This map, along with the others they publish, is the one thing you must have before travelling to Cancun. It will make your trip so much more enjoyable, because you will never be lost.

If you've ever gone to a strange city and tried to find your way around, you know how frustrating it can be. With this map, you can fly into Cancun International Airport and know where your hotel is right off the bat, from having studied at home before leaving. You'll know where the restaurants are, too, leaving more time to enjoy your vacation and less time spent trying to find your way around. There is info on taxi zones and costs, local bus info, even shows a bike path along the hotel zone. I've been to Cancun several times, and still use the map to find places. Its not an American Express Card, but don't leave home without this map, either.

This is my BIBLE when I go to Cancun. So much care and detail has gone into this map. I learn and find new things all the time using it. It is VERY easy to use and read. If there is one reference you buy before your trip - this should be the one!!!

TENER ENTRE LAS MANOS UNA GRAN NOVELA, O CONOCER A UNA MUJER IMPRESIONANTE por su amor a La Libertad, su desafio a leyes injustas, su firmeza que prefirió la pena de muerta, el despojo de sus bienes y la Excomunión antes que traicionar a sus colaboradores rebeldes.
Tejida con maestria, con un estilo purísimo, impecable, original, RAPIDO, "agarrador ", porque a la segunda pagina ya no suelta uno el libro hasta terminarlo...

El manejo y la riqueza idiomatica ( que jamás es rebuscada ni oscura )convierten a esta novela histórica en una apasionante delicia!

BOOK:
It's by far the BEST NOVEL IN MANY YEARS. If you care for REAL historical facts, READ IT.
If you love the genre, THIS IS A REMARKABLE NOVEL.
The main character starts breathing since the second page, as a spirit driven by the ideal of freedom, ready to give her life, her wealth ( which she gave ) her position as a blue blooded Debutante in the High Society of Mexico..which she gave away...all, all in THE NAME OF FREEDOM..
She fought like the bravest soldier, wrote as a pen dipped in poison against the Spanish Invaders, stood her ground before a President and also before the Holy Inquisition...
It's so magistrally written, that you feel her steps, her despair, her wrath. You ride with her to collect debts in blood,to find the man she loved and that she turned into a rebel...
NO book and no woman like this one: Maria Leona Vicario.
AND SHE REALLY LIVED AND GAVE ALL FOR INDEPENDENCE AND FREEDOM.
This is not a cold History book: It's a life, a heart, a soul !

EL ALMA DE LA MUJER...
Escrita con maestria, con idioma riquisimo que dejaría pálido a Garcia Marquez, a Isabel Allende.
Desde las primeras tres páginas, puedes ver, oler, sentir todo lo que sucede, ver la silueta extraordinaria de una muchacha de 20 años que ARDE EN PASION por LA LIBERTAD Y POR UN HOMBRE...
Que lanzo toda su abundante fortuna a las llamas de la lucha de La Independencia y jamás se retractó. Que lucho a pie, a caballo, que amaba ferozmente a SU PUEBLO Y LO DEFENDIA AUN A COSTA DE SU VIDA...
Una mujer que es ejemplo de lealtad, FEROZ ANTE LA INJUSTICIA...
La novela sólo me duró CUATRO HORAS... y me quemaba las manos. Desconecte los teléfonos Y LOGRÉ QUE EL MUNDO DESAPARECIERA A MI ALREDEDOR...me sentí cabalgando entre los rebeldes,arrostrando la muerte... enamorado perdido de la novela y el personaje..
NADIE DEBE PERDERSE DE ESTA ALHAJA...

ES UNA NOVELA BRONCA, SUAVE, TERRIBLE...

Native American mythology has always interested me, particularly the coyote archetype. I was pleased that the narrative of The Memory Keeper stayed true to a particular myth, in many ways the characters reenacting certain aspects of the myth. Throughout the story, many of the characters seemed to be responding to the superficiality of contemporary life. It was also interesting that many of the characters were artists. Joseph Campbell once made the remark that psychologists were the modern day version of priests, while artists were the shamans-the artist always seeking to step outside, to question. It is through the work of the artist, such as Jesse (the protagonist of this book) that we find ourselves redirected back to mythology, to the world beyond appearance. This story illustrates this well even through its minor characters, such as the winos in the supermarket who were, in reality, sources of great wisdom. Even Tiffany's character interested me because her shallowness seemed forced, an armor she wore to shield herself from the pain of experience. The author's attraction to myth, as well as to Native American culture, reminded me of the work of José Bedia, a Cuban artist who has spent time among the Navajo.

