December 5, 2018, San Francisco Island,Baja California Sur.  This island is notable for its high, barren, rocky walls “with a trail going up to the top.” We had arrived yesterday through a very choppy sea, but this morning the surface is as smooth as glass and I get what I hope will be a magnificent picture of sunrise – dawn, actually – through my porthole.

December 3, 2018. Los Islotes Island, Baja California.  We are anchored at the sea lion rookery of Los Islotes, 820 kilometers northwest of Guadadalaja. I am a guest of my neighbor in Zapopan, Richard Gresham, aboard his 51-foot sloop, the good ship “God’s Way.”

Mention the words “ataque de abejas” (bee attack) to anyone living in rural Mexico and for the next half hour you will surely be regaled with story after story about relatives and friends whose brush with bees ended either miraculously well or tragically bad.

The construction of the Macrolibramiento (Guadalajara’s outer ring road) was presented to the public as a way of reducing traffic through the metropolitan area by forcing semis, trucks and buses to bypass the city.

I recently spent a night at the beautiful crater lake of Santa María del Oro. Along the way, I convinced my fellow travelers that we should stop at the archaeological site of Ixtlán del Río, which is located 100 kilometers northwest of Guadalajara in the state of Nayarit, and is conveniently situated just off Highway 15, the toll road to Puerto Vallarta and Tepic.

“I read about Don Eleno’s obsidian workshop on your web page (Ranchopint.com) and would like to visit it next month. I’m a U.S.-based industrial designer, originally from Belarus.”