When tourists visit tropical Mexico, they are sometimes invited to visit a coffee plantation. My invitation came when I was camping with my family near Aticama, a small village on the Nayarit coast, 10 miles south of the pleasant sea-side resort of San Blas and approximately 100 miles north of Puerto Vallarta. Beyond the village […]
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Being a typical Northern California paraholic, the winter season just drives me crazy! Sure there’s a little bit of flying here and there but there are very few thermals to hook on to and more often than not the flight is a short sled ride…Not that I mind. “A sled ride is better than no […]
Continue ReadingFebruary 1997 Oaxaca is called “Tierra del Sol,” and it a landscape blessed with a spring-like climate and plenty of sunshine. The city of Oaxaca is located in a picturesque valley with an altitude of 1,546 meters. Two chains of the Sierra Madre Occidental converge in the center of the state of Oaxaca, creating a […]
Continue ReadingThe 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 and savor the reality behind these derived images as on the drive from Mazatlan to Durango along Highway 40. Just 24 kilometers […]
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In December 2000, I watched the sleepy fishing village of Puerto Escondido wake up from its summer slumber. When I arrived during the first week of the month, this beach town south of Oaxaca city hadn’t even begun to yawn and stretch from its months’ long, low-season nap. You could shoot a cannon down the […]
Continue ReadingThere is absolutely no place in this world or any other quite like Mexico City. I don’t quite understand why so many people avoid it. One of these days, whenever I can get together enough money or land that job I’m looking at, I expect to live there. Again. My first recollections of Mexico City […]
Continue ReadingThe following extract is taken (with the author’s permission) from the English edition of Western Mexico: A Traveller’s Treasury by Tony Burton (3rd edition, Perception Press, 2001), available from Sombrero Bookss The least touristy town along the northern lakeshore, Jocotepec has a distinctive charm all of its own. The large central plaza which lies in the shadow of […]
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Felipe Avila handed me his burning candle, converting me from spectator to pilgrim in the Fiesta de Guadalupe! My arrival in Puerto Vallarta coincided with the beginning of the weeklong Fiesta de Guadalupe, Reina (queen) de México. From December 6 until December 12th, Mexicans celebrate the miracle of her appearance in 1531. On a barren hill, a beautiful […]
Continue ReadingIt never ceases to amaze me the number of American tourists who visit Mexico every year with only a thick paperback mystery novel packed away to indulge in while sunbathing on a beach. Rather than titillate the spirit with murder and intrigue, why not take along a book that will help you navigate more smoothly […]
Continue ReadingEntering a Mexico City taxi means entering the special world of cabbies – a place where two traffic lanes can swiftly become three, seatbelts generally are very few and far between, and where there appears to be very, very little change for large bills. Those who have hurtled down Insurgentes Sur or zoomed around Reforma’s glorietas while […]
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