Many of us are caught in the bind of being tagged with a cultural identity at birth and go through life feeling separated from people of different cultures. Jesse's march into seemingly altogether different cultures, even at the risk of being ostracized (which is reflected in her artwork of discarded objects and shattered mirrors), revealed her deep-rooted desire to break through cultural and racial differences and to find something that bonds everyone together-her identity no longer something that was given to her as much as it was earned. The Memory Keeper is very good.

The Memory Keeper is a fun, exhilarating book that's full of history and life's lessons. It will leave you turning each page saying "Oh my gosh. I can't believe this is happening!" If you want a suspenseful, yet kind-hearted book, read The Memory Keeper.

The Memory Keeper was well written and easy to read. The author captured my attention quickly and painted a vivid picture of the characters and their surroundings. It would make a great movie. It is a story everyone can relate to. It made me realize how little I know about my own family background and how important it is to share with my children. I'm looking forward to giving this book to my family and friends for the holidays.

Memory -- its presence and its absence, its wonder and its terror, its helpfulness and its harm -- weaves its way through Laura Hendrie's REMEMBER ME like a minor-key musical leitmotif. Rose Devonic, lifelong resident of tiny Queduro, New Mexico, struggles against the memories of the townspeople; the failing memory of her sometime-nemesis, Alice Pinkston; the bittersweet memory of a family killed in a car accident when Rose was just 16.

This is a novel about belonging and difference, remembering and forgetting, acceptance and rejection. Hendrie makes you care about Rose, seeing the world through her slightly offbeat, but clear and decisive eyes.

I opened REMEMBER ME at bedtime and turned the last page at 5:00 AM. I couldn't rest without knowing how Rose's life turned out.

Read this book. Now.

It is a rare find to read a book that is able to capture and develop the nuances of human emotion in its characters. Laura Hendrie's Remember Me is full of brilliant, vivid characters who all have an inescapable connect with one another. Hendrie has presented these characters and their complex relationships with such grace, intensity and passion as I have never read before in a novel. This book is a must read! I cannot wait for her next!

What remains sacred when everything is for sale? What happens to a tightly-knit community when heritage is traded for an illusory economic security?

Laura Hendrie sets "Remember Me" in the forgotten New Mexico town of Queduro. The residents, once miners and shepherds, now rely on tourists for economic survival. Queduro is the most isolated of mountain towns, cut off from the rest of the world in October through May by impassible snows. The town has long spent its winters bent to embroidery, but only in recent years has the outside world developed a taste for their intricately worked crafts.

Into this picture of a town struggling to create and maintain the perfect tourist enviroment are set some fairly eccentric characters. Rose Devonic, a twenty-nine year old woman who's been an orphan for the last thirteen years, is in Queduro because it's the only home she's ever known. Rose is as stubborn as she is strong, and she's determined to chart her own course in spite of the town elder's wanting her to spout the tourist line. Already teetering on the far edge of acceptance, Rose crosses the invisible line when she challenges Alice, the sister of a local motel owner, who has returned to this town she'd rather forget to sell her brother's business.

Queduro residents, sharply attuned to the business damage eccentrics could wreak, have had it with Rose. Alice presents a different, but fully equal challenge. Though she comes across as a strong and determined seventy-year-old, her mind has started to wander. It is only a matter of time before the town begins to turn on her as well.

Laura Hendrie crafts an incredibly lovely and moving tale in this first novel. Though set in the west, her themes are universal. Rose's loss of her home is paralleled by Alice's struggle to hold on to her memory. It's a conflict which unites some very unlikely allies.

