Cabo Pulmo on Baja California Sur's Sea of Cortés has several competing dive shops, with similar priced offerings and confusingly similar names.

Cabo Pulmo: from beaches and baskets to mines, music and marine park (part two)

To Part 1 Cabo Pulmo We arrive in Cabo Pulmo as the sun is setting, relieved to finally find the end of the initially paved, then dirt access road, which has been bounded by barbed wire ever since we caught our last clear views of the coast near La Ribera. At intervals behind the barbed […]

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Windsurfers at La Ventana, an hour's drive southeast of La Paz, Baja California Sur on the Gulf of Cortés.

Part one – La Paz and El Triunfo: from beaches and baskets to mines, music and marine park

To Part 2 La Paz La Paz was almost unrecognizable. I’d enjoyed the small town atmosphere when I first visited it in 1980 but it now has the big city pretensions that I find far less appealing. Despite my reservations, the family enjoyed several days in La Paz in December 2007, wandering about the downtown […]

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Former Jesuit College Tepotzotlán, State of Mexico

Did you know? Mexico has more World Heritage sites than any other country in the Americas

The status of World Heritage site is a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) denomination. The status is conferred on selected sites under the terms of “The Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage”, adopted at UNESCO’s 17th General Conference in November 1972 and subsequently ratified by 186 member […]

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The following morning after a campfire breakfast, the group breaks camp and prepares for another long hike.

Pilgrimage from San Miguel de Allende to San Juan de los Lagos in 1967

Founded in 1542, San Juan de los Lagos is set in the Los Altos region of Jalisco, an area distinguished by its devotion to the Roman Catholic faith. The Cathedral there is home to the diminutive image of the Virgin of the Immaculate Concepcion. Since 1623, numberless miracles have been attributed to the little Virgin, […]

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Oaxaca's zócalo, with facade of presidential palace in background, is a pleasant place to spend the afternoon. © Dan Ellsworth, 2009

Eight surprises from a senior year abroad in Oaxaca, Mexico

In college I fantasized about a junior year in Paris and, even after having children, I concocted schemes to move us all overseas. Only after the children left home, however, did I finally seize the day and talk my husband and myself into a “senior” year abroad. My husband took early retirement, and I left […]

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Architecture of Mexico: the houses of Luis Barragan

Architecture of Mexico: the houses of Luis Barragan

From the book “CASA MEXICANA” ©1989 Tim Street-Porter, published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, New York. Reproduced by special permission of the publisher and author. Photographs by Tim Street-Porter © Barragan Foundation, Switzerland / ProLitteris, Zurich, Switzerland Luis Barragán was born in Guadalajara in 1902 of a prosperous, aristocratic family, and grew up on a large […]

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The Coastal Architecture of Mexico:

Architecture of Mexico: coastal architecture

From the book “CASA MEXICANA” ©1989 Tim Street-Porter, published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, New York. Reproduced by special permission of the publisher and author. The climatic contrast between Mexico’s high-altitude cities on the Central Plateau and the coastal resorts which line the Pacific Coast is dramatic. A quick thirty minute flight on Mexicana transports the […]

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Xalapa, Veracruz

Xalapa, Veracruz: city of flowers

Here’s a place for retirees and snowbirds to seriously consider. I previously extolled the charms of Morelia and wondered aloud why there weren’t more ex-pats living there. After continuing our tour of several colonial cities throughout Central Mexico I’m even more puzzled as to why Xalapa hasn’t become more of a permanent residence for Americans […]

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