Visiting the Spanish Colonial cities of Mexico is almost like traveling back in time. Narrow cobblestone streets wind between buildings, facades, and stately old mansions that date back three hundred years or more. There are beautiful plazas, parks, and soaring cathedrals, all of similar vintage, and most of it is wonderfully well preserved and maintained, a source of considerable pride for the residents of these historic towns, and, truly, for all of Mexico. The modern infrastructure, and most of the 21st century conveniences that might otherwise spoil the ambiance, all that is tucked into existing spaces, and kept low-key, a discrete form of almost-camouflage:

It would be easy to imagine yourself walking those same streets in the Mexico of the 17th or 18th century, especially through the historic central neighborhoods of these older cities, places that were already well-established and thriving before the Pilgrims so much as set sail on the Mayflower. Easy to imagine that earlier time, I should say, if it wasn’t for the constant stream of cars, trucks, and lumbering buses clogging the mostly one-way streets (streets that were designed for horses and carriages) and tangling the intersections into impassable knots of horn-bleating traffic:

You can’t get away from the modern world simply by walking among old buildings, but these colonial gems have a character and a vitality that most definitely dates to a bygone era. The hard core colonials are the cities whose classic architecture is their predominant feature, and a big part of their civic identity. Several of them, such as San Miguel de Allende and Campeche, are classified as UNESCO World Heritage Sites and are literally protected by international treaty. There’s a strong incentive to keep all that going, at least to outward appearances, so from a visual perspective, those places have scarcely changed at all in all the centuries that have passed since their founding. The rest of modern Mexico is just like modern anywhere else: steel and glass, freeways and sprawl, McDonald’s and Subway, Walmart and Home Depot, but of course it’s still very much the third world, so the shiny, new, fancy stuff is generally surrounded by–um–not so fancy stuff.

It helps when they block vehicles from entering the heart of the city center, as they’ve done in this scene from San Miguel de Allende. (Click for an expanded view).

You’ll find examples of the old Mexico in every part of the country–even the most modern, upscale Mexican cities tend to have a historic center, an “old town”–but this article will focus on three in particular, places that I passed through on my recent tour of the Yucatan and southern Mexico. Mérida and Campeche, both on the Yucatan Peninsula, and San Cristobal de Las Casas, high in the mountains of the state of Chiapas.  All three of these locations proved to be such an unexpected pleasure, and the photographic opportunities were superb! I mentioned that visiting Mexico’s Colonial cities is like traveling back in time? That went double for me personally. It had been more than forty years since I’d traveled in that very different world lying south of the U.S. border, and I had no idea what to expect. I was afraid that all the charm would be gone–modernized, homogenized, bearing little resemblance to my youthful memories. But I needn’t have worried. Aside from the traffic, which is much worse than it used to be, plus the damned cell phones that virtually every person you see is carrying around, I really could have been back in the Mexico of the 1970’s, rather than today’s Mexico of the ought-teens. In those old colonial cities, pretty much everything else is exactly the same as I remembered it, and they’ve gone to a lot of trouble to keep it that way. I felt instantly reconnected to a whole world that I’d all but forgotten–a world not just of old buildings, but a world that’s filled with music and laughter and bright colors, a world where families stroll, children smile, old men still sing for no reason, and lovers still dance in the streets by the sultry light of the tropical moon. I’m talking Festivals, Fiestas, National Holidays, Local Holidays, Saints Days, along with pretty much any day that ends in the letter Y. Sundown is all the reason anyone seems to need for a celebration, and everywhere we went, there was something going on, pretty much every night of the week, starting in:

Mérida

Mérida is the largest city in the south of Mexico, and the twelfth largest in the entire country. It’s the capital of the Estado (state) of Yucatan, with a modern day population of close to a million people. The historic center of the city radiates from the Grand Plaza, fronted by the Cathedral of San Ildefonso, the oldest cathedral in the Americas, built in the 16th century, and still in daily use:

The Catedral de San Ildefonso, oldest in the Americas, completed in 1598

Mérida is not ALL a Spanish Colonial Disneyland. Not the whole place, but it doesn’t miss that mark by much. Known as the White City, Mérida has the third largest historic center in all of the Americas, right behind Havana de Cuba, and Mexico City itself. This is a city of grand old houses, particularly along the broad boulevard known as the Paseo de Montejo:

Traffic circle on the Paseo de Montejo in Mérida, the boulevard of the henequen millionaires

In the late 19th century, there were more millionaires in Mérida than any other city in the world, thanks to a boom in “green gold”, which is what they used to call henequen, an extra large variety of the agave plant that grows in abundance in the Yucatan. Before they invented nylon, there was henequen, and the tough fiber produced from those spiny leaves was used for everything from wrapping paper to rope–especially rope. (Prior to the age of the automobile, people apparently went through one whole heck of a lot of rope).

Mérida was founded in 1542, built on the site of an existing Maya settlement known as T’hó. The ceremonial center, with five pyramids and a number of temples, had been abandoned, like all the other Maya temple complexes, long before the Spaniards arrived, but native Mayans were still living among the ruins, leading some to contend that Mérida is the oldest continuously occupied settlement in the Americas. In any case, the original Mayan structures were dismantled, and the stones recycled in early construction of the new Spanish town. Some of them can still be seen, most notably in the walls of the main cathedral:

Catredal de San Ildefonso, in Mérida. Click to expand the photo, and note the stones at the corners of the tower, recycled from the Mayan temple that stood here before the church was built.

 All of Mérida was a walled city at one point in its history. The Maya in the area weren’t always peaceful, and there were times when the white and creole settlers had to circle the wagons inside the city gates. Most notably, Merida was besieged at various times during the Caste War of the Yucatan, a bloody conflict that pitted native Mayans against non-native settlers and land owners. The fighting lasted, sporadically, for more than 50 years, from 1847 until a truce was finally called in 1901, and at one point, the portion of the Yucatan controlled by the Mayans actually split from the the rest of Mexico and formed their own Republic, just as the Texans had done, and at around the same time. (In fact, the same Mexican General, Antonio López de Santa Anna, led Mexican troops into battle against both of these rebellions) .

One of the old city gates, one of the last vestiges of the defensive wall that once surrounded the city of Mérida

In the Mérida of today, fully 60% of the population is of Mayan descent, making it the logical place to host the “International Festival of Mayan Culture”, a ten day celebration of all things Mayan, featuring everything from scholarly Mayan language seminars to costumed dance routines splashy enough to rival the stage shows in Las Vegas. The festival took place in October, which, by pure coincidence, is when we were visiting. My friend and I had just finished dinner, and we walked right into the middle of the grand finale, with no clue about what was going on. I was suddenly surrounded by beautiful girls in beautiful costumes, dancing their hearts out! And me, with no camera aside from my phone? Ah, well, the experience was something I won’t soon forget, and, truthfully? It was nice to just enjoy the spectacle for a change, without worrying about camera settings and lenses and lighting and all the rest. There was a stage on the Grand Plaza with a variety of performing artists, but the real action was in the streets. It was primal, pounding drums, conga lines of costumed dancers swirling beneath theatrical spotlights set up for the occasion, while onlookers lining both sides of the street joined in, swaying and singing and clapping hands to the beat. There were no strangers in that crowd, no locals, no tourists, everyone was as much a part of the action as everyone else. Mérida doesn’t have a monopoly on that brand of joyous contagion–but you can tell: they’ve had plenty of practice!

The ‘White City’ is a place that’s well worth a visit. There are amazing Mayan ruins nearby–that was the main attraction for me personally–but Mérida itself is a wonderful colonial city to explore, and there are goings on in the plaza almost every night of the year. (Especially on weekends).

If you’re planning to go, and you need recommendations on hotels and restaurants and the like, there’s a brief section at the bottom of this post with some links.

I should also give you some practical advice: When you’re walking around the Grand Plaza, watch out for the hucksters trying to sell you Panama hats and Guayabera shirts, because the big store on the next block that they’re all trying to steer you to overcharges like crazy!

