Henry Wadsworth Longfellow waxed poetic about the bronze bells of San Blas without seeing or hearing them. These less eloquent westwords are about the bugs of San Blas, a very up-close and much too-personal accounting with scars as proof of participation. From a distance, San Blas is just another beach town, in the state of Nayarit, on […]
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A genuine Mexico love story lives in a big, beautiful home behind a high wall in Tzurumutaro, a not-much-to-it community adjoining Patzcuaro in the remarkable state of Michoacan. Back at the turn of the century, Marta Palomares, daughter of a doctor, was a dedicated career woman, a civil engineer employed by the federal government, a […]
Continue ReadingReal life is sometimes stranger than fiction. We stopped for late lunch at Octopus Garden in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, once an old fishing village a few feet uphill from the beautiful Bay of Banderas. The lasagna needed help but the ambiance was superb – classy courtyard with fountain, showplace wooden tables and chairs, slivers […]
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For some, illegal immigration is a simple equation, what you risk for what you get. Luis Alberto Martinez Gomez became an illegal immigrant four years ago. He was 16. “Everybody was on their way to the U.S.” He had shallow roots in Tepic, four years until his parents divorced. After that, his mother moved around. […]
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If man’s best friend is really a dog, Nick Lampiris is richly blessed. He has 37. Many colors, sizes and ages, pleasantly healthy, tails wagging, happy bounce to their steps. Some were hungry orphans. Some were rescued from the streets, before or after contact. Some were rejects from weary owners. Some were handed off by […]
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Larry Herman never expected to live this long. He made no financial provisions for old age. At 69, he and his best friend Lynda, 65, escaped subsidized senior housing in Savannah, Ga., by going back to work. They got away from wheelchairs, walkers and the sadness of people waiting to die. Alas, they soon discovered […]
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I have waited and waited, patiently seven-eighths of the time. After all these years, after a hundred and a half MexConnect columns about Mexico, most of them favorable, I have not yet been invited into the Order of the Aztec Eagle. Past presidents of this colorful country could have done it with a wave of […]
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MexConnect magazine readers ask good questions. They deserve at least interesting answers. Question: What is an afilador de cuchillo? Answer: I saw one not long ago. There was a new whistle in the neighborhood. Curiosity caused me to go to the gate and see what was causing the sound. It was anafilador, a knife sharpener, working the […]
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Robert Nelson’s Boomers in Paradise: Living in Puerto Vallarta, profiles fourteen “baby boomers” who now reside in Puerto Vallarta, The book, though, will be of interest to any expatriate (or would-be expatriate) whether or not they live in Vallarta. Nelson has lived in the “Jewel of the Mexican Riviera” for six years. As he eased himself into […]
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San Miguel de Allende: A Place in the Heart – Expatriates Find Themselves Living in Mexico By John Scherber Outskirts Press, Inc., 2010 Available from Amazon Books: Paperback I like to read about the daily lives of ordinary people, why they live where they do, what they do with their days, how place — sometimes new place — affects them, […]
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