Columns

Not long ago I discovered that Mexico’s most famous modernizer (and most infamous dictator), Porfirio Díaz, used to enjoy soaking in his own personal hot-spring pool at the foot of Mazatepec Volcano, located 25 kilometers southwest of Guadalajara. “Yes,” a local old timer told me, “he actually deviated the Guadalajara-Manzanillo railroad track (which he inaugurated in 1908) so it would pass by here. He even had a train station built here just so he could go for a swim in this pool”

I live in the little community of Pinar de la Venta, located on the edge of the Primavera Forest, eight kilometers west of Guadalajara. Local politics have always been a mystery to me, so I wasn’t terribly surprised when we were left high and dry all last week.

“I’m organizing a hike to La Piedra Balanceada de Juanacatlán,” announced Mario Guerrero. “It is so short and easy that even my wife is going to go.”

I passed this news around to lots of friends, most of whom decided to pass, commenting that too many of Mario’s “short-n-easy” hikes had proved just a wee bit too long-n-hard for their taste.

I, of course, took the bait, along with a few friends I could describe as “hardy hikers.”

“You’re going to love hiking with Don Pepe,” said my friend Susan Street. “He’s a school teacher in Ixcatan, but also one of the most knowledgeable persons I’ve ever met about flora, fauna and the environment.” 

A new photographic exhibit in Guadalajara showcases the struggle of activists, biologists, botanists, anthropologists – and especially ordinary people in the community – to defend and conserve the remains of a great forest which once stretched from Tesistan to the Huentitan Canyon.

I used to avoid balnearios (public swimming pools) with a passion, but recently I was invited to join a team of University of Guadalajara geographers investigating all of the hot springs around the old Primavera Caldera. To my surprise, I discovered that some balnearios have more to offer than noisy boomboxes and screaming kids.