Surviving a highway accident in Mexico
This was intended to be a straightforward article on driving to Nogales from Guadalajara and back, with information on tolls, distances, hotels, restaurants, etc. However, a young Chicano in a brand new truck changed all that on our return journey. Hence, the use of the word "accident" in the title of this piece. Our little escapade has been a salutory learning experience and perhaps I can pass on a few things we learned to people who might face similar difficulties some day.
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Almost an Island: Travels in Baja California by Bruce Berger
Bruce Berger is an excellent guide to the Baja. He’s been going there since the mid '60s, having driven the length of the peninsula at least three times when that meant travelling more than 1,000 kilometers of single lane dirt road. One could drive for a day and meet only one other car. And you would never dream of leaving without taking plenty of food, water and gasoline plus whatever extras and spare parts you might need to fix auto problems along the way.
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Tequila, Lemon and Salt: From Baja - Tales of Love, Faith and Magic by Daniel Reveles
The location for these nine stories is the town of Tecate in the Baja, located 34 miles east of Tijuana. Tucked away in the extreme northwest of Mexico, it couldn't possibly be any closer to the U.S. border. The town can also boast that it is the home of Daniel Reveles, author of three attractive collections of novellas. The latest of these is the one reviewed here.
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Copper Canyon, Chihuahua, Mexico by Richard D. Fisher
I suspect this may turn out more like a travel article than a book review. In late March we took a tour through the length of the Copper Canyon and I find it difficult to know how to write about this book without bringing in various aspects of the Canyon trip itself.
It really is a spectacular journey and Richard Fisher's account does total justice to the subject matter. This is a large format quality paperback and it contains hundreds of excellent photos of the people and places one encounters along the way. I can't imagine a better souvenir to take away.
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Introducing Rick Gage: Murder in La Paz and Death Mask of the Jaguar by Murdoch Hughes
With these two thrillers we find ourselves in the world of hard-boiled private eyes - a la Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler - but with a difference. Both stories are squarely set in Mexico. Murdoch Hughes has created a private eye, Rick Gage, who has given up his former career as a detective in Los Angeles to get away from the stress and violence he experienced there and moved to La Paz. However, with these two books, Rick encounters enough stress and violence to fill any number of careers. But he's a tough guy. He can take it.
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A Tijuana Jail
This is another vignette of one of my experiences in Mexico. It is not a complaint or criticism, just an account of brief adventure.
A lot of people would be reluctant to admit that they had spent ...
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Baja California - The Wedding
I rented a small house in La Gloria, in the hills between Rosarito Beach and Tijuana. It was a cozy place. I had painted inside and out and landscaped the yard. A willow tree shaded the back patio and ...
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Baja California - Hotel Playas Ensenada
Doors are locked. Lights extinguished. The world belongs to the nocturnal creatures, the ocean, the breeze, and a trickle of night people. Time is irrelevant. The past, the present, and the future assu...
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La Paz, Baja California Sur
La Paz is a pleasant, tranquil Mexican city that happens to be on the water. Although tourism is an important local industry, it is not a resort.
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La Paz, Baja California Sur
For a city named Peace, it has a rather grim history. A Spanish expedition sailed into the bay in 1533; the leader and several of his soldiers were killed by the indigenous residents soon after, by som...
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Oases on the Sea of Cortez
The rugged Baja California peninsula and the Sea of Cortez, or Gulf of California, have been bewitching hardy visitors for decades. Some of the early fans were John Steinbeck and Earl Stanley Gardner, ...
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Mazatlan
Breathless foam
Starfish-laden scaly crest of wave
Balloons of stinging jellyfish
The crush of birth called beach.
Journal, Mayo 27, 2003
...
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Did You Know? The World's first aerial bombing: the Battle of Topolobampo, Mexico
In the early years of the twentieth century, the nature of warfare changed dramatically. The deployment of aircraft unleashed a powerful new weapon for warring factions, previously forced to rely only ...
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Did You Know? The oldest ballgame in the Americas
Baseball is not the oldest ballgame in the Americas
Forget modern "traditions" like the World Series! Forget soccer, tennis and golf! By far the oldest ballgame in the Americas is the little known ga...
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Did You Know? Mexico in the Guinness world records: part two
An earlier column described several Guinness records and their connection to Mexico and Mexicans. This month's column examines four more very different Guinness records which do not involve quite as mu...
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Did You Know? The Hero of Nacozari
November 7, 2007, marks the centenary of the death of Jesús García, the "Hero of Nacozari."
The small town of Nacozari occupies a valley nestled in the foothills of the Western Sierra Madre (Sierra ...
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Did you know? Mexico was a very different place fifty years ago
G. M. Bashford's Tourist Guide to Mexico was first published exactly fifty years ago in 1954. It was one of a spate of motoring book guides written after World War II as Americans began to hit the open...
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Outside Mazatlán: Mexico's real Sierra Madre
The Sierra Madre! The very name conjures up images of movie sets, mine shafts and majestic, rugged mountains, perhaps with cowboys riding through. Nowhere in Mexico is it quite so easy to experience an...
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The Road To El Dorado
From Stephenville, Texas to Baja California, Mexico
March 7, - March 30, 2000 AD
Dodge Minivan 1994 Modified for a wheelchair ramp.
Passengers: Luther Butler...........Backseat...
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Easy living in Mazatlan, the Pearl of the Pacific
Mazatlán, (pronounced “maz-it-LAWN”, with the stress on the last syllable), means “place of the deer” in the Nahuatl (Aztec) language,. It is a city of around half a million people, located on a long, flat stretch of the Pacific coast of Mexico, just to the south of the Tropic of Cancer and due east of the tip of the Baja peninsula. It is here that the cool waters of the deep Pacific meet those of the warm, shallow Gulf of California. You might think of Mazatlán as having one foot in the tropics and the other in the dryer, dessert climate to the north.
read moreCabo To Cabo
On my last visit to Cabo San Lucas in 1997, the city had installed its second traffic light four months ago. It stands on the northwestern outskirts of town, where Mexico Hwy. 19 begins its winding jou...
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Cabo!
It all began last Christmas when my husband and I had a delightful dinner out with his two sisters. One sister lives near us in Southern California and the other was visiting from Seattle. The conversa...
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Burt's Beach - Explorations Of The Baja
Labor Day weekend is a time when we relax with our friends and families over a barbeque during the broiling September heat. Typically the best way to spend it is at home as the traffic can be as bad as...
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Mexico: a visit to Patzcuaro, Tzintzuntzan, Tequila and Mazatlan
Two of my life-long friends from California have been visiting with me the past two weeks. This is Marcy's third visit. It's Nancy's first. I'm always nervous about first-time visitors. Will they see M...
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From Baja to the Mexican mainland by ferry
Last night I met Karen Greenbury in person. I first met her on the Internet after she quit her secretarial job in Alberta, Canada and was preparing to take a one-year sabbatical in Mexico. Karen is for...
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