Honduras; Omoa to La Ceiba
We began our trip that day in the quaint little resort town of Omoa on the coast about 10 miles WSW from Puerto Cortes. Omoa is a backpacker destination which usually means cheap places to stay. For six of seven […]
Travels in Eastern Guatemala
Things started to move quickly after Ixil. I was traveling alone but sharing gas with various people on the way. The transport industry in Guatemala makes sense given the price of transportation and the needs of the people. A gallon […]
Guatemala on the cusp
The Guatemalan army is a force to be reckoned with, or, if you are smart, to be given a wide berth. It has fought a 36-year war of counter-insurgency preserving the US-backed right wing Republican Front of Guatemala (FRG) against […]
Burying the Dead, Ixil Guatemala
Chajul is a remote indigenous town in the Ixil triangle, about 150Km. north of Antigua in Guatemala. Ixil is an area of east-west valleys surrounded by higher mountain peaks. It is home to the Ixil people, a group of related […]
Border crossing to Guatemala
Just this week I entered Guatemala for the first time driving across the Chiapas border from Mexico. Looking across from the Mexican side one could see things were different there but I really was not prepared for what I was […]
Mexico Neotribalism
Mexico is rich and exotic, spicy and alive. The land, its fauna and flora is every bit as varied as it’s population of one hundred million. Active or recently active volcanoes are soon thickly forested with flowering trees or cacti, […]
Six Months and All is Well!
Was it really just six months ago? The code was yellow in San Francisco and the weather unseasonably hot. A week before the fourth of July celebrations San Francisco was un-girthing its loins for Gay Pride weekend. The main man […]
Neo-Colonialism in Colonial Mexico
The central highlands (or altiplano) form the backbone of Mexico. In southern Mexico the isthmus is very narrow; from its peaks one can sometimes see both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The further north one travels, the drier and wider […]
Teotihuacán, Mexico
As the lightning flashes around the house here in San Miguel de Allende, I count the seconds before the thunder strikes; it’s coming closer. Another downpour in the dry season? Up here at 3000 Meters the Mexican Antiplano is a […]
Economics, the great conversion
Having read Jim Stanford’s tongue in cheek twelve step piece: Confessions of a Recovering Economist one might like to feel that there is hope in American economic journalism but it is difficult not to remain in denial. Publications such as […]