Virtue - book cover

Did You Know? Famous artists pioneer art community in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

A young couple who became famous artists pioneered the San Miguel de Allende foreign community. San Miguel de Allende’s vibrant art and music scene is deservedly famous. Among the early pioneers responsible for this are two Canadian artists: Leonard and Reva Brooks. John Virtue’s book about the couple, subtitled Artists in Exile in San Miguel […]

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Map from “El Fuerte en la Historia” by Lic. Roberto Balderrama Gómez (undated)

El Fuerte in Sinaloa, Mexico, was once the capital of Arizona

Prior to the founding of San Juan de Carapoa (later renamed El Fuerte de Montesclaros) by Francisco de Ibarra in 1564, relatively little is known of the early Indian peoples living in the Fuerte valley. They probably harvested wild plants, farmed small gardens, fished and hunted for their survival. They appear to have had few […]

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Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato

Dolores Hidalgo – a beautiful Mexican colonial city

Dolores Hidalgo Yesterday. . . On the night of September 15, 1810, Miguel Hidalgo y Costillo, the 57-year-old parish priest of Dolores, and Ignacio Allende learned that their plans for insurrection against Spain had been discovered. They decided to act immediately and soon after dawn the next morning, September 16, Padre Hidalgo delivered his now […]

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The traditional Maya sweatlodge in Chiapas: Temazcal and Xun

San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, where I chose to live five years ago, is a city time almost forgot. Situated in the highland valley of Jovel at an elevation of 2,100 meters, it’s a city mingling future and past. As the gateway to mountainous communities, more indigenous than mestizo, it’s a city where ancient […]

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The Pyramid of Kukulkan, Chichen Itza. Photo by Tony Burton

Did you know? Mayan architects built world’s oldest sound recordings

Modern sound recordings usually involve tiny disks which can hold dozens of tracks, specially designed to be easily portable and convenient. The Maya may have had different priorities. David Lubman has proposed that the earliest sound recording so far discovered on the planet may well be the main pyramid at Chichen Itza in the Yucatan. […]

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