Come to my uncle’s/cousin’s/brother’s store! He’s got the best prices on hats/hammocks/hand-rolled cigars!

Campeche

Campeche was another unexpected pleasure. We passed through it on our way to Mérida, stopping just long enough for lunch, but we made a spur of the moment decision to go back again a week or so later, and we used it as a base to explore some of the ruins that we’d missed on our first pass through the area. That turned out to be one of our better decisions. Like Mérida, Campeche is a colonial charmer. The city was founded in 1540 by Francisco de Montejo, the same busy conquistador who founded Mérida just two years later. Campeche was by far the more important of the two, particularly at first, as it has the distinction of being a port on the Gulf of Mexico. Being a port, this was one of the spots where the Spanish galleons took on cargo, most notably silver from the mines in the interior, and valuable tropical hardwoods. All that made Campeche a prime target for pirate attacks, which occurred with fearsome regularity. Constant threat of piracy prompted the construction of fortifications, in the form of a roughly hexagonal wall surrounding the old city center, more than 2500 meters in length, with eight defensive bastions–stone forts–at the corners, and astride the gates. Most of the wall and all but one of the bastions is still standing, and it’s the historic core of the city within those walls that’s of greatest interest to visitors. That’s the colonial heart of Campeche, officially designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. More than a thousand of the original buildings are still standing in Colonial Campeche–well preserved, immaculately maintained, and painted in bright pastels. Charming? Oh, yeah.

This street in the central part of Campeche is closed to automobiles, and the restaurants on either side of the road use the space for open air dining.

Just like in Mérida, they don’t seem to require a lot of provocation for holding a celebration. Our first night in the city, we heard music in the plaza, so we walked down that way, and ran smack into a folk dancing festival. Young people in traditional costume were performing a dance called the Guaranducha, in which beautiful young girls entrance young men with swirling scarves:

Folk dancing in the plaza in Colonial Campeche: La Guaranducha

Followed by a beautiful sunset over the Bay of Campeche

Followed by a light show in the plaza (the faces on the wall are projected portraits of people from the town)

And colored floodlights set the Cathedral of Campeche aglow, every night of the year.

Campeche is greatly underrated as a tourist destination, and receives but a small fraction of the visitors who descend on Cancun each year. There are marvelous old hotels in the area near the old city center. The old fortifications are fascinating, reminiscent of San Juan Puerto Rico, Havana, or Cartagena, one of my favorite cities in the world, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. And the seafood? You’ve never eaten fresh shrimp until you’ve had it in Campeche.

There are some links at the bottom of this post that will steer you to more specific information on what there is to see in Campeche, as well as information on hotels and restaurants.

San Cristobal de Las Casas

San Cristobal de las Casas, which was, at one time, the capitol of the state of Chiapas, is widely considered the prettiest of all the Colonial cities in Mexico. In 2010, then Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared it to be “the most magical of Mexico’s magical villages”. The old colonial buildings with their red tile roofs and wrought iron balconies fill the shallow bowl of a high mountain valley, covering low hills like a carpet and spreading up surrounding mountainsides that are cloaked in pine forest at the higher elevations.  Narrow, cobblestone streets follow the contours of the land, twisting and turning among centuries old buildings with walls painted pale pink and yellow, burnt orange and pastel blue.

For me, just getting to the town was an adventure, a serious, honest to god adventure. My first destination in Mexico, after driving south from the Texas border, was Palenque, a major Mayan ruin in the state of Chiapas. We’d spent three full days driving from Austin, Texas to Villahermosa, which was quite close to Palenque, less than a hundred miles. Unfortunately, on the day we tried to cover that final two-hour stretch, a rebel group known as the ELZN, the Zapatista Liberation Army, elected to stage a massive protest against the social and environmental policies of the Mexican government. The mechanism of this protest was a blockade of all the highways leading into and through the State of Chiapas, which of course included the road we needed to travel, to get where we wanted to go. I recounted the story in some detail in my post titled Mexican Road Trip: 2015so this will be more of a bare-bones version: we attempted to skirt the roadblock on the main highway by taking an alternate back road through a tiny town called Salto de Agua, (which means waterfall in Spanish). The road was absolutely terrible–we were warned by local police not to even attempt it–but I was determined, and it takes a lot to stop that Jeep of mine. We never did see the waterfall that gave the town its name. What we did see was another roadblock, this one on that primitive back road. Six young men of Mayan descent, all brandishing machetes, had a chain stretched across the way, blocking us from moving forward. After first threatening to confiscate everything I was carrying in my vehicle, the rebel leader ultimately accepted a bribe of ten Pesos (about sixty cents), and allowed us to pass. We spent a couple of days at Palenque (see my post: Palenque, for that whole story, and some beautiful pictures), and then we decided to check out San Cristobal de Las Casas before continuing on to the Yucatan.

The road between Palenque and San Cristobal de Las Casas is fairly notorious–but of course I didn’t know anything about that at the time. The distance isn’t all that great–just 130 miles, according to my map, so I figured we’d get there in a couple of hours? Ha! That highway had more curves than a sidewinder on amphetamines, and at least half of the traffic was big, lumbering trucks hauling stone and gravel up and down what had to be 15% grades. They couldn’t go much above 6 miles an hour, and passing on blind curves on a mountain road with no shoulders? That was heart-in-mouth kind of stuff–more adrenaline than I probably needed. I’d been driving as fast as I could manage–too fast, really–and after two hours we weren’t even halfway there. That’s when we ran into another Zapatista road block, this one consisting of logging trucks parked sideways across the road and a big crowd milling around. This time, there was no side road. This time, the guys manning the blockade were way too serious about their business to settle for a 60 cent bribe. While we were sitting there, contemplating what to do next, one of the truck drivers who was stopped in front of us (a local, who was likewise stuck), came over and talked to us about the situation, talked to us for quite some time. The Zapatistas grievances are entirely legitimate. It’s their methods–such as these road blocks–that most of the locals don’t agree with. The politicians who are in a position to effect positive change are not affected by the bloqueos. Local people, like this truck driver, are the only people being hurt by it, along with the occasional tourist, like myself, possibly being inconvenienced. In his view (the truck driver), the Zapatistas were giving the rest of the honest citizens of Chiapas a bad name. I commiserated, diplomatically expressed my support for the trucker’s point of view (without overtly denouncing the Zapatistas, which would not have been prudent). Then I turned my Jeep around and drove the two hours back to Palenque.

Two weeks later, after having finished a complete circuit of the Yucatan, we found ourselves back in Palenque yet again. Not to revisit the Palenque ruins–not this time. We were headed to a different Mayan ruin, a place called Bonampak, on the border with Guatemala, and the only practical way to get there was via Palenque. So we did that–took a day trip to Bonampak and back, and then, after first checking road conditions (weather was cloudy, with only a slight chance of Zapatistas), we took another run at San Cristobal de Las Casas. Even knowing what to expect, that road was something else. Between the slow trucks, the hairpin curves, and the topes (dangerously tall speed bumps, not always marked), it was impossible to make time on that stretch. It took forever just to get to the point where we were turned back the first time. There were no Zapatistas in sight–just an ordinary road junction in the middle of nowhere–so we sailed right through, with never a backward glance. I believe it took us a full five hours to travel that 130 miles, and even at such a slow speed, it was no casual cruise. On American highways, particularly the Interstates, you don’t hardly even drive. You can lock in your cruise control, and just steer–the biggest challenge is staying awake. Even our roads that pass through mountains (with some obvious exceptions) are relatively gentle. That road through the mountainous heart of Chiapas? That road was NOT gentle. After five hours of that kind of driving, I felt like I’d just run a marathon, so when we finally rolled into San Cristobal de Las Casas, it was not only much later than I expected, I was buzzing so hard it was tough to appreciate it.

