Guanajuato is, and has been for a long time, a centre of culture and education. In one way or another, it has always been prosperous, either through the richness of its farmland or its mines. There was the money to support cultural activities and the desire on the part of the rich mining families and hacendados, I […]
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The city of Guanajuato is nestled in a sort of steep basin in the Sierra Madre Mountains and spreads up around the center of the basin. Imagine a huge, terraced rice paddy such as we’ve seen in photos of Indochina. Then, imagine a city built on those terraces, a city in which there are practically […]
Continue ReadingNot long after her husband died, our friend Lila decided to leave Mexico and return to the USA. She chose Florida over her native New York. As a newly single senior, it seemed like a good place for her to pursue new horizons. At first everything seemed great. Although she deeply missed her beloved husband […]
Continue ReadingChicho gently took my hands in his, leaned in close and locked in on my eyes with a soul-penetrating gaze. “¡Qué bonitos ojos tienes, güerita!” he whispered huskily. Geez, I wondered to myself, can this be happening? Is this dark-eyed hunk really interested in me? Stringy, mousy-haired me? Hopelessly flabby-thighed me? No speak-o Spanish-o me? “¿Cuándo vamos […]
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Cogan’s Reviews I wonder what a library cataloguer will make of Jerry Hesser’s book. Is it biography? Autobiography? Is it concerned with travel? Is it history? Is it a description of modern day Mexico? Is it an attempt at a cultural commentary on this country? Or is it simply a record of one man’s efforts […]
Continue ReadingAm I richer or poorer in Mexico? I’m certainly richer in gratitude. The simple fact that everything is not as easy as it was before makes me better at appreciating what I have. When I first moved to Mexico I was scared, sad, and very, very angry. At a tippy table in a hot torta shop, I […]
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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 scattered across rural America – towns named Promise City, Gravity, and Dumas – its inhabitants bore looks of quiet desperation. Tzurumútaro was […]
Continue ReadingI always knew I’d end up in Mexico, but I didn’t know where. Mexico City holds world-class fascination, but there’s a reason even the idle rich have second homes elsewhere. Chapala had just too many gringos, amenities be damned. San Miguel de Allende struck me as full of artistes etching, sculpting, and writing odes to […]
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Juan Mata Ortíz is a small village of potters, farmers and cowboys in Northern Chihuahua. About 30 years ago, an unschooled artistic genius, Juan Quezada, taught himself how to make ollas, earthenware jars, by a method used hundreds of years ago by the prehistoric inhabitants. Now, his works are known worldwide and over 300 men, women and […]
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Juan Mata Ortíz is a small village of potters, farmers and cowboys in Northern Chihuahua. About 30 years ago, an unschooled artistic genius, Juan Quezada, taught himself how to make earthenware jars in a method used hundreds of years ago by the prehistoric inhabitants. Now, his works are known worldwide and over 300 men, women […]
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