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Jalisco has the fourth-largest obsidian deposits in the world but until now no excavations have ever been carried out to study in detail the process by which a chunk of this volcanic glass was transformed into useful artifacts by pre-Hispanic people.

If you have a dog-eared copy of the very first version of my book “Outdoors in Western Mexico,” published in 1998, you will find a chapter – deleted in subsequent editions – dedicated to Qanat la Venta, a curious kind of underground aqueduct located ten kilometers west of Guadalajara.

I have the fortune of living close to an award-winning Mexican nature photographer who is becoming recognized – by prestigious organizations such as National Geographic – as one of the world’s great photojournalists.

Here comes yet more proof that Guadalajara lies at the center of a Magic Circle of natural wonders.

A common question asked by residents of the United States and Canada is whether or not they should consider heading south of the border for that operation they have been putting off.

Many years ago I stumbled upon a hidden pool fed by a cold spring, the source of a bubbling stream of clear, clean water, all shaded by the most beautiful trees imaginable: enormous, stately, ancient Montezuma cypresses (sabinos in Spanish), but still popularly known by their name in Nahuatl, ahuehuetes (old men of the water).