I tell my friends that the only thing I have had stolen by Mexicans was my unwavering fealty to Canada: I have even considered living full-time in Mexico. We are approaching the border crossing about half a mile off. There are no distinctive markings to the terrain to define it. There is no checkpoint. No […]
Continue Reading
Roads in Mexico should display this warning: Use at your own risk. This country has one of the most extensive highway systems anywhere, providing convenient and indispensable connections among villages, towns and cities. In a nation where a minority of people owns automobiles, almost everybody depends on buses to get around. These vary between long […]
Continue Reading
The tehuano endlessly blows where North America stops. The tehuano, the unforgiving forever wind of the Isthmus of Tehauntepec, ceaselessly scours a path through the wide gap where the continent of North America ends and Central America starts. We entered this maelstrom upon leaving Highway 200 and departing the State of Oaxaca on one of our journeys to […]
Continue ReadingMany of the things we take for granted today didn’t exist in the last century. A case in point is the railroad from Manzanillo to Guadalajara. The grand celebrations for the inauguration of this line, completed in 1908, were among the finest ever seen in Colima. The Mexican President of the time, Porfirio Diaz, attended […]
Continue Reading
Visitors – even those who come regularly – will always find something they haven’t seen before by taking long strolls in Guadalajara’s mansion area. Hungry? That’s where the best restaurants are. Blossoming out in bright yellows, whites, greens and even a few blues, the area sparkles monthly with recent changes. Old homes suddenly become visible […]
Continue ReadingFor an exotic place and a surprising destination, I strongly recommend The Instituto Cientifico de Na Bolom, the Scientific Institute of Na Bolom (House of the Tiger). It is located in the State of Chiapas, 8000 feet high in the breathtaking mountains. It was established in the ironically-named San Cristobal de Las Casas, the fastest growing […]
Continue Reading
High in the mountain cloud forest of Chiapas, nestled within a bowl of hills, lies the ancient Colonial city of San Cristobal de Las Casas. For some 500 years it has pursued its own destiny, isolated from the world as if on a different planet. Through the ages, it has retained its distinctive Spanish Colonial […]
Continue Reading
Cogan’s Reviews This one is a little different from your usual travel adventure in that the people involved set out with the definite intention of “roughing it.” And they seem such an unlikely pair. They are Michael Humfreville and his newly-wed wife, Mary Ann. The two were married in California in 1973. Both were employees […]
Continue Reading
Sometimes in the evenings, after the sun has set behind the monolith that towers over the small village of San Sebastián Bernal, ánimas, or restless souls who sleep in the small graveyard near the old chapel, rise up and move silently through the quiet streets. The ánimas mean no harm. They are just continuing their daily round – what […]
Continue Reading
The stairs that take me down hug the curves of the mine as it twists and turns. The walls are coarse with cut stone. I have followed the narrow Carretera Panoramica (Panoramic Highway) that winds up from the Colonial city of Guanajuato to La Valencia, a charming village that overlooks the broad valley where the […]
Continue Reading