It would be easy, and unfair, to characterize this work as a book which would appeal only to women. The main characters are women, but the issues raised by this work cross gender lines as easily as they do geographic ones. It is a book that looks at what makes a hero, and how does one make a home. It seems, in Hendrie's vision, home has very little to do with physical grandeur, and a whole lot to do with what you love.

This is a wonderful story, beautifully told, and a total immersion experience that should not be missed.

This is one of the best books I have ever read, Bernal Diaz provides in great depth the CONQUEST OF MEXICO and the fall of the Mexica(Aztecs). For anyone interested in Mexican History or the history of the Western Hemisphere in general, this is a must. The chapters are short and easy to read, as well as addicting, especially during the final siege of Mexico. This is a great book to read especially if you're from Zapotlanejo, Jalisco or from Norwalk, California. This book is a great stepping stone on the subject and one should also check out Letters from Mexico(letters from Cortes himself) and Broken Spears(the Aztec account of the Conquest). Orale!

Review by Tom rederiksen - http://members.aol.com/spdtom/index.html - AZTEC STUDENT TEACHER RESOURCE CENTER: Diaz is an accomplished writer and I was impressed with his attention to detail as it related to the daily life and inter-personal relationships between the Conquistadors. This is a fairly long book but reads easily and anyone that enjoys a good adventure or mystery novel will find this an interesting book. As there are precious few first hand accounts from this time period, this first hand narrative is a must read for anyone getting started in the study of the Mexican conquest time period. This book was written rather late in life by the author. Supposedly, Diaz read a copy of a book by Lopez de Gomara, Chronicle of the Conquest of New Spain, and was so outraged by references to "Cortes this", and "Cortes that", that the old soldier penned this classic. Were it not for the work of Diaz, the world would not have a comprehensive record of the conquest. A must read.

Several decades ago, as a college sophomore, I was assigned to read Bernal Díaz' work as part of a Latin American history course. The title did not give me much hope. I imagined having to force myself to sit at a desk night after night in order to finish the book. To my great surprise, once I began to read this incredible eye-witness account, I could not put it down. Still, some 38 years later, Bernal Díaz' story, as one of the soldiers who accompanied Cortés, remains forever as one of the best books I have ever read on any subject.

Vivid, eye-witness description of the whole story of the Conquest of Mexico in 1519 will rivet you to the pages, if you have even the slightest sense of history or desire to imagine strange events in faroff places. Here is the tale of how the Spanish soldiers, led by Cortés, despite tremendous odds, toppled an ancient civilization, destroying it utterly, and began a new society that would eventually become modern Mexico. Where else are you going to read words like these, describing the Spaniards' first arrival in Tenochtitlan, which would become Mexico City ? "When we saw so many cities and villages built both in the water and on dry land, and this straight, level causeway, we couldn't restrain our admiration. It was like the enchantments told about in the book of Amadis, because of the high towers, temples, and other buildings, all of masonry, which rose from the water. Some of our soldiers asked if what we saw was not a dream." Alliances, intrigues, battles, retributions, strange gods and the clash of utterly different cultures fill this amazing book. If you have any fondness for history, if you have any curiosity about vanished civilizations, if you would like to ponder about Fate with more substance than usual (!), then Bernal Díaz is your man. Do not pass this book by.

No other book about Baja California has ever eaten into my soul as Gene Kira's "King of the Moon." I have known and traveled throughout Baja for many, many years. I saw these people. I spoke to them. Through this book, Kira has brought composites of all of the people of this remarkable Mexican peninsula.

What a find! King of the Moon is that rare book with the power to change lives. This haunting and often harrowing story of life in a Baja fishing village is packed with intense imagery and colorful characters. This book is so satisfying I didn't want it to end. (I struggled to pace my reading to make the experience last longer.) It's a beautiful and bittersweet story written with consummate skill and filled with profound insight into the human condition. A treasure.

Gene Kira's "King of the Moon" is one of the best fictional books on Baja to be published in my lifetime. The characters jump off the page to give you a vivid feel for the country and its people as they accept what the land and life gives them and struggle to make the best of what they are given. You will begin to understand why there are people like myself who have come to love the country and its stoic, warm-hearted people. For a real insight into Baja, try "King of the Moon".....Gary Graham, Baja on the Fly.

