Santa Maria del Oro: near enough to perfect
After many downhill twists and turns, at the very end of a road built for Nayarit royalty, is a little lake that could have spilled from a book of fairy tales.
La laguna Santa Maria del Oro, in the cr...
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Ask an old gringo: grafitti, chili peppers, pickup trucks and women
Questions and answers about life in Mexico.
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Ask an old gringo: Mexico City, Cancun and moving to Mexico
Questions and answers about life in Mexico
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Mexico sights and sounds
Because most of our neighbors don't speak English and because our Spanish is at least awful, some strange things happen in our Mexican community. The other evening a woman stopped at our front gate. A ...
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Crime may pay
When church groups and civic clubs, north of the border, are seeking something for almost nothing, they sometimes invite me to tell about life in Mexico. Some listeners squirm around and seem dissatisf...
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Violeta Retamoza: from Aguascalientes to the world
Golf is the magic carpet that lifted Violeta Retamoza from Cerco del Laurel in Aguascalientes and sent her out to see the world.
So far, it has earned her a scholarship at the University of Tennessee ...
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Linking up with the Chapala Lakeside: to rent or buy?
Once upon a time, in the previous century, an old journalist and his still-beautiful bride were pondering retirement and escape from Washington, D.C.
They had roots and land on the original TVA lake i...
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Fernando Valenzuela, a very famous Mexican
Ancient American Alexander R. Pembrooke, 84, retired gospel singer, pipe-smoking trout fisherman and stock-market survivor, retains an insatiable appetite for information. He selected our south-of-the-...
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Mexico: not much to fear except fear itself
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...
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Enough water hyacinths, more than enough
Ancient Chinese proverb say ox in ditch bad news. Really bad if your ox.
Lirio (water hyacinths) on Lake Chapala, in the colorful state of Jalisco, in this magical country called Mexico, is bad news. ...
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Here and there: Washington DC and Jocotepec
Before we relocated to Mexico, to the interesting state of Jalisco, to Lake Chapala and, more specifically, to the outskirts of Jocotepec, we lived in Washington, D.C.
Washington and Jocotepec are not...
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Mexico questions and answers
My exalted editor, spelling coach and inspirational wife of more than 50 years said my chosen subject for this month wasn't very good so we'll skip what I thought was an award-winning essay and go dire...
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The Chapala lakeside as it was
As Yogi Berra might say, 90 per cent of the world is changing. The other half is making adjustments.
Among relatively recent arrivals to the shores of Lake Lirio (formerly Lake Chapala before water hy...
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Bumbling bulldozer in paradise
Artist James Vitale, owner and operator of El Encanto, a boutique eco-hotel or maybe a healing place or perhaps a vibrant retreat for creativity and education, came onto his verandah to say "Good morni...
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Barra de Navidad: the sand spit is slipping
It is my sad duty to inform you that the times they are a changing, at Barra de Navidad.
Our favorite spit of Pacific sand, sticking out just a little bit from Highway 200 along the west bank, is not ...
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Amazing Grace
This little story of life along Lake Chapala probably belongs in a movie or a museum dedicated to strange and unusual happenings. You can believe it or not.
Our kind and gentle friend, Grace Contrades...
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Ask an old gringo: Copper Canyon, poverty, and becoming a Mexican citizen
Questions and answers about life in Mexico
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Mexico's Olympic memories
It's showtime in Athens. The Greeks are all stirred up about the Olympic Games, worrying about terrorist threats and who's going to pay the bills when the party is over and everybody goes home.
Thirty...
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For snowbirds in Mexico and other highwaymen
To you motorized snowbirds of the United States and Canada, come on down. Mexico awaits. Tourists are really important to the economy.
Mexico hasn't changed much while you were away. Flowers are bloom...
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Wedding invitation
Petra is the grand matriarch in our Mexican community of Nestipac, in suburban Jocotepec. A daughter and two children live to the right of her home. Two sons and their familes live to her left. Those o...
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White pelicans on Lake Chapala
Granddaughter Kim couldn't resist. Our slender, pert redhead scampered along the flatland toward the water. Thousands of white pelicans immediately got the message. After a second or three of awkward, ...
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Insulted at Tom's Texas Bbq
Cantankerous restaurateur Tom Sandilands, 74, has completed a rare gastronomic circle. Years ago, he was in the barbecue business. He switched to pizza and became a far-out legend -- far out at the cit...
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Ask an old gringo: NASCAR, tortilla prices and the border fence
Questions and answers about life in Mexico.
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Joco boat show
Thousands of you missed the Joco boat show, hot attraction at the west end of what was once Lake Chapala, before lirio (water hyacinth) covered it up, marring and scarring the colorful state of Ja...
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Why Mexico, you ask?
May is our primary month for visiting friends and renewing acquaintances in the good old United States of America. It's catch-up time for birthdays and anniversaries, the correct time to analyze Tennes...
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