Update posted by Richard Ferguson February 4 2000 There are several web sites with security information for travelers and tourists. The ones that I am aware of are listed below. I urge people to rev... read more

"Don Luis, aquí. Aquí, Don Luis," yelled a group of white-shirted men. They were calling for passengers in the camionera central in Pinotepa Nacional near the border of Oaxaca and Guerrero. We had d... read more

I adore travelling Mexico by bus. Mexico's bus system offers travelers an economical, efficient and effective means to explore the entire country. The routes are highly organized and the connections a... read more

Dreaming of living in tropical paradise year-round? Somewhere with an idyllic sandy beach adorned with dancing palms and crystal clear warm ocean waters? Can you envision waking each morning to the swe... read more

La Casa de Mescal is a Oaxaca landmark, which at the millenium will have been doing business at this location near the Zocalo for 60 years. Those of us who prefer Mezcal to its cousin, Tequila, know th... read more

Five years ago, the Cuota (toll road) from Mexico City to Oaxaca was opened. In effect, the Cuota cut the distance between Mexico and Oaxaca in half. Trips that used to take ten hours on the hazardous, twisting, and often potholed road through Huajuapan de Leon, now can be completed in five on a relatively straight, level, smooth roadway. The result was inevitable, although most of us down here in our sleepy little village failed to understand the forces at work until they became manifest in the last couple of years.

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'Ships at a distance have everyone's wish on board.'   While in Canada, I surf the Internet, looking for sites and information about Mexico. Sometimes a check at a favourite site reveals something n... read more

I just returned from four days in Huatulco, located along the coast of Oaxaca at the end of the Southern Sierra Madre mountains. The area's nine bays and twenty-three beaches stretch 35 kilometers alon... read more

Adriano is a sixteen-year-old surfer who helps his mother run one of the many small beachside palapas in the resort community of Playa Azul, north of Ixtapa. You won't read about Playa Azul in most ... read more

First published in The London Observer/Guardian Foreign News Service Jan. 17, 2000 Anita Brown (my beautiful bride these twenty-two years) met a lady from Littleton, Colorado, on the way to downtown C... read more

Below are some archives of letters to the editor that Stan has chosen to answer with open responses.December 20, 1995 Victor Salas writes that, having been born and raised in Mexico, and having come t... read more

This was written in 1994. How to survive - and stay - in Oaxaca, were very much on my mind. (The picture is of the Oaxaca State Band playing their Sunday concert in the zocalo.) Photography by Diana Ri... read more

November first is children's day in the series of remembrances and festivities that are known as Dias de los Muertos (days of the dead). On this day, the souls of departed children migrate to the homes... read more

This is my first essay, started not long after I arrived in Oaxaca. Later, I added the next-to-last paragraph to reflect my deeper understanding of, and my "upward" movement in, the gringo establishmen... read more

This road, graded to a high standard for gravel-based bituminous construction, was less than one year old when it washed out. Fortunately, there was still enough mountainside left to make a bypass. Man... read more

Hi. Please pass this on to all the people who have been getting communications from me, through you. It is meant to be a semi-final report. I just got back from a lunch meeting at Casa Colonial, and ... read more

An opalescent sky muted the harshness of the emerald earth as the old car struggled up the rock-filled Mexican road, leaving the breeze blown coast behind. I had begun a journey deep into the verdant m... read more

Back in 1940, just before Pearl Harbour, John Steinbeck and his marine biologist friend, Ed Rickets, chartered a fishing boat, the Western Flyer, in Monterey, California, and sailed down the coast around the Baja into the Sea of Cortez. Their six-week mission was to collect specimens of marine life in the area. They jointly wrote a book about the voyage, largely about marine biology, which was published in 1941. A decade later, Steinbeck himself wrote this more personal book. The result is a mixture of travel writing, journalism, diary-keeping, philosophy, meditation and, yes, there's a lot of stuff about the marine life of the area. After all, the author was something of an authority in that field. read more

Believe me, Oaxaca is not quite like any other town you’ve ever been to. Even in Mexico. read more

Mexico makes great television -- and I'm not talking about Pedro and Pancho cartoons. When a bus misses a curve and tumbles into a ravine or loses a race with a train, the bloody mess becomes internat... read more

The majority of Mexicans don't own cars. Very few own airplanes. Passenger trains are extinct. Burros are notoriously slow. This makes bicycles and bus service very important. Something, perhaps need,... read more

In December in Oaxaca there's a fiesta almost every day, which makes this colonial city one of the most popular holiday destinations for both foreigners and Mexicans. We describe below the main ce... read more

I just returned yesterday from a two-week trip through central and southern Mexico. A girlfriend and I decided to drive, rather than fly and, although I prefer driving on the autopistas (toll road... read more

This is a quick, easy and delicious dessert. Like any flan, it needs to be prepared in advance and refrigerated. There are many instant flan mixes in Mexico that are now widely used by housewives-in-a-... read more

In addition to the west coast of Mexico, Peru and Colombia also claim these sweets as their own, an indication that perhaps they followed the Pacific route of the ceviche. In any case, the coconut sweets known as cocadas are Colima's signature candy. read more