River of Souls is a fast paced story of the American west, that is full of historical nuggets. The characters are colorful and rich. The author does a great job of weaving the lives of his characters into the fabric of the events of the times. The author vividly shows the landscape, freedom and harsh justice of that era. It's a good, fun read.

River of Souls has a great combination of historical facts and fictional characters. The plot is solid and the story moves quickly. The dialog is little hard to follow at first , but is acurate and fun. The main charcters are brought to vivd life and you find yourself caring deeply about what happens to them. The author hooks you in to wanting more at the end by not tying up all the lose ends. Will Pete and the girl fall in love? Will Black Hess arise to take his revenge on the family that has defeated him twice? If you want to escape for a while and learn about the early South West, read River of Souls!

River of Souls transports the reader into the real southwest and uses this as a backdrop for exploring coming of age issues in a turbulent time. None of the western stereotypes exist, so when the reader connects with tangential facts and events, it seems all the more real and satisfying. The historical reality combined with the interpersonal intensity of the characters make this a surprisingly enjoyable read.

It's obvious that Dimock has done his homework in researching and writing this superbly crafted book detailing the disappearance of Glenn and Bessie Hyde, the 'honeymoon couple' who attempted a run through Grand Canyon in their sweep scow--Rain-in-the-Face--during 1928. Here we find three great stories packed concisely into one exceptionally good book. It is part mystery novel, part an historical account replete with colorful and obscure Grand Canyon characters, and part the telling of Dimock's own run down the Colorado River in the sweep scow he built to recreate the Hyde's histroic trip. SUNK WITHOUT A SOUND is also, and more importantly, a thorough biography of the life and times of Glen and Bessie Hyde. Their family members appear in startling detail, their history is laid out in a colorfully woven chronology, and their ultimate end is surmised in vivid fashion. Beyond that, the many folk tales surrounding their disappearance are debunked and kindly dismissed with considerable research. Illustrated with maps, diagrams, and an interesting variety of historic Grand Canyon and Hyde family photos, Dimock ultimely takes the reader on a whitewater trip not to be forgotten. Dimock's first book, THE DOING OF THE THING, a biography of riverman Buzz Holmstrom, won the National Outdoor Book Award in 1998. However impressive that my be, SUNK WITHOUT A SOUND is, obviously, destined for much higher accolades.

Outrageous adventures that capture the imagination, like Lindberg's trans-Atlantic flight, often personify the American spirit, especially in the youth of a new century. But the 1928 honeymoon excursion down the rapids of the Grand Canyon by Glen and Bessie Hyde ended in tragedy, their bodies never recovered, the whole trip shrouded in mystery. This book sets out to tell their story with as many facts as are available, recount the rescue efforts and determine some answers after all these years of speculation.

After reading Grand Ambition, a novel by Lisa Michael's, about the couple's fateful honeymoon, I was curious to know more of the details and explore the lore surrounding the disappearance of Bessie and Glen. Author Dimock gathers what few pertinent facts are available and reconstructs the Hyde's journey, physically experiencing parts of it himself. He even builds a replica of their craft, hoping to ascertain what happened as they moved from one dangerous whitewater course to another. Literally, only speculation remains, because their flat-bottomed scow was found drifting, intact and packed with provisions with no evidence of the bodies. Did they die, or escape? The author also carefully goes over each step of the rescue party's unsuccessful search. As an extra service to the reader, he spends some time debunking the many urban legends that have sprung up over the years, passed from campfire to campfire, further clouding the truth.

The most satisfying part of this book is Dimock's exacting concentration on each phase of the journey given the modernization of river rafting techniques and experience. Easy answers are simply not acceptable to Dimock, and he unfailingly covers every possible situation in the attempt to arrive at a feasible conclusion. In his conscientious writing, this author postulates some scenarios that set my mind at rest. When he fits the pieces of the puzzle together, it's as likely a fit as will be found at this time. And I was relieved to put aside those rumors and innuendoes told with a broad wink, because I would like to think of this couple in peace after such a short and harrowing twist of fate.

