A swing through Toltec ruins and provincial towns

We had a couple of days free and decided to swing down toward Mexico City. We made a big detour around the state of Michoacán, which has bee...

Cussing and slang in Mexico: it´s all about Mom

Mexican slang and cursing are different from every other Latin American country. The best place to find out why is in Octavio Paz´s classic ...

Renewing a Mexican visa, or Catch-22

"Catch-22" is one of my favorite books because it makes hilarious comedy out of bureaucratic lunacy. None of the bomber crew membe...

Designing a master´s degree and becoming an academic

This month I think I have finally resigned myself to the fact that I am becoming less of a journalist and more of an academic. For the past ...

Impunity in Mexico: 49 toddlers die in fire, officials absolved

That´s how it works here. You can imagine how the justice system would have reacted in the U.S. if 49 children had been killed in a fire at ...

Baseball at Nationals Park in Washington, sacred sites in Mexico

I was two days too late to see the Nationals´ new phenom, Steven Strasburg, in his major league debut, in which he struck out 14 batters and...

Lucha libre: wrestling with Thunder Boy and Princessa Maya

Divino has his way with Thunder Boy on the ramp up to the ring, whose ropes are sometimes insufficient to contain all of the action and dram...