I also knew there was a great deal of interest in Northern
Mexico among residents of the US border states, many of whom
were willing to drive in Mexico if they could find places worth
seeing within a day or two's drive from the border.
You have said that your favorite guidebook is Northern
Mexico Handbook. What does that mean to you?
It's my favorite in the sense that it was the first
guidebook I wrote that felt like it came out the way it was supposed
to, in its first edition. By the time I wrote Northern
Mexico Handbook. I'd had lots of practice writing guidebooks
to other places in the world, so I had perfected my craft to at
least some degree.
It's also my favorite book in the sense that I
very much enjoy writing about places that other travel writers
have tended to overlook. When I first started writing about Thailand
back in the early 1980s, for example, I had the feeling of being
something of a pioneer in documenting travel in that part of the
world as the only other guidebooks to Thailand then were written
in German or French. Now there are dozens of English-language
guidebooks to Thailand and the country is frequently featured
in mainstream travel mags like Conde Nast Traveler and Travel
& Leisure.
Tourists and travel writers still neglect most of Northern Mexico
in their rush to Mexico's coastal resorts and to "ethnic" states
like Michoacán and Oaxaca.
You divide your time between Mexico and Asia. What are some
Mexico-Asia connections that are missing to the "Gringo" eye?
Some connections, like the popularity of street food and outdoor
markets, are rather obvious. Another aspect that seems obvious
to me, yet which most Mexicophiles seem to miss completely, is
the strong association between the Central and South-East Asian
cultures - a thick strand running roughly from Tibet down through
Indonesia - and Mexico's Amerindian cultural substrata. Anyone
with a little training in anthropology can see the links. From
physiognomy to weaving patterns to cultural values I see a very
close connection -- no surprise considering the fact that the
so-called "indigenous" tribes of the Americas originally migrated
from Asia across the Bering land bridge.
We also shouldn't forget that the Iberian peninsula was ruled
by Arabs for 700 years. The mestizo culture often strikes me as
a hybrid of Arab and Asian cultures, moro and indio. Outside of
Latin America, the only other region of the world where a majority
of men wear moustaches is the Middle East. Even Mexican machismo
could be viewed as an Arabian cultural legacy.
Have you ever visited a place in Asia and thought
to yourself, "this seems like Mexico?"
The old section of Lijiang in China's northern Yunnan Province,
on the eastern reaches of the Tibetan Plateau, looks a lot like
Real de Catorce. Certain early Buddhist stupas resemble early
Mesoamerican pyramids - not that there's any direct connection
of course. There's a thick red chile sauce the Thais make in Chiang
Mai that would go very well with totopos!
You also travel a good deal between Texas and Mexico. Every
time I'm in a Texas border city and preparing to travel south,
I find that even the Mexican-Americans barely know Mexico south
of the border. What's your experience? Do Texans take full advantage
of the proximity to parks and cities south of the border?
Some do. You'll find a lot of frequent Mexico travelers in the
larger cities - Austin, Houston, San Antonio and Dallas -- plus
small pockets in places like Terlingua and Alpine out in west
Texas. Texans visit the so-called "Copper Canyon" a lot, and Monterrey
for shopping. I'm happy to have come across a steady trickle of
Texans in Saltillo, which is a treasure of a town not even a half
day's drive from the Texas border. San Luis Potosi and the Region
Huasteca are enjoying good word of mouth in Texas. Texans and
other U.S. border state residents are gradually finding out how
feasible it is to drive around Northern Mexico due to the improved
quality of the highways since the 1970s and the overall lack of
traffic relative to the rest of the country.
However you don't see many Texans in Sonora, which is a great
driving state, or in Zacatecas, which in my opinion is the most
striking of Mexico's grand colonial cities. Urban Texans like
wine, and I'm surprised more of them don't know about Parras de
la Fuente in Coahuila, the oldest wine-producing region in the
Americas.
Texans, of course, love to travel in their own state - it's
big enough that it could take half a lifetime of annual two-week
vacations to see it all. Sure, I'd like to see them spending another
half life exploring Northern Mexico - and taking along Northern
Mexico Handbook while they did it. But to tell the truth I
like the overall lack of tourism in the north and ultimately wouldn't
want to see too many more tourists there.
How do you use the internet in your work?
I tap into all kinds of destination-related web pages, both
public and private sector. I also find it useful for researching
specific themes, whether it's Mexican archaeology or wine-making.
Of course I try to corroborate what I find on the Net with my
own on-the-ground research, as Netspeak and reality often don't
match up! Many people who create and maintain websites these days
gather their information from other websites, rather than from
the source, so one must be very careful.
What would you like to see on the Internet?
Mexican bus schedules!!
Will the internet change the role of guidebook writers and
publishers?
It already has. Moon
Publishing puts a lot on guidebook content on the Web, and
other publishers are offering online updates of their books between
updated print editions. Everyone's scrambling to be there first,
but my strategy is to hang back in the middle of the crowd so
as not to get led down any blind alleyways! |
