The first town you drive through heading west from Guadalajara on Highway 15 is La Venta del Astillero, centuries ago a major source of lumber for construction projects in the City of Roses and today apparently no more than a set of speed bumps along the road to Nogales … apparently.

A few days ago I had the pleasure of accompanying students and teachers of the Waldorf-de-Guadalajara school on a visit to the archaeological site of Teuchitlán. By the end of the day, all of us felt that the experience had been both educational and enjoyable, so I will outline our program for readers who have never seen the ruins or who aren’t aware of the latest developments at the site.

After publishing several articles on Tequila’s extraordinary 170-meter-high Los Azules Waterfalls, I was soon receiving requests from people interested in seeing this wonder for themselves. The only problem was, I had less than perfect information on how to get there, so I decided it was time to revisit the falls with a few hardy friends in order to familiarize myself with the access trail.

Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city, happens to be situated right next to a beautiful pine and oak forest covering more than 36,000 hectares. For as long as anyone can remember, el Bosque de la Primavera has been referred to as “Guadalajara’s lung” and in 1980, when big-time development plans threatened the woods, the entire forest, whether publicly or privately owned, was declared a Protected Area and Wildlife Refuge.

It’s 7 a.m. at Rancho El Zapote. The air is full of early morning sounds. Loudest of all are the roosters who live only meters from my tent and have been trying to wake me up since 4 a.m. Then come the chickens, a very large pig and dozens of loudly mooing cows, one of which wears a clanking bell, indicating that she is the leader of the herd. Suddenly I hear the distant and repeated gurgle of a car engine which doesn’t want to start, accompanied by incomprehensible shouts of men who, I’m sure, are crowded around an uncooperative truck. Finally, varoom, varoom, va-ROOOOOM! The deafening attempts to start the car go on forever and I decide it’s time to get out of my sleeping bag and into my caving pants. Today we are going to visit La Cueva de los Monos (Cave of the Figurines), which can only be reached after a long, hard climb up a steep mountainside above the little town of Toxin, which is located 37 kilometers northwest of Colima City. The cave is so named, I understand, because local people claim they found artifacts inside.

A month ago we briefly stopped to peek at Amor Corazón, a most unusual Restaurant not far from Tapalpa. Inside we found decorative two-headed snakes wound around columns, “thrones” straight out of Lord of the Rings and a fascinating mural with figures made of wine bottles and shiny glass balls. “Shades of Gaudí,” we said; “Who created all this?”