At this point in the trip, we were using the Mexican version of Expedia for all of our hotel rooms, and I was getting pretty good at interpreting the listings, finding some truly outstanding accommodations at incredibly reasonable prices. Our room in San Cristobal was probably the best of the lot, and there’s no way in the world that we would have even SEEN that place without the website. Finding it, even though we had the address, was another adventure! This hotel is nowhere near any of the other hotels (and there are a LOT of hotels in San Cristobal, which depends quite heavily on tourism). This place was off on what used to be the far edge of the colonial city. It was the main house and outbuildings of what was once an actual working Hacienda, more than 200 years old, with spacious grounds and ancient trees. The area around it has been built up since those old days, but it’s low end, and already fairly old development, very much a working class neighborhood, and not at all the part of town where you’d expect to find an elegant hotel.  My friend used the android version of Google’s talking GPS, and it was all so incredibly unlikely–that thing had us driving down one-way alleys and crossing small bridges that barely had room for a car, then we turned right on to an obscure side street, drove through an arch into a long cobblestone driveway, and there it was–the Hotel Hacienda Don Juan. Just amazing:

There are several more pictures of the hotel in the photo gallery that accompanies this post. Needless to say, I was quite taken with the place! At the time, October of 2015, a double room set us back the princely sum of about $45. This is one point where I break my usual rule: this is a place that I can personally recommend, without question–though if you’re there without a car, you’ll need a taxi to take you to and from most anywhere else–it would be a bit too far to walk. The altitude of the town itself is well above 7,000 feet, so San Cristobal is always cool, and the nights can be downright chilly.

On our one night in SCDLC, there was a music festival on the main plaza:

And there were plenty of people milling about the town center:

There are interesting restaurants, trendy shops, and at least a third of the people in the town are colorfully dressed Tzotzil Indians. It’s a marvelous place to walk around, and my only regret is that we didn’t get more time there. As it was, we left first thing the next morning, so this is yet another place that I’ll just have to come back to.

***

As I mentioned in a previous post, (Mexican Road Trip: 2015), I had fairly good luck with the Mexican version of Expedia, which seemed to have a broader range of hotel choices in Mexican cities and towns than the U.S. version of that site.

(Note: all of these logos are links).

Warning: this site is en Español!

Trip Advisor is my personal mainstay for advice on tourist attractions–I like the wide range of opinions:

And for hard copy guide books, you can’t go too far wrong with Lonely Planet:

I’ve seen a few moderately negative things published about NC2 Media, the company that recently purchased Lonely Planet from the BBC–but regardless of who owns it, LP is still the world’s largest publisher of travel guides, and they’re moving aggressively into the up and coming world of up to the minute, personalized information, at your fingertips, on the spot, using your smart phone or tablet? Yup, it’s a brave new world out there. Just keep in mind–everything you read, no matter where or how you read it, is really just somebody’s opinion.  

The collage below features additional photos from Merida, Campeche, and San Cristobal.

Computer and Tablet Users: Click any photo to expand the images to full screen, with captions.

(Unless otherwise noted, all of these images are my original work, and are protected by copyright. They may not be duplicated for commercial purposes.)

READ MORE LIKE THIS: 

This is an interactive Table of Contents. Click the thumbnails to open the pages.

ON THE ROAD IN MEXICO

MEXICAN ROAD TRIP: HOW TO PLAN AND PREPARE FOR A DRIVE TO THE YUCATAN

The published threat levels are a “full-stop” deal breaker for the average tourist. That’s unfortunate, because Mexican road trips are fantastic! Yes, there are risks, but all you have to do to reduce those risks to to an acceptable level is follow a few simple guidelines.  

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Mexican Road Trip: Heading South, From Laredo to Villahermosa

When it was our turn, soldiers in SWAT gear surrounded my Jeep, and an officer with a machine gun gestured for me to roll down my window. He asked me where we were going. I’d learned my lesson in customs, and knew better than to mention the Yucatan. “We’re going to Monterrey,” I said, without elaborating.

He checked our ID’s and our travel documents, then handed them back. “Don’t stop along the way,” he advised. “You need to get off this road and to a safe place as quickly as you can!”

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Mexican Road Trip: Zapatista Road Blocks in Chiapas

“Good morning,” I said. “We’re driving to Palenque. Will you allow us to pass?”

The leader of the group, a young Mayan lad, walked up beside my Jeep, and fixed me with a menacing glare. “The road is closed,” he said, keeping his hand on the hilt of his machete. “By order of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional!”

“Is it closed to everyone?” I asked innocently. “How about if we pay a toll? How much would the toll be?”

He gave me an even more menacing glare. “That will cost you everything you’ve got,” he said gruffly, brandishing his machete, while his companions did the same.

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Mexican Road Trip: Mayan Ruins and Waterfalls in the Lacandon Jungle

The next morning, we were waiting at the entrance to the Archaeological Park a half hour before they opened for the day. We were the only ones there, so they let us through early, and I had the glorious privelege of photographing that wonderful ruin in the golden light of early morning, without a single fellow tourist cluttering my view.

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Mexican Road Trip: Merida and the Meridanos 

Merida is the largest city in southern Mexico, with a population of almost a million. Statistically, Yucatan is the safest of Mexico’s states, and Merida is widely considered the safest of all Mexico’s cities.

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Mexican Road Trip: Cancún, Tulum, and the Riviera Maya

The millions of tourists who fly directly to Cancún from the U.S. or Canada are seeing the place out of context. They can’t possibly appreciate the fact that they’re 2,000 miles south of the border; a whole country, a whole culture, a whole history away from the U.S.A. Just looking around, on the surface? The second largest city in southern Mexico could easily pass for a beach town in Florida.

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Mexican Road Trip: Circling the Yucatan, from Quintana Roo to Campeche

The Castillo at Muyil isn't huge, as Mayan pyramids go, topping out at just over 50 feet, but it’s definitely imposing. Try to imagine: the equivalent of a five story building, with a three story grand staircase, just appearing, out in the middle of nowhere? Boo-yah!

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Mexican Road Trip: Edzná, and Campeche, Where They Dance La Guaranducha

La Guaranducha, a traditional dance from Campeche, is a celebration of life, community, and the joy of existence. On stage, there was a group of young men and women in traditional dress, but it was clear that the guys were little more than props, because all eyes were on the girls. So colorful, and so elegant, hiding coyly behind their pleated, folding hand fans.

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Mexican Road Trip: Adventures Along the Puuc Route

All of these communities in the Puuc region were allied, politically, culturally, economically, and socially. The Puuc was the cradle of the Golden Age of the Maya. Labna and Sayil were among the brightest jewels in the crown of a realm that never quite coalesced into an empire.

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Mexican Road Trip: The Road to Bonampak

Rainwater seeping through the limestone walls of the temple soaked the Bonampak Murals with a mineral-rich solution that, each time it dried, left behind a sheen of translucent calcite. The built-up coating protected the paintings for more than 1200 years. As a result, we're left with the finest examples of ancient art from the Americas to have survived into our modern era.

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Mexican Road Trip: Crossing the Chiapas Highlands, to San Cristobal de las Casas

MX 199 crosses the Chiapas Highlands from Palenque to San Cristobal de las Casas. The distance is only 132 miles, but it's 132 miles of curvy mountain roads with switchbacks, steep grades, slow trucks, and villages chock-a-block with topes and bloqueos, unofficial road blocks. Everything I read, and everything I heard, described the drive as alternatively spectacular, dangerous, and fascinating, in seemingly equal measure.

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Mexican Road Trip: Cruising the Sierra Madre, from San Cristobal to Oaxaca

Today, we’d be driving as far as the city of Oaxaca, 380 miles of curves, switchbacks, and rolling hills that would require at least ten hours of our full attention, crossing the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, and entering the rugged, agave-studded landscape of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca. If you’d like to know what that was like, read on! 

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Mexican Road Trip: Flashing Lights in the Rear View: Officer Plata and La Mordida

As we drove away from the toll plaza, a State Police car that had been parked off to one side made a fast U-Turn and started following me. A moment later, he turned on his flashers and gave me a short blast on his siren, motioning for me to pull over. Two uniformed policemen got out, and approached me on the driver's side. One of them hung back, apparently checking out my license plate before making a phone call.

