A few months ago I received an email request from a small town in Texas. The writer Ray and his fiance wanted my guidance in celebrating the Day of the Dead. My answer was – celebrate it in your own way. After all, the customs for the Days of the Dead: November 1 – Dia de […]
Continue ReadingWhen the Zapotec weaver Gaspar Chavez drove more than 1000 kilometers from Teotitlan del Valle in Oaxca to return to the Ajijic area he had an unpleasant surprise. He set up his handwoven wool rugs hanging on ropes between trees in the grass area bordering the highway in front of El Torito market in La […]
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A fishin’ we will go, a fishin’ we will go; hi, ho, the merry-o, a fishin’ we will go. Second son Gary came to the west end of Lake Chapala, to the suburbs of Jocotepec, in the colorful state of Jalisco, for a winter holiday, free food and probably an inspection of his aging parents’ […]
Continue ReadingSooner or later, everyone in Mexico encounters La Llorona, The Woman Who Wails. It is known that stories about La Llorona dated back to the time of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico. Some say she is older than the Aztecs, old as despair itself. Legends are often a mix of history and imagination. Real events combine with the […]
Continue ReadingRecollections of stunning ruins, fantastic snorkelling, exquisite food and friendly people. The Yucatan is unlike any other region of Mexico. It has unique terrain, climate, cuisine and people. The entire peninsula once lay as a giant coral reef underneath the warm Caribbean Sea. The formation of this unusual rocky landscape can be witnessed by a […]
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Lightning is with us all the summer. It forks and it shimmers and it zips, and sometimes it pulsates for seconds on end. It is white and yellow and greenish and bluish and carnation pink. It has given rise to legends. They say that, in the seventeenth century, the storms in Guadalajara were so severe […]
Continue ReadingOne of my readers asked me to describe a typical day here in the Lake Chapala area of Mexico. Others have asked, “What do you do all day?” So, I am inviting you to spend this day with me in the charming colonial village of Ajijic. Only my screen doors are closed so I can […]
Continue ReadingAfter having read an article in the local Guadalajara Reporter by a man who retired in Sayula, some friends and I decided to check it out. It’s a nice-sized town with a population of about 200,000, located about 1-1/2 hours from Ajijic towards Colima. The central plaza is large and full of benches and shade […]
Continue ReadingOn April 1st, I bought a new condo as a rental. That should have been a warning. Fool! If you’ve been reading my columns you know what I went through to gut out my own house and rebuild it, and you’ve read some of the problems of remodeling that I’m in the midst of. Buying […]
Continue ReadingWhatever it is, it’s been three years in incubation. Over the course of these years I’ve often mentioned my book, my interviewees, my agent, my excitement and my depression over the labor of my first non-fiction book, Midlife Mavericks: Women Reinventing Their Lives in Mexico. I was lucky enough to find a well-reputed agent in New […]
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