John & Susy Pint

Photos courtesy of PESH and Bill Steele, unless otherwise indicated. For die-hard cave explorers around the world, Mexico has long been considered “the new frontier of caving.” Here cavers have a high likelihood of being among the first human beings ever to boldly set foot where “no one has gone before.”  Maybe the best example of Mexico’s magnificent caves is the Huautla Cave System located in Oaxaca's Sierra Mazateca mountains. Exploration began in 1965 when a group of cavers from Austin Texas arrived at the village of Huautla de Jiménez. They soon discovered three beautiful and challenging caves in the area: Sótano de San Agustin, La Grieta and Nita Nanta. In time It became clear that these and other caves they kept finding were interconnected, all part of one big cave system, which became known as Sistema Huautla. The hills housing America’s deepest cave. Photo: Dave Bunnel. Numerous expeditions took place over the years and more than 65 kilometers of passages were mapped by ca

  In 1894, a man living near the famed ruins of Teotihuácan, 50 kilometers from Modern Mexico City, discovered a small, pre-Hispanic house whose walls were covered with beautifully colored murals. The place was called Teopancaxco or “La Casa de Barrios.” The paintings were the first of their kind found at Teotihuácan and visitors considered them spectacular. Watercolor painting of the mural at la Casa de Barrios, Teopancaxco. Weather and time eventually did their damage to the murals and today we would have little idea of how they once looked if it were not for an extraordinary Englishwoman named Adela Breton who had fallen in love with Mexico's ruins and who painstakingly reproduced these murals as watercolors. Mary Frech, author of Adela Breton, a Victorian Artist amid Mexico's Ruins, says, quoting James Langley:  “Adela made the most comprehensive record of the murals at Teopancaxco. Her re-creation of the colours of the murals is unsurpassed compared with the few colour rep

  Hidden away in rural Mexico are majestic waterfalls, meandering rivers and sparkling lakes. These are the pride of local people and their favorite places to go for a carne asada on a Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, the water in many of these streams and lagoons is contaminated and every rancher or campesino picnicking nearby laments the fact that they are being polluted by aguas negras pouring into them from the nearest town.  When you suggest they build a sewage treatment plant, they almost always give you the same reply: “We already have a planta de tratamiento , sí señor! The government built one for us 10 years ago, but sad to say, it's no longer in operation. The building is over there at the edge of town, locked up and abandoned.” Building a plant, I learned, is one thing and maintaining it is quite another. A small community cannot afford the high operating costs and even less the salary of an expert to run the place. Having heard this same story again and again, I was