It was an evening to remember. The final chorus of Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” bombarded the barren shore, the vocal crescendos punctuated by nature’s own rhythm section: the waves crashing on Zicatela beach. Off in the distance, scattered among the sand dunes of this world famous Mexican surfing “pipeline,” huge bonfires spewed Stygian sparks high […]
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During the heyday of westerns, films showed cowboys riding through the Great Sonoran Desert from Arizona to what is now the State of Sonora in Mexico. The desert is still there and so are the cowboys. Sonora is Mexico’s wild west. In some ways, it reflects the Old Mexico of the by-gone days of yesteryear. […]
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Staying at a Mexican hacienda hotel is like being transported back in time. The casa principal or main house usually stands before an elegant garden ablaze with purple bougainvillea and red flamboyant. The perfume of orchids fills the air. At some haciendas a massive brick aqueduct arches above and through its arches flows a cerulean blue swimming […]
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“There is a sensitive filament in our beings, which responds to Mexican music…. To the sight of a horse well ridden, to the spectacle of a bull skillfully lassoed…. All of us, absolutely all of us, share the national feeling for horsemanship.” José Alvarez del Villar Bill, my husband, answered the phone and handed it […]
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How well can a person understand a culture not their own? Can experiences be understood without full command of the Spanish language; a language in which civility is interwoven like lace? With these questions I return again and again to Mexico. Invited to sit “down at the table,” I’m gradually getting to know the people […]
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¿Te gustan los toros?” asked eleven-year-old Maggie. Her eyes scanned my face looking for a yes. Did I like the bulls? A bullfight? I flinched at the thought. Earlier during the week, I’d jumped at my young friend’s invitations to enjoy all events at La Fiesta de Virgen de Guadalupe. But now, visions of bloody bulls […]
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As the evening mass ended, the huge colonial doors of Santa Maria Magdalena swung open. People swarmed down the church stairs into the plaza. I moved along with the crowd to a wrought iron bench. The small town plaza was alive with color and movement. Shadows flickered across the white curlicues on the kiosko or bandstand. Lights […]
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Gold-colored walls line the main street through Santa María del Oro, Nayarit. Bumping along the cobblestones in our camper-van, we are following in the footsteps of the Spanish conquistadors. In 1504, the nephew of Hernán Cortés, Franciso Cortés de San Buenaventura came here, in search of gold. In 1530, the renegade conquistador, Nuño Beltrán de […]
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Ahhhh. Oohhh. Awww. Mmmmmm.” These are the sounds most often heard as bathers first step into a warm mineral pool. More and more North Americans are discovering the pleasures and benefits of soaking in mineral baths, as they seek cures for rheumatism, arthritis, and a multitude of other ailments. But the Mexicans have known the […]
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There is no buzzing lobby. No long formidable hotel desk. No jostling line of people waiting to check in and out. Instead, there is the Hacienda’s Concierge desk, set in the open-air reception terrace, amidst stunning Old Mexico architecture and looking out on the almost unbelievably beautiful azure waters of the Sea of Cortez. And, […]
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