All but forgotten and hidden away inside the little town of La Venta del Astillero can be found an ancient arch which for centuries welcomed visitors traveling to Guadalajara via the famed Camino Real (Royal Highway). 

My neighbor Richard is a hydraulic engineer with a talent for finding waterfalls. After a quick look at the area around Amatitán using Google Earth, he put his finger on the screen: “Right here there has to be a waterfall,” he declared.

In 2013 I paid my first visit to Selva Negra, the popular name for the Ahuisculco Flora and Fauna Sanctuary, located 30 kilometers southwest of Guadalajara.

“In May I’m taking a group of botany and biogeography students to El Bosque de Maples,” Professor Miguel Muñiz told me some months ago. “Would you like to come along?”

Two years ago a relative of mine had his credit cards and money stolen at Walmart by a well-dressed man who supposedly helped him clean mustard from the back of his shirt. I discovered then that “The old mustard-on-the-shirt trick” is well known to every reader of the Guadalajara Reporter, but unknown to many Mexicans, no matter how well-read they may be.

If you were to ask the average person—anywhere in the world—for the name of a Mexican cave—you would probably get in reply, “that cave with the giant crystals,” in reference to La Cueva de los Cristales connected to the Naica Mine 300 meters below the surface in Chihuahua, now celebrated thanks to extensive coverage by NatGeo and Discovery channel.