank. The analogy is hideously accurate: These women are Great Whites, eager to devour my last dollar, and I'm hemorrhaging vulnerability. Strange to pray in a strip club, blasphemous perhaps, but I did it anyways. Foxhole faith is better than none at all, and God has never seemed more distant.

Others adjust to the environment more favorably. Locals populate the most dimly lit tables, sipping beer, surgically surveying the girls and gringos. They fix their predator gaze on our table, and for one horrifying moment I wonder if I'll see them again in the parking lot. We lock eyes, an ocular Mexican standoff, and then it's over. More Americans have entered, and they want everyone to know.

Picture the sleaziest guy you've ever worked with. Greasy, pallid skin, sizable paunch hanging over his Wranglers, facial hair that never quite filled out, but he compensates by thickly growing what little he has. Accenting the molester mustache is a 10-gallon hat and a pair of faux-alligator shitkickers to bestow the false illusion of wealth. These men exude lower-to-middle management with every fiber of their beings, but tonight they aren't cubicle slaves; tonight they're wannabe rock stars.

"Where're all the wimin' ay-ut," asks a sweating, bald abomination who looks like Reagan was in office the last time he had one of them "wimin" alone. But he doesn't need confidence tonight, just $150-cash or credit. With a gaze that could shatter one's faith in mankind's inherent goodness, the dancers leave our table and approach our fellow countrymen.

We wouldn't pay for sex, and whoring-like any other business-is a buyer's market-supply and demand, hombre. The computer geeks across the way had no such moral qualms. Unlike American strip clubs, Mexican girls don't ply their trade to feed a drug habit. They are of college age, usually with at least two children.

Apart from their risqu� outfits, these were normal, girls and our conversation was typical for young twentysomethings. Truth be told, they were the nicest women we met all week. I nearly vomited when these girls, who could have sat in class next to me if born a few hundred miles north, left to provide for their families the only way they could.

The sacred and the profane intertwine, and it's staggering. Though the exact biblical verses elude me, I recall the story of Jesus saving Mary Magdalene, a whore, from death. I can empathize: Don't stone the whores, but someone should drop a boulder on these denim-clad vultures preying upon desperation.

Once again, I'm simultaneously drunk and a foreign affairs expert. Here it is, U.S.-Mexican relations encapsulated in a scummy whorehouse. We're their wealthy neighbors, temporarily escaping the lap of luxury to rape and pillage the lands of our poor cousins. We think we're screwing them, and maybe we are, but they take our wallets before we awake and realize it.

MTV lies to us. It broadcasts from a fortified compound envied by Iraqi correspondents. "The Real Cancun," and other so-called reality programming is real bullshit. Unless your parents are extremely wealthy, you lack the means to live the lie.

Alongside 20 of my best friends, I had the time of my life in Cancun, but I paid a heavy price. We were discretely robbed by maids and fellow residents, directly conned by everyone else who threatened to call the federales if we resisted. Some of us, myself included, saw things that will haunt us the rest of our lives. Food poisoning is the least of our worries.

Daddies, hide your daughters (or buy them a switchblade). Mothers, pray for your sons. Cancun's culture is like its ocean-a cerulean scene of tranquility on the surface, hiding a potentially deadly undertow.

God bless America.