I wasn't sure if I was being stopped for some infraction, or if these guys were just fishing...

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Mexican Road Trip: Three Days of the Dead in San Miguel de Allende

By mid-afternoon, the Jardin was beginning to fill with people. Painted faces were literally everywhere! It was like a costume party, but the venue wasn’t some hall or other indoor space, it was the whole entire town! Mike and I were definitely getting into the spirit of the thing–but we still drew the line at the notion of painting our beards...

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Mexican Road Trip: Back to the Border: San Miguel de Allende to Eagle Pass

Saltillo was our crossroads: if we turned east here, we’d be retracing our previous route to the border at Nuevo Laredo--along the Highway of Death! This time, we knew better, so we turned north, toward Monclova, and Piedras Negras.

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Southern Colonials: Merida, Campeche, and San Cristobal

Visiting the Spanish Colonial cities of Mexico is almost like traveling back in time. Narrow cobblestone streets wind between buildings, facades, and stately old mansions that date back three hundred years or more, along with beautiful plazas, parks, and soaring cathedrals, all of similar vintage.

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San Miguel de Allende, Mexico's Colonial Gem

If you include the chilangos, (escapees from Mexico City), close to 20% of the population of San Miguel de Allende is from somewhere else, a figure that includes several thousand American retirees.

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Day of the Dead in San Miguel de Allende

In San Miguel de Allende, they've adopted a variation on the American version of Halloween and made it a part of their Day of the Dead celebration. Costumed children circle the square seeking candy hand-outs from the crowd of onlookers. It's a wonderful, colorful parade that's all about the treats, with no tricks!

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DIA DE LOS MUERTOS: A GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHS

IN THE LAND OF THE MAYA

Palenque: Mayan City in the Hills of Chiapas

Palenque! Just hearing the name conjures images of crumbling limestone pyramids rising up out of the jungle, of palaces and temples cloaked in mist, ornate stone carvings, colorful parrots and toucans flitting from tree to tree in the dense forest that constantly encroaches, threatening to swallow the place whole.

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Uxmal: Architectural Perfection in the Land of the Maya

The Pyramid of the Magician is one of the most impressive monuments I've ever seen. There's a powerful energy in that spot--maybe something to do with all the blood that was spilled on the altars of human sacrifice at the top of those impossibly steep steps--but more than any building or other structure at any ancient ruin I've ever visited, more than any demonic ancient sculpture I've ever seen, that pyramid at Uxmal quite frankly scared the hell out of me!

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The Mayan City of Edzná: First House of the Itzás

The Mayan Edzná is nothing less than epic, lyrical poetry, an extraordinary sonnet comprised of temples and palaces carved in stone that have stood, in regal grandeur, for more than a thousand years.

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Photographer's Assignment: Chichén Itzá

To get the best photos, arrive at the park before it opens at 8 AM. There will only be a handful of other visitors, and you’ll have the place practically all to yourself for as much as two hours! Take your time composing your perfect shot.There won’t be a single selfie stick in sight.

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Chichén Itzá: Requiem for the Feathered Serpent

The feathered serpent with the unquenchable thirst for blood may be gone now, or at least fallen out of favor, but as long as the ruins of this ancient city remain standing, he won’t be forgotten.

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Tulum: The City that Greets the Dawn

Tulum is not all that large, as Mayan sites go, but its spectacular location, right on the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, makes it one of the best known, and definitely one of the most picturesque. 

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Cobá and Muyil: Mayan Cities in Quintana Roo

Cobá was a trading hub, positioned at the nexus of a network of raised stone and plaster causeways known as the sacbeob, the white roads, some of which extended for as much as 100 kilometers, connecting far-flung Mayan communities and helping to cement the influence of this powerful city.

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Becan and Chicanná: Mayan Cities in the Rio Bec Style

Much about the Rio Bec architectural style was based on illusion: common elements include staircases that go nowhere and serve no function, false doorways into alcoves that end in blank walls, and buildings that appear to be temples, but are actually solid structures with no interior space.

<<CLICK to Read More!>>

The Puuc Hills: Apex of Mayan Architecture

The Puuc style was a whole new way of building. The craftsmanship was unsurpassed, and some of the monumental structures created in this period, most notably the Governor’s Palace at Uxmal, rank among the greatest architectural achievements of all time.

<<CLICK to Read More!>>

The Amazing Mayan Murals of Bonampak

Out of that handful of Mayan sites where mural paintings have survived, there is one in particular that stands head and shoulders above the rest. One very special place. Down by the Guatemalan border, in a remote corner of the Mexican State of Chiapas: a small Mayan ruin known as Bonampak.

<<CLICK to Read More!>>

This series of posts is dedicated to my old friend Mike Fritz (aka Mr. Whiskers), my shotgun rider on my Mexican Road Trip. "Drive to the Yucatan and See Mayan Ruins" was at the top of my post-retirement bucket list, right after "Drive the Alaska Highway and see Denali." We checked off the whole Yucatan thing in a major way, and Mike was a heck of a good sport about it.

Michael passed away in February of 2025, after 75 years of a life well-lived. He was unique, and he'll be missed.

Michael Fritz ("Elmo") 1949-2025

There's nothing like a good road trip. Whether you're flying solo or with your family, on a motorcycle or in an RV, across your state or across the country, the important thing is that you're out there, away from your town, your work, your routine, meeting new people, seeing new sights, building the best kind of memories while living your life to the fullest.

Are you a veteran road tripper who loves grand vistas, or someone who's never done it, but would love to give it a try? Either way, you should consider making the Southwestern U.S. the scene of your own next adventure.

A few years ago I wrote a book about road trips in Arizona and New Mexico that's a lot like this website, packed with interesting information, and illustrated with beautiful photographs. Check it out! You can find it on Amazon, and at all other major booksellers.

ALASKA ROAD TRIP:

Alaska Road Trip: Driving to the Top of the World

The rough dirt road gave way to a newly paved modern highway. This was it, the Top of the World, and right on cue, the haze peeled back, just enough to give me a glimpse of the beauty my friends assured me would be there…

Alaska Road Trip: The Grand Circle: Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

So, just exactly how big is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park? You could combine Yellowstone with Yosemite, throw in the entire country of Switzerland, and you still wouldn’t match it in terms of size.

Alaska Road Trip: The Grand Circle: Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula

The massive ice field in the park’s wild interior has spawned dozens of glaciers which, over the course of many millenia, have carved the landscape into fjords so heart-breakingly beautiful, humpback whales swim all the way from Hawaii just to cavort in the deep blue water.

Alaska Road Trip: The Grand Circle: From Tok to Denali

There are no icy mountains looming on the horizon, and Fairbanks is nowhere near Alaska’s ruggedly beautiful coast. The true beauty in Alaska’s second city is found below the surface, in the spirit and resiliance of the people who make the place their home.

Alaska Road Trip: Driving Alaska’s Grand Circle

Most of the major towns in Alaska, as well as three of the state’s incredible National Parks, can all be reached by driving Alaska’s Grand Circle: a loop route beginning in Tok that utilizes all four segments (1082 miles) of Alaska’s Interstate Highway system.

Kenai Fjords National Park: Exit Glacier: Up Close and Personal

Compared to the huge tidewater glaciers that flow directly into the sea along the coast of Kenai Fjords, Exit Glacier is just a baby–a baby that’s getting smaller every year–but it’s still big enough to permanently alter the landscape through which it passes.

Kenai Fjords National Park: Seabirds, Glaciers, and Whales on the Wild Coast of Alaska

As the tremendous weight of the moving glacier pushes forward, the pressure buckles the ice into fantastic pillars and columns, like frozen fairy castles gleaming translucent blue as the suspended glacial sediment refracts the sunlight.

