Mexico's San Felipe: A living desert museum
San Felipe is the center of a living museum that has witnessed the passage of a continuum of men, women and children for the past 2- to 3,000 years. Whereas evidence of their existence remains in most ...
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Ecotourism in Mexico: Arroyo Guacamaya, Ixtlan and the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca
Arroyo Guacamaya is one of the closest ecotourism sites to the City of Oaxaca, accessible by private vehicle in about an hour, or via public transportation. La Guacamaya has most if not all of the fea...
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Water Safety
If you are concerned with the quality of the water at your beach, we recommend you contact the tourism department for updated reports and avoid swimming in questionable waters.
Mexi...
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Laguna Catemaco, Veracruz
The lush green volcanic hills of southern Veracruz permitted only glimpses of the approaching Laguna Catemaco. Small islands hid among swirls of soft grey neblina.(fog) They appeared then disappeare...
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Loreto Bay: the greenest place in Baja, and quite possibly in all of Mexico!
Loreto Bay, a 3-billion-dollar, 6,000-home development in Baja California Sur, may be the most eco- and socially-aware resort project anywhere in the country.
Interactive map of Baja California & ...
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Did you know? A plastic island is constructed in Mexico
An entire island has been constructed, not by Bob the Builder, but by Richie the Recycler!
Amazing but true: off the coast of Quintana Roo, Richie Sowa has painstakingly constructed an entire island,...
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Did you know? Mexico has over thirty UNESCO-designated biosphere reserves
A surprising percentage of Mexico's land area is protected in one form or another. A very large number of sites of archaeological or historical importance are managed by the National Institute of Anthr...
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Did you know? Mexico's largest bird is the American White Pelican
The American White Pelican is Mexico's largest bird, while its relative the Brown Pelican is one of the most fun to watch.
White Pelicans on Lake Chapala;
photo: John Mitchell, Earth Images Foundat...
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Did you know? Lake Chapala under attack from water hyacinth
Masses of beautiful violet and yellow flowing water hyacinth ( Eichhornia crassipes) add an attractive splash of colour to the Lake Chapala landscape during the rainy season but are a serious problem for thelives and economy oflocal residents.
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Ruins in the rain forest: An excursion to La Selva Lacandona
Many visitors in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, realize that the quaint mountain town, aside from being a destination in itself, is a perfect jumping-off point for dozens of side-trips. Surround...
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A Season Of Hope
If Lake Chapala could speak for itself,
Mark Twain's famous comment might come to mind:
"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
Since torrential rains began battering much of ce...
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Walking the walk, talking the talk - Colima - sea to Sierra, by Wendy Devlin in Mexico Connect
Part 1 Colima - The Sea
Six years ago I briefly visited the small state of Colima. With my family, I drove straight through the state without stopping along Colima’s eighty-seven miles of coastline,...
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Baja communities play a key role in conservation
Those moments when you can spontaneously interact with a wild animal, one on one, in their environment - whether it's under the ocean, on a mountain, in the middle of the desert - are pretty special, life changing even.
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In the Shadow of the Volcano: One Family's Baja Adventure by Michael Humfreville
This was not to be your usual sight-seeing trip, moving from one convenient accommodation to another. Their desire was to be isolated from civilization and to live as simply as possible. An element of self discovery was also a definite part of the program. Thus it was that they found themselves a week or two later on an empty beach on the remote west coast of the Baja constructing a tiny hut that was to be their home for an indefinite period. Pacific breakers pounded the beach a few steps away. The specific area where they set up camp was between El Rosario and Guerrero Negro where a number of tiny fishing villages were located.
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The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck
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.
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Seeing the forests and the trees links
Mexican forests cover more than 140 million hectares or about 72% of the national territory. That said, the trees are falling quickly. A recent government study of satellite images, the country is losi...
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Mexico City's uncommon environment
In most cities, a weather report gives ample information covering the day's temperatures, wind conditions and general forecast.
But in the smog-choked Mexico City metropolis, often called the world's ...
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Airline websites
Most visitors to Mexico arrive by air and more and more business and vacation travelers are taking to the web to plan their trips. Unfortunately, many airline web sites suffer from bloated software tha...
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Eco-travel links
The following are new Mexico-specific resources online in the Eco Travels website (http://www.planeta.com).
Saludos, Ron Mader
http://www2.planeta.com/mader/planeta/1197/1197zone.html
The Z...
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Nuevo León: northern hot seat
EL NORTE
CINTERMEX
MEXICAN HISTORY MUSEUM
NUEVO LEON'S UNDERSECRETARIAT OF TOURISM
...
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Whale watching while you surf (the web)
Whale watching has become a million-dollar business around the globe. Mexican operators along the Pacific coast and in the Baja Peninsula have seen their businesses expand as more and more people flock...
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Mexico, a Higher Vision: Excerpts from the Prologue by Carlos Fuentes
To see Mexico from the air is to look upon the face of creation. Our everyday, earthbound vision takes flight and is transformed into a vision of the elements. This book is a portrait of water and fire, of wind and earthquake, of the moon and the sun. For it is we - you and I - who see and touch and smell and taste and feel today, even as we witness the perpetual rebirth of the land here and now. We are the witnesses to creation, because of the mountains that watch us and in spite of their warning: "we will endure, you will not."
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Did you know? An enchanted lake in Veracruz rises every dry season, but falls again during the wet season
Peculiar, but true. There are several lakes named Laguna Encantada (Enchanted Lake) in Mexico, but this one is near Catemaco in the Tuxtlas region of the state of Veracruz. Catemaco is famous for its w...
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Did you know? Small village in Mexico wins UN Development Prize
Every two years, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) awards the Equator prize (worth 30,000 dollars) to communities that have shown "outstanding achievement in the reduction of poverty thro...
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Lake Chapala: a review of "The Lerma-Lake Chapala watershed: evaluation and management"
Edited by Anne M. Hansen and Manfred van Afferden
(New York: Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, 2001)
This article is Part 5 of Tony Burton's series:
"Can Mexico's Largest...
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