Dancing Alone in Mexico from the Border to Baja and Beyond by Ron Butler
Here's a book of travel essays from a man who obviously admires this country. He's covered Mexico from coast to coast and from north to south in a criss cross journey that's well described here. Thus we get informed accounts of places like Cuernavaca, Puerto Vallarta, Oaxaca, Mazatlan and so on, along with a lengthy look at Mexico City. But rather than simply giving us the usual guidebook account of a place, Butler finds all kinds of interesting facets and people, too, wherever he goes. Along the way you're also treated to history, politics and whatever attractions are available locally.
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It's about (Mexican) time!
Mexican time is not American time. To Americans, Mexican time is usually thought of as tomorrow, but Mañana does not mean tomorrow, as everyone seems to think, no, it just means not right now. ...
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A bay, two towns, three beaches
Deep down in all of our hearts, there is that desire to escape the everyday world in which we feel trapped and find our personal paradise. Or, to be more precise considering the limitless alternatives ...
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San Blas, Nayarit
But to me, a dreamer of dreams,
to whom what is and what seems
are often one and the same,
the bells of San Blas to me
have a strange wild melody,
...
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Guanajuato
Narrow, serpentine streets. Old world baroque buildings. Steep hills - shoehorned with vivid-colored casas. I have dropped into a spectacular place - a cross between San Francisco and Paris. ...
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12 - La Pena of Bernal And Mexico Magico
It is like a scene from a Fellini movie. Shrieking laughter of women. French music from a boom box. Chop chop chop of a machete. And we, hunkered down in our sleeping bags.
Journal, June 13...
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Eight - On To Morelia And Patzcuaro
We get out of town, skipping the tianguis of Ajijic.
It was just … time to leave.
Journal, June 4, 2003
We pile into the packed car once again. Destination...
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Seven - Ajijic And Lake Chapala
This place, where people do not say buenos dias
, they sing it. Mexican men and women alike.
Journal, June 3, 2003
Soon out of San Blas we hit the four-lane
...
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Xilitla And Las Pozas
The final three days of our journey raise me above the lather of crowds and traffic. Muse returns, to the swish swish of the Mexico broom. Sweep sidewalks. Sweep streets and and home. Brooms in blue an...
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Pátzcuaro
A family with creamy brown skin walks by, holding hands, swinging arms. Laughing aloud. They are arranged like stair steps - father, mother, big daughter and little daughter, who look to be around ages...
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Eleven - San Miguel De Allende
The Anglos of San Miguel remind me of the frog that happily swims round and round in a pot of cold water, brought so slowly to a boil, that he doesn't recognize his demise until it's too late. They sti...
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Escape to Mexico: An Anthology of Great Fiction edited by Sara Nickles
Here's a collection of stories with a rather unusual theme. Mexico isn't just the place where the action takes place in these tales. Rather, it's as if Mexico - sunny, exotic, mysterious and occasionally slightly dangerous - is yet another character in each of the tales. There are 18 stories here, by authors such as Stephen Crane, Jack Kerouac, Anaís Nin, Tennessee Williams, Patricia Highsmith and Graham Greene. With those kinds of names you can at least rely on the pedigree of the material.
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Strange Pilgrims: Twelve Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The stories almost all seem to deal with Latin Americans travelling to Europe for one reason or another.
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A Package From Spain
“A Package from Spain”
© 2003 T. Adams
At 3 p.m. one Wednesday during the first week of July someone pulled the string on the brass bell outside Isabe...
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One and Two
Solstice morn. Hot sun on my face. I have been awake since 4:30, Mexico rising to the surface, a wakening jolt of images and smells, not to be forgotten or unwritten.
Journal, June 22
...
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Introduction To The Series - "Mexico Notes"
"Pedro" stands in my parent's house, a permanent fixture. He is a concrete, life-size Mexican man, in a loose, dirty shirt and dark, baggy trousers held up with a piece of rope. He leans against a ligh...
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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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Idioma Idiota, Or ... I Was A Spanish School Dropout
I used to believe that I was one of those people who had a knack for learning languages. I must have picked up this idea from my mother when one day during my formative years, I overheard her saying "S...
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What Marina's Mother Knows About Rain
Marina's mother said nobody should fall in love in the dry season. In the dry season the naked arms of trees could grab a love-struck girl by the braid and yank her down, make trouble. Marina's mother ...
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The Umbrella
(While traveling to the Yucatan Peninsula on vacation in 1985, the author and her husband meet an adventurous contractor who offers to sell them a beachfront lot in Playa del Carmen. After accepting hi...
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Idle ramblings of a homesick girl
After multiple trips to Puerto Vallarta I think I am becoming Mexican. I look Mexican, so when I jump into a cab, I have to politely say "No hablo Español” when the driver rattles off a breat...
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Approaching the Cosmos... Hotel: Travelling the World with a Gay Sensibility by Robert Champ
This is a book of travel essays by a man who certainly has covered the world. I've chosen to review it here because so many of the pieces are concerned with places in Mexico, such as Oaxaca, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico City and Guanajuato as well as my own familiar territory here in Ajijic and the Lake Chapala area. Other locations include Russia, China, Ireland, Paris, the French Riviera and some U.S. cities. In fact, for me one of the most interesting articles was about the author's running away from home in Kansas City with another boy and hitchhiking to San Diego.
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Uruapan's Waterpark
Mary and I wanted Ann and Ron to see a little bit more of Mexico, so Mary did some research on the Internet and picked out the town of Uruapan as a road trip destination.
I don’t think that Ann a...
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Tlaxco, my place under the sun: Part 2
Part I
It's around 7:30 in the morning. I am awakened by one or more of the kids invading our bedroom to iron their clothes or to solicit help from Chela as they get ready for school. I drag my...
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Tzurumutaro, Michoacan: a town at the crossroads
The town had been sort of a laughing stock, ignored by outsiders,one of those dusty lonely little burgs where no one seemed particularly interested in much beyond survival. Like sad and decrepit towns ...
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