The inhabitants of the village of Oconahua, Jalisco, have a secret. A thousand years ago, their pueblito, located 75 kilometers west of Guadalajara, was a grand city covering 500-600 hectares, and their ancestors ruled all of western Mexico from a magnificent edifice covering 15.6 square kilometers and today known as El Palacio de Ocomo. Archeologist […]
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During twenty-four years of reconnoitering the highways and byways of western Mexico, I have never come across a road as rewarding as the 53-kilometer stretch from Tala to San Marcos in the state of Jalisco. This road is marked as Jalisco Highway 4 on many maps, but beware: you might also find it labeled highway […]
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Soaking wet and covered with mud, we followed the narrow underground stream deeper and deeper into the cave until we found ourselves standing about three meters above a pool of undetermined depth. The thick, dark liquid in the pool was composed of water, bat urine and guano, and a dead rat was floating on the […]
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Beneath the high walls of an ancient crater, you glide across the placid lake in a rowboat, mesmerized. “This is surely the most peaceful place in all Mexico and definitely one of the most beautiful,” you tell yourself. But just beyond those protective crater walls rises one of the most dreaded forces of nature: an […]
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Halfway between Guadalajara and Lake Chapala in Western Mexico, lies little Lake Cajititlan. Although the lake produces great quantities of fish, you’ll have a hard time finding a seafood restaurant along its shores. In fact, most of the fish caught here end up being served to hungry customers of the many restaurants on nearby Lake […]
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In 1916, the Amparo Mining Company had the most successful silver mines in Jalisco and was making money hand over fist. Although it was located pretty much in the middle of nowhere, 65 kilometers due west of Guadalajara near the town of Etzatlan, rumors abound that a bustling community of some 6,000 souls once lived […]
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Isla Isabel is located 34 kilometers (21 miles) off Mexico’s west coast. It is a National Park and wildlife refuge with a population of some 42,000 birds and, in 2003, was named a World Heritage Site. On top of that, Isabel Island is a Ramsar site (wetlands of international importance). Because the birds and iguanas […]
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The Primavera Forest is a protected area of oak and pine trees covering over 36,000 hectares, located due west of Guadalajara, Mexico’s second largest city. In 2010, the administrators of the forest published Aves del Bosque La Primavera-Guía Ilustrada (Illustrated Guide to the Birds of the Primavera Forest) by Oscar Reyna Bustos. Nature photographer Jesús Moreno described […]
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In most places, a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, but not in many parts of Jalisco’s Primavera Forest, located at the western edge of Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-biggest city. In this woods, a person trying to take a shortcut to some spot only 100 meters away may suddenly find himself or herself […]
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Driving up the long rise into Mineral de Pozos, framed by the gray-brown humpbacked mountains once laced with veins of silver and gold, the visitor first sees the stone walls of the cemetery, the panteón, before he enters the town. It seems like a fitting introduction to a city that nearly died itself, sinking from a population […]
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