Two-Foot High Kick: World Eskimo Indian Olympics

Contestants take a running leap, then they make this crazy jackknife move, touch the ball suspended high above the floor with both feet, then come back down and stick the landing. If that sounds difficult? You have no idea.

Dreaming of Denali

When I drove my Jeep to Alaska that first summer after I retired, my primary goal, the single most important thing I wanted to do, was to see Denali, the biggest mountain in North America.

Chena Hot Springs: A Fairbanks Original

The Chena hot spring puts out steaming water at a temperature of 150 degrees, producing enough power to meet all the needs of the resort, as well as filling the hot springs pools used by the guests. In addition to the lodge and restaurant, they offered camping and horseback riding, and they had exhibits featuring sled dogs, greenhouses, ice sculptures, and geothermal energy.

The Alaska Highway: Day 4: Beaver Creek to Fairbanks

Delta Junction, the end of the Al-Can, was only 200 miles away, and the border? Twenty miles, maybe half an hour, and I was finally going to cross into Alaska! I’d been on the road more than three weeks, and in just half a day more, I’d be in Fairbanks.

The Alaska Highway: Day 3: Whitehorse to Beaver Creek

Approaching the mountains, I started pulling over with serious frequency, taking LOTS of photos! Mountains, clouds, lakes, flowers—I was pretty sure I must have died and gone to heaven, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember the fiery crash.

The Alaska Highway: Day 2: Fort Nelson to Whitehorse

Every time I rounded a curve in the road there was another stupendous vista; it was nothing short of astonishing! I was literally yipping out loud, and a couple of times I actually pulled over and stopped while I pounded on my chest to “re-start” my heart!

The Alaska Highway: Day 1: Dawson Creek to Fort Nelson

Past Fort St. John, the terrain got a lot wilder. No more towns, very few people, and very little traffic. Saw a few U.S. license plates, Michigan, California, Oregon, South Carolina; people that were obviously headed to Alaska!

The Alaska Highway: Prelude: The Road to Dawson Creek

Even if you start in Seattle, the closest American city, it’s still more than 800 miles to Dawson Creek, wending your way that much further north, so far north that there will be a noticeable change in the hours of daylight. It’s the latitude that distinguishes the north country, including every bit of Alaska. Dawson Creek is where it all begins.

Follow the Fireweed

Visualize a summertime journey through that part of the world, a world filled with mountains and glaciers and boreal forests, ice blue rivers, turquoise lakes, and billowing clouds that fill the sky. Imagine your vision as a beautiful piece of music. The fundamental, underlying theme of that symphony would be a gently rising swell of perfect harmony, pinkish lavender in its hue.

MEXICAN ROAD TRIP (IN THE LAND OF THE MAYA):

Mexican Road Trip: Back to the Border: San Miguel de Allende to Eagle Pass

Saltillo was our crossroads: if we turned east here, we’d be retracing our previous route to the border at Nuevo Laredo (along the Highway of Death). This time, we knew better, so we turned north, toward Monclova, and Piedras Negras.

Mexican Road Trip: Three Days of the Dead in San Miguel de Allende

By mid-afternoon, the Jardin was beginning to fill with people. Painted faces were literally everywhere! It was like a costume party, but the venue wasn’t some hall or other indoor space, it was the whole entire town! Mike and I were definitely getting into the spirit of the thing–but we still drew the line at the notion of painting our beards…

Dia de Los Muertos: A Gallery of Photographs

A smorgasbord of colorful images, capturing the essence of the vibrant festival known as the Dia de Los Muertos, in the charming colonial city of San Miguel de Allende.

Mexican Road Trip: Flashing Lights in the Rear View: Officer Plata and La Mordida

As we drove away from the toll plaza, a State Police car that had been parked off to one side made a fast U-Turn and started following me. A moment later, he turned on his flashers and gave me a short blast on his siren, motioning for me to pull over. Two uniformed policemen got out, and approached me on the driver’s side. One of them hung back, apparently checking out my license plate before making a phone call.

I wasn’t sure if I was being stopped for some infraction, or if these guys were just fishing…

Mexican Road Trip: Cruising the Sierra Madre, from San Cristobal to Oaxaca

Today, we’d be driving as far as the city of Oaxaca, 380 miles of curves, switchbacks, and rolling hills that would require at least ten hours of our full attention, crossing the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, and entering the rugged, agave studded landscape of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca. If you’d like to know what that was like, read on!

Mexican Road Trip: Crossing the Chiapas Highlands, to San Cristobal de las Casas

MX 199 crosses the Chiapas Highlands from Palenque to San Cristobal de las Casas. The distance is only 132 miles, but it’s 132 miles of curvy mountain roads with switchbacks, steep grades, slow trucks, and villages chock-a-block with topes and bloqueos, unofficial road blocks. Everything I read, and everything I heard, described the drive as  alternatively spectacular, dangerous, and fascinating, in seemingly equal measure.

Mexican Road Trip: The Road to Bonampak

Rainwater seeping through the limestone walls of the temple soaked the Bonampak Murals with a mineral-rich solution that, each time it dried, left behind a sheen of translucent calcite. The built-up coating protected the paintings for more than 1200 years. As a result, we’re left with the finest examples of ancient art from the Americas to have survived into our modern era.

Mexican Road Trip: Adventures along the Puuc Route

All of these communities in the Puuc region were allied, politically, culturally, economically, and socially. The Puuc was the cradle of the Golden Age of the Maya. Labna and Sayil were among the brightest jewels in the crown of a realm that never quite coalesced into an empire.

Mexican Road Trip: Edzná, and Campeche, Where They Dance La Guaranducha!

La Guaranducha, a traditional dance from Campeche, is a celebration of life, community, and the joy of existence. On stage, there was a group of young men and women in traditional dress, but it was clear that the guys were little more than props, because all eyes were on the girls. So colorful, and so elegant, hiding coyly behind their pleated, folding hand fans.

Mexican Road Trip: Circling the Yucatan, from Quintana Roo to Campeche

The Castillo at Muyil isn’t huge, as Mayan pyramids go, topping out at just over 50 feet, but it’s definitely imposing. Try to imagine: the equivalent of a five story building, with a three story grand staircase, just appearing, out in the middle of nowhere? Boo-yah!

Mexican Road Trip: Cancun, Tulum, and the Riviera Maya

The millions of tourists who fly directly to Cancun from the U.S. or Canada are seeing the place out of context. They can’t possibly appreciate the fact that they’re 2,000 miles south of the border; a whole country, a whole culture, a whole history away from the U.S.A. Just looking around, on the surface? The second largest city in southern Mexico could easily pass for a beach town in Florida.

Mexican Road Trip: Uxmal vs Chichén Itzá

From the parking lot, the building where they sell the tickets to Uxmal looks a bit like the entrance to a shopping mall, or a multiplex, but the moment you step through the door, you’ll discover that it’s actually a time machine. That entryway is a portal to the world of the ancient Maya, a thousand years into the past. 

Mexican Road Trip: Merida and the Meridanos

Merida is the largest city in southern Mexico, with a population of almost a million. Statistically, Yucatan is the safest of Mexico’s states, and Merida is widely considered the safest of all Mexico’s cities.

Mexican Road Trip: Mayan Ruins and Waterfalls in the Lacandon Jungle

The next morning, we were waiting at the entrance to the Archaeological Park a half hour before they opened for the day. We were the only ones there, so they let us through early, and I had the glorious privelege of photographing that wonderful ruin in the golden light of early morning, without a single fellow tourist cluttering my view.

Mexican Road Trip: Zapatista Road Blocks in Chiapas

“Good morning,” I said. “We’re driving to Palenque. Will you allow us to pass?”

The leader of the group, a young Mayan lad, walked up beside my Jeep, and fixed me with a menacing glare. “The road is closed,” he said, keeping his hand on the hilt of his machete. “By order of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional!”

“Is it closed to everyone?” I asked innocently. “How about if we pay a toll? How much would the toll be?”

