As vertical shafts go, this is a seriously deep one! Long considered to be “bottomless” since no-one had ever managed to find the floor, we now know it is precisely 335 meters (1099 feet) deep, making it the deepest water-filled sinkhole anywhere on the planet. The El Zacatón sinkhole is on El Rancho Azufrosa, near […]
Continue ReadingIt’s the impact that the storms have on electricity that is stunning, both while the skies are thundering and for perhaps 12 hours after the last bolt of lightning has illuminated the cerros. From May until well past summer’s end, Oaxaca can be subject to extreme weather patterns. While we’ve all experienced torrential downpours and damaging […]
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Petr Myska probably didn’t think that the book he was writing would be threatened with extinction even before some of the species that were featured in his publication. Myska’s work was published in 2007 as A Field Guide to the Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds and Mammals of Western Mexico. In short form, it is known as “Viva Natura.” […]
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Peculiar, but true. There are several lakes named Laguna Encantada (Enchanted Lake) in Mexico, but this one is near Catemaco in the Tuxtlas region of the state of Veracruz. Catemaco is famous for its witches, so perhaps one of them cast a spell on the lake, making it behave perversely, its level changing in opposition […]
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Mexico’s famous Te-Amo cigar comes from Sihuapan, near Catemaco, Veracruz. The producer — Turrent, Nueva Matacapan Tabacos, S.A. de C.V. — takes its name from the owner, Alberto Turrent, the fifth generation of the cigar manufacturing family. I’m a cigar aficionado myself, and I had the pleasure of talking with Alberto Turrent at length. During […]
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For a while I’ve been asking myself how it’s possible that I keep finding new natural wonders to write about after 25 years of living near Guadalajara. So, one day I sat down with a map and drew a circle around the city, with a radius of about 250 kilometers, nicely encompassing many of the […]
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Approximately twenty-five years ago I heard rumors of some curious geological formations hidden high in the hills above the town of Ahualulco de Mercado, which is located about 58 kilometers west of Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city. “There are giant stone balls up there,” I was told, “perfectly round and lying in a great bed of […]
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This seems like a good time of year to talk about the culinary specialties of Guerrero, the Mexican state whose coastline is home to some of the country’s most popular winter resorts, including Acapulco and Zihuatenejo. Chilly northerners flock to their beaches to enjoy sunbathing, water sports, and the area’s abundant seafood. But although the […]
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The Volcán de Fuego In the past 400 years, the Volcán de Fuego (aka Volcán de Colima) has been the most active volcano in Mexico, and indeed one of the most active in the world, having erupted at least 30 times since 1576. It is considered to be one of the country’s most dangerous volcanoes. […]
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Note: This article is an edited extract from chapter 6 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico, by Richard Rhoda and Tony Burton (Sombrero Books, 2010). Though parts of northern Mexico are arid, the country as a whole receives an average of 760 mm of precipitation a year (slightly over 30 in). This is a considerable […]
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