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 […]
Continue ReadingJuan 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 […]
Continue ReadingOh yes, I know this column is called Inside Mexico. But if the archetype of the American writer, Samuel Clemens, wrote and published an account of the adventures of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, why can I not write about my own humble vicissitudes in the capital city of the United States? One of […]
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We possess an extraordinary account of this beautiful story, dated in the 16th century: the Nican Mopohua, written by an Indian nobleman, Don Antonio Valeriano, who was baptized and converted to Catholicism. He was a very educated man. The language he used was Náhuatl, the one the Aztecs spoke. The story is called the Nican Mopohua […]
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For the thousandth time, the automobile was stuck in the road. Damn! Things were much worse than we’d imagined. I opened the car door and stepped down to see how to get us out from the hole in which we had fallen. Not without difficulty, my wife and I managed to find enough rocks to […]
Continue ReadingLocated in the southern part of the Mexican Republic, the state of Oaxaca is bordered on the north by the states of Puebla and Veracruz, to the east by Chiapas, to the west by Guerrero, and to the south by the Pacific Ocean, comprising 95,364 square kilometers. The great valleys of the state are located […]
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Orchid. This sole word conjures up all that is beautiful, exotic, rare. An aura of fascination has always encircled this extraordinary plant family. Its cultivation is considered something esoteric and difficult. Not so. In a climate as the one we enjoy in Guadalajara and surrounding areas, to maintain a healthy and productive orchid collection is a […]
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One day Mary and I decided to go to the nearby town of Tequila where, of course, they make tequila. There’s a train you can take from Guadalajara to Tequila on Saturdays. Lots of tourists do this. I’d read articles in guidebooks that described whole groups of people getting stone cold drunk during drinking contests. […]
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Part 1: The America’s Oldest Urban Center Having reached Monte Alban and entered the site, on your right as you stand at the corner of the main plaza is the North Platform, the site of the Zapotec king’s residence and the temples of the nobility. Wandering around the hillside behind the North Platform, you will […]
Continue Reading The warm afternoon breeze wafts a gentle mist of dust across the floor of the Oaxaca valley and into Oaxaca city, softening the colonial patina of the richly carved, 300-year-old cathedral. The dust is two thousand years old, the dust of Monte Alban, the first major city in the Americas. Now a ghost city, Monte […]
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