He gave me an even more menacing glare. “That will cost you everything you’ve got,” he said gruffly, brandishing his machete, while his companions did the same.

Mexican Road Trip: Heading South, from Laredo to Villahermosa

When it was our turn, soldiers in SWAT gear surrounded my Jeep, and an officer with a machine gun gestured for me to roll down my window. He asked me where we were going. I’d learned my lesson in customs, and knew better than to mention the Yucatan. “We’re going to Monterrey,” I said, without elaborating.

He checked our ID’s and our travel documents, then handed them back. “Don’t stop along the way,” he advised. “You need to get off this road and to a safe place as quickly as you can!”

Mexican Road Trip: How to Plan and Prepare for a Drive to the Yucatan

The published threat levels are a “full-stop” deal breaker for the average tourist. That’s unfortunate, because Mexican road trips are fantastic! Yes, there are risks, but all you have to do to reduce those risks to to an acceptable level is follow a few simple guidelines.

Day of the Dead in San Miguel de Allende

In San Miguel de Allende, they’ve adopted a variation on the American version of Halloween and made it a part of their Day of the Dead celebration. Costumed children circle the square seeking candy hand-outs from the crowd of onlookers. It’s a wonderful, colorful parade that’s all about the treats, with no tricks!

Chichén Itzá: Requiem for the Feathered Serpent

The feathered serpent with the unquenchable thirst for blood may be gone now, or at least fallen out of favor, but as long as the ruins of this ancient city remain standing, he won’t be forgotten.

Tulum: The City that Greets the Dawn

Tulum is not all that large, as Mayan cities go, but its spectacular location, right on the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, makes it one of the best known, and definitely one of the most picturesque. 

The Mayan City of Edzná, First House of the Itzás

The Mayan city of Edzná is nothing less than epic, lyrical poetry, an extraordinary sonnet comprised of temples and palaces carved in stone that have stood, in regal grandeur, for more than a thousand years.

Uxmal: Architectural Perfection in the Land of the Maya

The Pyramid of the Magician is the most impressive monument I’ve ever seen. There’s a powerful energy in that spot–something to do with all the blood that was spilled on the altars of human sacrifice at the top of those impossibly steep steps. More than any ancient ruin I’ve ever visited, more than any demonic ancient sculpture I’ve ever seen, that pyramid at Uxmal flat scared the hell out of me!

The Amazing Mayan Murals of Bonampak

Out of that handful of Mayan sites where mural paintings have survived, there is one in particular that stands head and shoulders above the rest. One very special place. Down by the Guatemalan border, in a remote corner of the Mexican State of Chiapas: a small Mayan ruin known as Bonampak.

Palenque: Mayan City in the Hills of Chiapas

Palenque! Just hearing the name conjures images of crumbling limestone pyramids rising up out of the the jungle, of palaces and temples cloaked in mist, ornate stone carvings, colorful parrots and toucans flitting from tree to tree in the dense forest that constantly encroaches, threatening to swallow the place whole.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico’s Colonial Gem

If you include the chilangos, (escapees from Mexico City), close to 20% of the population of San Miguel de Allende is from somewhere else, a figure that includes several thousand American retirees.

The Puuc Hills: Apex of Mayan Architecture

The Puuc style was a whole new way of building. The craftsmanship was unsurpassed, and some of the monumental structures created in this period, most notably the Governor’s Palace at Uxmal, rank among the greatest architectural achievements of all time.

Becan and Chicanna: Mayan Cities in the Rio Bec Style

Much about the Rio Bec architectural style was based on illusion: common elements include staircases that go nowhere and serve no function, false doorways into alcoves that end in blank walls, and buildings that appear to be temples, but are actually solid structures with no interior space.

Coba and Muyil: Mayan Cities in Quintana Roo

Coba was a trading hub, positioned at the nexus of a network of raised stone and plaster causeways known as the sacbeob, the white roads, some of which extended for as much as 100 kilometers, connecting far-flung Mayan communities and helping to cement the influence of this powerful city.

Photographer’s Assignment: Chichen Itza

To get the best photos, arrive at the park before it opens at 8 AM. There will only be a handful of other visitors, and you’ll have the place practically all to yourself for as much as two hours! Take your time composing your perfect shot.There won’t be a single selfie stick in sight.

Mexican Road Trip, circa 2015

There are truckloads of soldiers on the highways, as well as roving pickup trucks with 50 Caliber machine guns mounted in their beds, and of course there are the checkpoints, where you’ll be stopped and surrounded by armed men in SWAT gear. It can be intimidating, to say the least, if you’ve never experienced that sort of thing before.

ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO:

San Xavier del Bac: The White Dove of the Desert

San Xavier has all of the traditional elements of a Spanish Colonial church, along with many others that are quite unique. The craftsmanship of the original building is superb, and features many fascinating details.

Granada Park: An Avian Oasis in the Heart of Phoenix

Granada Park is a City Park that’s adjacent to a Mountain Preserve. Its location, along with certain other advantages, make it unique in some very specal ways.

A Sunset at White Sands

Dropping down out of the Sacramento Mountains near Alamogordo, the sky was filled with the colors of the widest rainbow I’ve ever seen. Down on the flat, another rainbow came spearing down through the clouds before setting out in pursuit of a downpour, off in the middle distance.

New Mexico’s Golden Autumn

When you think of autumn foliage, the list of places that comes to mind is much more likely to include New England than New Mexico–but the Land of Enchantment is full of fall surprises!

Grand Canyon Rafting

You find a rope, any rope, and you grab on with both hands for all you’re worth. The river boils like the North Sea in a gale, great, rolling green waves and troughs. The raft plummets sideways into a hole fifteen feet deep, the outboard motor shrieks, a monster wave towering ten feet above your head comes crashing down across the deck, pummeling the passengers like a gigantic liquid fist that takes your breath away, leaving you suspended, time stopped, frozen in mid-scream.

Grand Canyon Rafting Expedition: Day One

The two rafts were shoved away from the beach until they floated free, and the boat drivers eased them into the middle of the channel.  We were mostly moving with the current, but the beach dropped behind us pretty quickly, and in a matter of minutes we were out there, rafting down the Colorado River, heading squarely into the enchanted depths of the Grand Canyon.

Grand Canyon Rafting Expedition: Day Two

The cliffs and buttes were a perfect composition, the different colored layers of stone were all but glowing in the afternoon light, and we had this incredible world all to ourselves, not another boat in sight. 

Grand Canyon Rafting Expedition: Day Three

The waters of the Little Colorado are a turquoise blue that is so startlingly bright it doesn’t even look real.  There’s a well-defined spot where that warm, turquoise blue water from the small river collides with the cold, deep green water flowing upstream from the big river. The two dramatically different colors mix, forming a shifting, swirling line of chartreuse.  That spot is the confluence. It’s magical, and utterly unique.

Grand Canyon Rafting Expedition: Day Four

I was still a little dazed by the whole thing, scenes of frothing, churning whitewater playing over and over in my head.  Fleecy white clouds were piling up above the canyon rim, nearly filling the narrow patch of sky, until the lowering sun set them afire, a Grand Canyon sunset display that was the finest we’d seen, worthy of the spectacular setting.  A fitting end to one of the most amazing days of my life.

Grand Canyon Rafting Expedition: Day Five

The trail meandered for a mile or so, finally giving us access to a series of perfect swimming holes.  There’s something about that exotic turquoise water that welcomes swimmers; the creek was cool, but far from cold, and a welcome change from the icy water in the river.  We stopped at an inviting spot to swim, relax, and eat our lunch. Sitting beside that creek, with our simple repast–it was like having a picnic in the Garden of Eden. 

Grand Canyon Rafting Expedition: Day Six

“Two Hander!” John called out, and we all clung to the ropes for dear life as the raft picked up speed.  We were headed straight for the boil of Lava Falls, roaring like a freight train, bearing down. We entered the churning whitewater dead center, then moved hard to the right to avoid the standing waves and the big holes in the middle of the channel.  We got good and drenched, almost like running under a series of waterfalls, bucking and lurching like crazy, but the whole thing was over in less than a minute. 

