Hierve el agua (Boiling water) From my always living love affair with Oaxaca

Hierve el agua or Boiling water is a place located about an hour from Oaxaca city. It has an outrageous view, and petrified waterfalls and water springs. When I went for the first time the road was terrible: a tortuous way trough the mountains. We had to stop twice in order to clean the road clogged with rocks and tree branches. The next time, the way was closed because of conflicts between the two neighbor communities for the control of the place. Last time I was there the road had improved a lot, and a pool and some buildings were being built. Somehow, I feel the place is going to change, and maybe not for good. But anyway, it is still a paradise that you better visit soon.

Foggy Veracruz

Las Minas is a small town located near Xalapa, in Veracruz. To get there you have to take a narrow road between the mountains and make all the way down. It has a river nearby, a square, a church and many beautiful houses.

Michoacan's beaches

Michoacan state is located on the Pacific coast of Mexico. It has many beautiful beaches. This time I visited some of them located between Lázaro Cárdenas and the border with the state of Colima.

Maybe one of the most beautiful aspectos of this beaces is their rocky formations, despite their outrageos sunsets.

My favorite thing about this places was that is still possible to find portions of empty beach, just with birds, rocks and the sea around. La Llorona was the most desert beach I visited. This name was given to it because when you walk over the sand you may hear de sand "crying" which is more like a soft squeak.

And Nexpa is famous among surfers because of its huge waves. And here you can also find the restaurat that we considered the best one all over Michoacan's coast.

La casa de Gaudí

Este pasaje estaba marcado en la Biblia de Gaudí en Park Güell:

31Y Jesús, tomando á los doce, les dijo: He aquí subimos á Jerusalem, y serán cumplidas todas las cosas que fueron escritas por los profetas, del Hijo del hombre. 32Porque será entregado á las gentes, y será escarnecido, é injuriado, y escupido. 33Y después que le hubieren azotado, le matarán: mas al tercer día resucitará. 34Pero ellos nada de estas cosas entendían, y esta palabra les era encubierta, y no entendían lo que se decía. 35Y aconteció que acercándose él á Jericó, un ciego estaba sentado junto al camino mendigando; 36El cual como oyó la gente que pasaba, preguntó qué era aquello. 37Y dijéronle que pasaba Jesús Nazareno. 38Entonces dió voces, diciendo: Jesús, Hijo de David, ten misericordia de mí. 39Y los que iban delante, le reñían que callase; mas él clamaba mucho más: Hijo de David, ten misericordia de mí. 40Jesús entonces parándose, mandó traerle á sí: y como él llegó, le preguntó, 41Diciendo: ¿Qué quieres que te haga? Y él dijo: Señor, que vea. 42Y Jesús le dijo: Ve, tu fe te ha hecho salvo. 43Y luego vió, y le seguía, glorificando á Dios: y todo el pueblo como lo vió, dió á Dios alabanza.

The green quarry jewel: Santo Domingo

I'm in love with Oaxaca. And within all the city, Santo Domingo is my favorite building. Whenever I'm in Oaxaca, I try twice or more a day to walk around it.

Oaxaca's green heart: Santo Domingo's Etno-botanical garden

Within the green walls of one of the most beautiful mexican buildings there is an amazing garden. Located where it used to be the orchards of the monastery, the garden shelters over 1,300 varieties of plants.

This plant is a local variety of amaranto.

Many cactuses wer rescued when the higway between Oaxaca and Puebla was made within a natural protected area in Tehuacan.

Rain is collected from seillings in order to water plants in the garden.

Land's end land

Los Cabos is the land's end land. Is the southest part of California, but it also gives the feeling of being a border line, a nobody's land. Most of people who is working here was not borned in Los Cabos, or even in Baja California. They come all over the country looking for better paid jobs.

As an Argentinian street artist told me, this is place of money transit: people comes here either to earn it or to spend it.

Anyway, it is a special place. Despite of the big resorts, it has some beautiful public beaches, amazing sunsets, and an outrageous night life.

Los Cabos is also a good place for lovers of aquatic sports and fishing.

Tourists go mad at night in bars. The spring breaker attitude seams to be permanent here.

Ensenada part I: Rafa, the frog and the whale

Este post va muy especialmente para Californio, porque más vale tarde que más tarde. Debo la parte dos y las fotos, pero voy pagando de a poco.

Before I first came to Ensenada, I certainly knew something about this place. Basically because of people I knew who came to study Oceanography, Marine Biology at Ensenada University. Today, I want to tell you the story of a friend who went to Ensenada in search of a high school's classmate. The name of my friend is Rafael, and the guy he was searching for was known as Keropi (because of the funny and naif green frog, he actually looked as a frog himself, a pretty comic one, I must admit). One day Rafael woke up and decided, with no apparent reason, to go to Ensenada in order to find Keropi while he was still there before winter holidays. I must tell you that Rafael and Keropi were not really close friends (despite Keropi was kind of a mix between the popular basketball player at high school, a freak, and the guy who always makes you laugh, and who has a nice smile for everybody), and that Rafael had no idea of Keropi address. The only thing he knew was that Keropi was living at Ensenada, nearby the University, and that he was at third semester of Marine Biology bachelor. So, just after New Year, Rafael collected just a few things, a small backpack and a few money; bought a ticket to Tijuana at the bus station and left. His parents thought he was crazy, but as Rafael usually does strange things, they didn't realize how particularly mad this adventure was. That was why they just asked him to call as soon as he reach Tijuana, and after that, when he was at Keropi's home. From Tijuana he did the way to Ensenada by auto stop. And once in Ensenada, he started asking where the University was, and if anybody knew a guy with a big afro head and froggy eyes. He didn't succeed. The school was closed, and it seemed to be that Keropi was on his way back to Mexico city, in order to spend the holiday with his family. But Rafa didn't gave up. He made all his way to Ensenada. So he went to see the beaches, the big crussiers stopped by the harbor. And he finished his trip looking to the deep blue sea, holding a Caguama size beer.

Until today, when he tell his story, he states he saw a whale. Maybe he did, because he was there by the time whales are coming down from Alaska to Baja in order give birth to their babies. Maybe it was just the beer: Rafa was drunk, and perhaps a bit sad. And --another-- maybe he just saw a big gray cluoud emerging from the sea. But no mater what, the trip was worth. Even if he had found Keropi, he could not be happier.

De José Manuel Pintado y E. Ochoa

El amor destruye a quien has sido, incendia a quien estás siendo, pero le da vida a quien serás. 

--J.M. Pintado

¿En qué antigua estación,

en qué reino de antaño,

en el tren de qué eternidad nos conocimos?
(…)

Fotos de trenes gringos tomadas de: www.desertusa.com/dusablog/trains

¿Cuántas vidas habremos recorrido para encontrarnos de nuevo

y reconocer que hablamos el mismo idioma

y es semejante al relámpago del pensamiento

entre los macizos de niebla de lo intangible?

Enriqueta Ochoa, "Saint John Perse". En: Las voces del tranvía. Muestra poética de La Laguna. (Rossana Conte, compiladora), Dirección de Cultura de Torreón, 2007. p. 85

Proyecto de un tren turístico que cruce el desierto de Mojave en Estados Unidos.
Imágenes tomadas de esta nota. 

Y "El crepúsculo doraba las Kasbahs", también de Enriqueta, es un poema maravilloso de impresiones sobre Marruecos y el Sahara.