Paid to Play Episode 13: Day trippin' around the Oaxaca countryside. Oaxaca Mystic is the tour company of choice to get out of the city and see the cool stuff in the Oaxaca countryside. Since I am really behind in maintaining this blog, this post is really just a place to put the photos of a petrified waterfall called Hierve de Agua,the Tule Tree, a massive tree about 2000 years old that claims to be the world's most "stout" ... the trunk is enormous, and the r...

Paid to Play Episode 12: The one where the author visits the world's second most populous city on the planet. With around 22 million residents, Mexico City actually takes a distant second place to the city that holds the number one spot as the world's most populous; Tokyo (35 million or something absurd like that). It´s a fast paced mess of traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, that keeps you continuously on your toes wondering when that dangerous curve b...

Paid to Play Episode 11: The one about the small town destroyed by massive flooding that no one has heard about as the world responds to the earthquake in Haiti. With the good comes the bad. After visiting the butterfly sanctuary with my tour group, I decided to try and pass through the town of Angangueo. Last week I had to cancel the hotel reservations here and make them for another town. Although the hotel I was supposed to use was still standing and in opera...

Paid to Play Episode 10: The one about one of the coolest things I've ever seen; the winter home for millions of Monarch butterflies. As far as life on the road goes, after six years of living out of my backpack, the El Rosario Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary was one of my career travel highlights. Every year, an estimated 150-300 million Monarch butterflies return to Central Mexico from their northern migration to the U.S. and Canada. It is one of the longest and m...

On Patzcuaro Lake sits the small island of Janitzio where the largest celebration of The Day of the Dead takes place each year. Some 10,000 people or so will jam themselves onto this little island every November 1st and go to the even smaller cemetery. I think I would join the dead if I had to be on this island on November 1st. You would understand why if you saw how small it really is. However, when it's not November 1st, the place is quite pleasant for a short ...