Tag: John Pint

Mexican artist Jorge Monroy with his just-completed painting of the Bald Cypress trees along El Río de Los Sabinos, nine kilometers north of Lake Chapala.Mex © John Pint, 2011

The watercolors and murals of Mexican painter Jorge Monroy

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“In the paintings of Jorge Monroy we see the hand of a master, the expression of an artist, a cultivated talent forged by the hammers of study, constancy, dedication and creative energy.” Godofredo Olivares Jorge Monroy’s art is well known in Mexico because his charming watercolors have appeared every week in the newspaper El Informador for more […]

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The valleys of El Tecuane and Santa Rosa in Jalisco are filled with fields of blue agaves (Tequilana weber azul), which appear as lakes from a distance. This portion of the Mexican countryside was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006. © John Pint, 2010

Did tequila originate in the Mexican town of Amatitan, Jalisco?

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All the world has been told that tequila, the drink was born in Tequila — the town located 45 kilometers northwest of Guadalajara — but is this really a fact? Curiously, the famed Tequila Express train has, for years, been carrying tourists straight to a small town called Amatitán, and not to Tequila at all. […]

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John Pint with one of the smaller Piedras Bola. Megaspherulites have been found in a few other places in the world, but none are as large as those near Ahualulco, Mexico, some of which are nearly 10 meters in diameter. © John Pint, 2009

Las Piedras Bola: the great stone balls of Ahualulco

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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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Hugo's Heavenly Pool on Mexico's Rio Zarco is scenic enough to be used as a movie backdrop. Tala, near Guadalajara, is a wonderland of natural scenery. © John Pint, 2011

Tala, Jalisco: A thousand-year-old Mexican city inside a geological wonderland

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Tala is a small town located 30 kilometers due west of Guadalajara and best known for its large, government-operated sugar refinery, infamous for being the major polluter of Lake La Vega. Two thousand years ago, however, Tala was the residential district of a large metropolis with a population of some 60,000 people. “Most likely,” says […]

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The monumental architecture seen at Mexico's Guachimontones archeological site is based on concentric circles, a style no other civilization on earth has ever adopted. © John Pint, 2009

Guachimontones: unearthing a lost world near Teuchitlan, Jalisco

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Just outside the unassuming little town of Teuchitlán, Jalisco, 40 kilometers due West of Guadalajara, lies one of the most impressive archeological sites in all of western Mexico. However, the first time I saw it — in 1985 — I was anything but impressed. “Where’s the pyramid?” my friends and I asked a local farmer, […]

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