Grand Canyon Rafting Expedition: Day Seven

Immediately below that beach we hit Diamond Creek Rapid, then Travertine Rapid, where we pulled over to the bank at Travertine Canyon.  The creek that entered the river here flowed across huge, slippery boulders in a series of small waterfalls, and we had great fun taking turns standing in the flow, almost like a natural shower.

Grand Canyon Rafting Expedition: Day Eight

The river broadened as we approached Lake Mead, and at mile 278 we entered the lake itself.  Pearce Ferry was right there, and we were all pretty quiet as the rafts pulled in to shore for the last time. “Thrill of a lifetime” is a pretty strong statement, but it’s appropriate for this journey.  There’s nothing else like it.

SOUTH AMERICA:

Magnificent Monoliths: The Enigmatic Idols of San Agustin

At least 200 monolithic statues are preserved within the boundaries of the San Agustin Archaeological Park, along with 20 monumental burial mounds. Each statue is unique, but taken as a group they provide a fascinating overview of the rituals and beliefs of one of the earliest complex societies in the Americas. The enigmatic idols of San Agustin are truly unmatched among the world’s ancient monuments.

An Overabundance of Bowlers: A Brief History of the Headgear on the High Plateau

Andean natives have adapted to the intensity of the high altitude sun by taking a very simple precaution: everyone, almost without exception, wears a hat when they venture outdoors. From infants to ancients, everyone covers their head with something, ranging from shawls to leather helmets to proper English bowlers.

Chinchero: The Place Where Rainbows are Born

Candid portraits of villagers in traditional dress, taken in Chinchero, Peru in 1971, before the outside world intruded.

Children of the Altiplano

Candid portraits of Andean villagers taken in Peru and Bolivia in 1971. This set of photographs focuses on the children: their joy, and their innocence.

Puno Day Festival: A Centuries-Old Tradition on the Shores of Lake Titicaca

Historic photos of Peru’s Puno Day festival, taken in 1971. Included is the reenactment of the birth of the Inca empire on the shore of Lake Titicaca, with costumed dancers lining the streets of Puno.

Portraits of a People, Lost in Time

50 year old portraits of Andean natives in their traditional dress, taken in mountain villages not yet tainted by outside influences.

In the Vale of the Stone Monkeys: Peril and Petroglyphs in the Colombian Jungle

El Manco was easy to spot; he had a right arm that had been severed above the elbow, and that wasn’t his only problem. He was also missing his right eye, nothing there but an ugly knot of scar tissue. “Tough old bird” doesn’t begin to describe a hardscrabble character like Manco; he had a face with creases like a roadmap straight to his own personal version of hell.

Tumaco: The Arhuaco Connection

What we really know of history is like an ancient tapestry, worn, and threadbare, with missing patches confusing the grand design. When we make a new connection, we restore a missing thread, and little by little, thread by thread, we fill in those troublesome blanks.

Tairona Gold: The Curse of the Coiled Serpent

Paul dug with his hands then, finally sticking his arm into a hollow space, pulling out a dark object. Grinning at me from the bottom of his hole, he handed up what he’d found. A round blackware vessel representing a coiled serpent, open in the middle, with a spout at the top of the head. I’d seen a lot of Tairona artifacts, but I’d never seen anything remotely like that one.

Tairona Gold: The Rape of Bahia Concha

It was the Tairona gold that triggered a blood lust in the Spanish invaders, ultimately causing the destruction of the entire Tairona civilization. That cycle was repeated in modern times, when the lust for Tairona gold infected the guaqueros, causing the destruction of the last refuge of the Tairona ancestors, in one final humiliation, one last indignity: the RAPE of Bahia Concha!

Machu Picchu Sunrise

The five of us had Machu Picchu entirely to ourselves for at least twelve hours. It was like a dream, and a very fine dream, at that.

PHOTOGRAPHY:

Photographer’s Assignment: Mount Rainier

The road to Sunrise Park climbs into the foothills of Mount Rainier on the eastern side. The volcano is the biggest mountain around, and the treeless upper slopes, cloaked in glacial ice, catch and reflect the full brunt of the rising sun’s bright rays; a spectacle well worth the long drive, and the early wake-up call.

Photographer’s Assignment: Crater Lake

It simply isn’t possible to gaze upon Crater Lake and not be awed by the view. It’s like staring into the eye of the Creator, a heavenly vision reflected by water so clear, and so deep, and so intensely BLUE, you’ll find yourself neglecting to breathe.

Granada Park: An Avian Oasis in the Heart of Phoenix

Granada Park is a City Park that’s adjacent to a Mountain Preserve. Its location, along with certain other advantages, make it unique in some very specal ways.

Kenai Fjords National Park: Seabirds, Glaciers, and Whales on the Wild Coast of Alaska

As the tremendous weight of the moving glacier pushes forward, the pressure buckles the ice into fantastic pillars and columns, like frozen fairy castles gleaming translucent blue as the suspended glacial sediment refracts the sunlight.

Dreaming of Denali

When I drove my Jeep to Alaska that first summer after I retired, my primary goal, the single most important thing I wanted to do, was to see Denali, the biggest mountain in North America.

A Sunset at White Sands

Dropping down out of the Sacramento Mountains near Alamogordo, the sky was filled with the colors of the widest rainbow I’ve ever seen. Down on the flat, another rainbow came spearing down through the clouds before setting out in pursuit of a downpour, off in the middle distance.

Photographing the Sunrise at the Lincoln Memorial

The slightly elevated position of the Lincoln Memorial gives photographers a clear line of sight from every vantage point, with a multitude of options for interesting compositions. But if you want the very best light, and the smallest crowds, you’re going to have to get out there at sunrise!

The Many Moods of the Jefferson Memorial

As a subject for photographers, the Jefferson has it all: columns and curves, sculpture, carved inscriptions, a dome! The Tidal Basin serves as a reflecting pool, and, for a couple of weeks every spring, the whole business is surrounded by flowering cherry trees.

Washington D.C., By the Dawn’s Early Light

Each weekend I’d focus on a different monument, and I’d shoot them from every conceivable angle, before, during, and after the golden hour of the sunrise. Why the weekend? Because, grasshopper, on weekend mornings, there are no commuters, so there is no traffic, no parked cars, no people in the way of your photo shoot!

New Mexico’s Golden Autumn

When you think of autumn foliage, the list of places that comes to mind is much more likely to include New England than New Mexico–but the Land of Enchantment is full of fall surprises!

Blossoms by the Billions: Photographing the Cherry Blossoms in Washington D.C.

Shoot the flower buds when they first emerge, shoot them again when they’re in full florescence, and if you can swing it, one last time when they start to drop, and you have pink petals falling around you like rain…

Follow the Fireweed

Visualize a summertime journey through that part of the world, a world filled with mountains and glaciers and boreal forests, ice blue rivers, turquoise lakes, and billowing clouds that fill the sky. Imagine your vision as a beautiful piece of music. The fundamental, underlying theme of that symphony would be a gently rising swell of perfect harmony, pinkish lavender in its hue.

Antelope Canyon: Conjuring a Beam of Light: Take 2

Today, thanks to Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and all the other photo sharing sites out there, every human on the face of the earth knows about Antelope Canyon, and the volume of visitors has mushroomed into the millions. Instagram, alas, is its own worst enemy,

Buffalo Sunrise: Grand Teton National Park

We could have planned our photo shoot, set up for it, and no doubt we would have gotten even BETTER pictures. But if we’d done that? We would have missed out on the jaw-dropping surprise of a completely unexpected herd of wild buffalo! At sunrise! In the Grand Tetons! That kind of a surprise? It’s almost enough to make your eyeballs explode. It’s just about the very best feeling there is, in this whole big beautiful world!

