Temperate forests (the oaks, pines and firs on many of Mexico’s mountains).Grasslands (from Ciudad Juárez to Aguascalientes).Tropical deciduous forests (like the thorn forests of Sinaloa).Tropical evergreen forests (for example, the rainforests of Quintana Roo).Arid scrublands or desert (as in the cactus-rich Sonoran Desert).Of course, I considered altitude: 4,240 meters above sea level atop the Nevado de Colima and zero at Puerto Vallarta, but a better explanation for all that diversity came when I opened a book entitled Geo-Mexico, by Richard Rhoda and Tony Burton, to a page with a map showing the five ecosystems of Mexico: “This is the area I have been exploring,” I said to myself. That’s when I sat down with a map and drew a large circle, 500 kilometers in diameter, around Guadalajara. One week it would be a crater lake, the next a cloud forest left over from Pleistocene times, and the next a swamp filled with stately Montezuma cypresses dripping with Spanish moss.Īfter 20 years I asked myself, “How is it possible I keep finding new marvels of nature around here, such amazing biodiversity and geodiversity?” Or we might come to bubbling mud pots, a hissing geyser or find ourselves at the foot of a spectacular waterfall with a crystal-clear pool of water just inviting us to jump in.Īll those years ago, I began writing about these “little paradises” in the middle of nowhere, known only to the local people. We might find ourselves ascending an endlessly winding road to some magnificent mirador (lookout point) or reach the bottom of mile-deep a canyon, filled with tropical plants and exotic fruit trees. Perhaps we would end up finding a cave worth exploring or, instead, we’d find nothing at all, but quite frequently in the process of looking for that cave we would stumble upon some natural wonder so fascinating that we would totally forget our original plan. “Just what we are looking for - how can we get there?” Thus would begin a new adventure. We looked everywhere for them, but all we found were mountains of guano, from all the bats.” They say there are gold bars buried inside. “There’s a cave on that hillside, right over there. “ Cuevas?” the old man would reply and then, perhaps, a dreamy look would come into his eyes.
“Do you happen to know if there are any caves around here?” We would pick a pueblito somewhere, go to the plaza and walk up to one of the old-timers inevitably sitting there on a bench, warming himself in the early-morning sun. Our little group was convinced there were caves lurking everywhere in the state of Jalisco and our technique for finding them was simple.