Columns

U.S. entrepreneurs called it “sisal” (because it was shipped from the port of Sisal in the state of Yucatán).  The Mayas referred to it as ki or jeniquén, and the Spaniards settled on henequén.

The popular Mexican saying “¡Ni con chochos!” hints at a cultural faith in the improbable: if something can’t be done even with the help of chochos — those tiny, sugar-based homeopathic lumps or balls — then it truly is impossible.

“Confluences” is a book you can’t possibly put down, once you start paging through it. Whether you come across photos of prairie dogs or flamingos, blue whales or blue-footed boobies, you know immediately that Guadalajara native Alejandro Prieto loves all the members of the animal kingdom.

Beneath the soil of Jalisco lies one of the world’s greatest treasures of volcanic glass—obsidian. Amazingly, evidence shows that people were working this natural glass here more than 10,000 years ago, says local archaeologist Rodrigo Esparza.

In 1992, archaeologist Phil Weigand published sketches of several circular pyramids and a ball court he had found in the hills above Santa Rosalía, eight kilometers north of Etzatlán. 

For many years, my interest in finding caves took me to remote nooks and crannies of Western Mexico. While traveling through the backwoods, we would again and again come upon natural wonders known only to local ranchers.