The arch at the entrance to the city of Catemaco says “Escape to Paradise!” Catemaco is both a town and a lake in the region known as Los Tuxtlas, in southern Veracruz state. The area is very green and wet, much of it covered by jungle. The Gulf of Mexico is nearby, and the area […]
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Exvoto is a Spanish word meaning votive offering. My English dictionary says that the word comes from the Latin, meaning “out of a promise or vow” and that these votive offerings are given or dedicated in fulfillment of a vow or pledge, or expressing a wish, desire, or vow. In Mexico, an exvoto is most commonly a personal […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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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Coyote doesn’t offer a word to guide us through this mysterious and arduous process. He leaves us to our own world, to our private vision quest. The sweltering heat of the lodge is suffocating. Sweat drips from my body and mixes with the earth I sit on, creating mud. The amber necklace I’m wearing begins […]
Continue ReadingToday Mary and I set out to drive completely around Lake Chapala, Mexico’s biggest lake. It’s quite an undertaking, about a 180-mile drive. Before hitting the road, we went to “Sanborns” for breakfast. I ordered my own breakfast in Spanish, asking for eggs, ham, and orange juice. This was the second time I’d tried to […]
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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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