The hostel market is booming in Guadalajara, and around Mexico in general as the country warms up to a concept that was born 100 years ago in Germany. Hostels differ from their older, more famous cousins, hotels, in a number of ways. Whereas guests in a hotel might interact with the reception desk and with room service by telephone, the whole design of the hostel encourages guests to interact with each other and promotes cultural exchange and activities in the city.

With their ancestral homeland in danger of destruction at the hands of a Canadian mining company, the indigenous Huichol people used their annual pilgrimage to stage a rally in defense of their sacred territory last week.

Whether you spend it rapt in the duress of passion, wrapped in the familiarity of protracted wedlock, teaching young ones the ritual of surprise, sequestered in the immediacy of great company, tending a secret infatuation, or drunk and desolately alone, Valentine’s Day (Tuesday, February 14) provides an impetus to get out and do something to shake up the routines that are already settling back in after the holidays. Here are some suggestions for the special someone(s) in your life on that particular day.

Imagine a whisky-soaked motorcycle ride to Bourbonville, U.S.A. or a snowy voyage to Vodkagrad in Russia. The Jose Cuervo Express is the Mexican equivalent, but this is no mere fantasy.

Communications and entertainment companies have been merging services for the last few decades, so that now, whosoever provides multi-channel television service is also likely to provide high-speed internet and the basic fixed telephone line. In Guadalajara the options can be confusing because so many service providers bury details of pricing structure or service options on their websites, and making the journey to the various service centers to wait in line for the rundown is exactly the opposite of thrilling.

Blurring the lines between infiltrating and aiding organized crime, U.S. drug-enforcement agents have been supplying Mexican cartels with arms and helping them launder millions of dollars of drug money. In recent months the U.S. government has even been accused of protecting and turning a blind eye to the dealings of the world’s most wanted drug lord by a senior member of his organization.