Photographer’s Assignment: Chichen Itza

To get the best photos, arrive at the park before it opens at 8 AM. There will only be a handful of other visitors, and you’ll have the place practically all to yourself for as much as two hours! Take your time composing your perfect shot.There won’t be a single selfie stick in sight.

Antelope Canyon: Conjuring a Beam of Light

Ephemeral “God beams” appear like magic in the confined space, slanting across the canyon floor like spotlights on a theater stage, only to disappear after a few minutes as the earth spins another fraction of a degree, breaking the perfect alignment.

Antelope Canyon: Part 1

Slot canyons are formed, over the course of many thousands of years, when torrents of rainwater borne from the monsoon storms of summer sluice through channels and cracks in the soft sandstone. Powerful floods strike repeatedly, carving narrow, twisting pathways into the cross-bedded layers of rock, sculpting swirling formations that look like petrified waves.

TRIBAL LANDS:

Canyon de Chelly: The Oldest White House

At the center of the upper section is a large room, 12 by 20 feet, with a front wall that is 12 feet high and made of stone that is two feet thick. This wall was coated in white plaster, decorated with a yellow band, and it is this white wall, which can still be seen, that inspired the name La Casa Blanca, the White House, to this ancient dwelling that has endured in this place for nearly a thousand years.

Canyon de Chelly: Riding the Rainbow to the Universe: The Legend of Spider Woman

Viewing Spider Rock from below provides a dramatically different perspective on this extraordinary formation. From above, you’re looking down on the whole tableau, and Spider Rock, shorter than the soaring canyon walls, appears as one small part of the larger scene. From below, from the floor of the canyon looking up at it, you can see just how BIG the danged thing is. At 800 feet in height, it’s a good bit taller than your average 50 story sky scraper, and it completely dominates the landscape.

Canyon de Chelly: Part 4: The Road to Spider Rock

The twin pillars of Spider Rock were left behind, like a pair of stubborn hold-outs, when everything else around them slowly weathered away. To me, these are fingers of cosmic proportions, thrusting from the earth, pointing toward the heavens in a gesture of unity. When you view these monolithic towers, you will be captivated by their majesty, and by the sheer insolence of their improbable existence.

Canyon de Chelly: Blue Bull and Mummy Cave

300 feet above the canyon floor, there are two deep alcoves filled with ruins, and on a wide ledge between them, a large, multi-story pueblo, partially reconstructed, and quite impressive. The setting is a natural amphitheater, and the overall aspect of the place is simply stunning.

Canyon de Chelly: Standing Cow: A Home Among the Ruins

The hogan, much newer than the other structures, was built using sandstone bricks recycled from the surrounding ruins. Today, even though it’s not really ancient, Standing Cow is on all the maps, as much a part of the human landscape of Canyon de Chelly as the White House and the Mummy Cave.

Canyon de Chelly: Antelope House Ruin

Of all the ruins and other archaeological sites in Canyon de Chelly, Antelope House is the most thoroughly investigated. That’s at least partially due to simple ease of access: unlike most of the ruins in the canyon, all the primary structures at this site are at ground level. Researchers have found the remains of several different cultures in the stratified soil beneath the ruins, each group contributing to the timeline of an area that’s exceptionally rich in history.

Canyon de Chelly: Ruins and Rock Art

We got out, and walked through the trees to a place where a thirty-foot long segment of the sandstone cliff had crumbled away near the base, leaving a section of wall that was set back a couple of feet, protected by an overhang. We could see black pictographs of horses and riders filling that rough stone canvas from left to right.

Canyon de Chelly: Part 3: Canyon del Muerto

The left hand fork is the spectacular work of nature known as Canyon del Muerto. The star attraction of this route is the Mummy Cave Ruin, the largest in the area, built on a ledge between a pair of deep caves, high on the face of a cliff in an extraordinary natural amphitheater.

Canyon de Chelly: Where Canyons Collide

“First Ruin is right over there!” Sylvia pointed to our left, where segments of ancient adobe walls filled a natural alcove halfway up the side of the cliff.

“First Ruin. Wait, don’t tell me. Do they call it that because it’s the oldest?”

“No,” she said with a chuckle. “They call it First Ruin, because it’s the first ruin that we see!”

Canyon de Chelly: Kokopelli and the Lightning Spear

I was probably getting a bit starry-eyed at that point. Barely three miles into the canyon, we’d traveled a thousand years in just under a hundred minutes, and we were barely even underway!

Canyon de Chelly: Ancient Stories Etched in Stone

The petroglyphs we’d just seen, and those we were about to see, were an artistic expression of the highest order, representing the hopes, the dreams, and the spiritual quest of the ancients who created them. These symbols, laboriously etched in stone, were left there for our benefit, and if there are lessons to be learned, we’d be well advised to take heed.

Canyon de Chelly: A Timeless Journey into the Heart of the Navajo Nation

Our first stop was a prehistoric bulletin board Sylvia called Newspaper Rock. A smooth segment of cliff face coated with dark desert varnish, featuring an area at least forty feet wide filled hundreds of petroglyphs. The intriguing symbols were created hundreds of year ago by artists who pecked away the dark varnish, exposing the lighter colored rock underneath.

Canyon de Chelly: Part 2: Chinle Wash to the Junction

A Navajo guide can take you into the canyon in their SUV, or, if you prefer, you can join a guided hike, or a trail ride on horseback. The standard Jeep tours, which are the most popular, range from three to six hours in length. The longer tours cover the highlights of both Canyon De Chelly, and Canyon del Muerto.

Canyon de Chelly: The North Rim Drive

The payoff at the Overlook is a fabulous bird’s-eye view of a quite wonderful Anasazi ruin known as the Antelope House. You can still see the crumbling foundations of dozens of rooms, a tower, and at least four circular kivas, special rooms used by the Ancestral Pueblo people for religious ceremonies.

Canyon de Chelly: Overlooking the White House

The White House Overlook offers a fabulous panorama of the Canyon, and an unobstructed view of the White House, one of the best preserved ruins in the National Monument. Set into a sheer cliff striped with desert varnish, the tableau is instantly recognizable as one of the best-known photographs of Ansel Adams, who once described Canyon de Chelly as “the most beautiful place on earth.” He shot some of his favorite images from the canyon rim.

Canyon de Chelly: The South Rim Drive

The canyon is filled with fascinating contrasts between the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi and the archaic way of life of the Navajo. These views into the canyon literally transcend time.

Canyon de Chelly: Part 1: The Rim Drives

Canyon de Chelly is so much more interesting than the Grand Canyon, because it also has a history, a fascinating history that actually comes alive when you view it up close. Native people have lived in this canyon for almost 5,000 years, which is a very long time indeed, by any standard. What those ancients left behind is the most extraordinary concentration of cliff dwellings and rock art panels to be found anywhere in the desert southwest.

A Serendipitous Sunset at Shiprock

I noticed an odd rock formation coming up fast on the left side of the road, almost like a wall built of angular blocks. Shiprock was close, but hidden from view by the wall as I zoomed toward it. After I passed the odd formation, I stole a quick glance in my rearview mirror, and what I saw was a scene so other-wordly, it literally stopped me in my tracks:

Antelope Canyon: Conjuring a Beam of Light: Take 2

Today, thanks to Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and all the other photo sharing sites out there, every human on the face of the earth knows about Antelope Canyon, and the volume of visitors has mushroomed into the millions. Instagram, alas, is its own worst enemy,

Antelope Canyon: Conjuring a Beam of Light

Ephemeral “God beams” appear like magic in the confined space, slanting across the canyon floor like spotlights on a theater stage, only to disappear after a few minutes as the earth spins another fraction of a degree, breaking the perfect alignment.

Antelope Canyon: Part 1

Slot canyons are formed, over the course of many thousands of years, when torrents of rainwater borne from the monsoon storms of summer sluice through channels and cracks in the soft sandstone. Powerful floods strike repeatedly, carving narrow, twisting pathways into the cross-bedded layers of rock, sculpting swirling formations that look like petrified waves.