I'm no expert about the Grand Canyon or whitewater rafting - I've visited the canyon about 5 times over the last 30 years, spending 6 days on a spring break backcountry hike on one of the trips, and I've been on one float trip down the San Juan River [Bluff to 'Lake Foul'] on the spring break before or after the canyon hike - so I'm reviewing Sunk Without A Sound by Brad Dimock as an interested and knowledgable layperson. This book is an amazing adventure story, a gripping mystery, a brave piece of experimental historical investigation, the end product of extensive research, and an extremely rational and fair reading of the available evidence.

The book is a tapestry of stories sewn together with several strong threads. The main thread is the story of the failed [?] honeymoon Colorado River trip of Glen and Bessie Hyde in 1928 and the subsequent attempts to find a solution to their disappearance. It is the story of RC Hyde, Glen's father, and his obsessive, but loving, attempts to find his son and his daughter-in-law. It is the story of author Brad Dimock and his wife, Jeri Ledbetter, and their enlightening version of the original Hyde trip [they recreated the original journey in a version of the original sweep scow]. Dimock ties all these pieces together in one seamless piece of non-fiction.

I enjoyed the book immensely, especially the fact that Dimock told the most reasonable story that the research and the evidence supported. I recommend you take a ride throught the twists, the turns, and the rapids of this excellent book.

This is probably the definitive biography of one of Mexico's greatest gifts to the art world, Frida Kahlo. If you want to know more about this Mexican icon, please read this book. The photographs are abundant and the color reproductions of her works are numerous and spread throughout the book. Full of little known tid bits of information, it is a fascinating read. For example, her name was Frieda, but changes it to Frida as a political protest. The insights into the lives of her, hubby, Diego Rivera, and all their circle of friends is enthralling. The allure of Frida is a now 21st century phenomena that does not seem to be losing steam. I recently went to the Museum of Contemporay Art in La Jolla, Ca. to see an exhibit that featured some of her most famous paintings. It was unbelieveable the amount of goods generated to sell that are Frida related. Her picture was everywhere in the gift shop, always for sale. I only wonder what this wonderful spirit would have thought about how she is venerated and idolized by so many. Back to the book, the writing style is one that flows and allows the reader to follow without much trouble. The reference material is abundant including many interviews, letters and quotes from other books. Scholarly enough for academics but entertaining enough for the casual reader. It will hold your interest and leave you knowing Frida and the pain and joy that was her life. The book is thick, but because of the intriguing nature of her life you will probably finish it quickly. When you approach the the last chapters of this book, you will not want it to end. The inevitable end will come and a temporary void will have been created as her death will leave you saddened. Her ghastly cremation will bring a tear to your eye; it did mine and I'm a guy! As you get over it, you will rejoice in the consolation of knowing that her art lives on. You may even go out and buy a piece of Frida to adorn your home with, like me and so many other fans of Frida have done. Frida has not died, her spirit lives on for eternity. She is always looking at me, with her joined eyebrows and three monkeys. The look of a revolutionary spirit who has left her art and a wonderful biography by Hayden Herrera for all to enjoy.

There is something a bit frightening about a person so intense. Frida Kahlo lived her life with passion and intensity. Hayden Herrera recorded this life in all its colors. I especially liked the critical exploration of her paintings woven in with the story of her life. It is a fascinating life and if you only read one book about Frida Kahlo, this is the one you should read.

Everyone has got to read this excellent book at least once in their lives. This is one of the most in-depth, well-researched biographies on Frida Kahlo I've ever read. The story of this courageous, spirited, highly talented woman is truly inspiring, and the cultural and historical details alone are worth a look.

This book totally captivated me. I was familiar with most of the areas traveled and found him to be right on target with his descriptions. I love Baja and enjoyed learning the experiences he encountered and how he tackled all the many hardships he faced.

Travel books about daring trips to places filled with hardships erupt like volcanic ash from the "featured on sale" sections of bookstores. Authors fill the shelves, as they have for a dozen decades, with endless sagas of how they climbed-a-mountain-and-everybody-died, why they sailed-the-Pacific-in-a-sea-of-storms, and even all-the-good-reasons-why-people-should-not-do-the-dangerous-pastime-the-author-does.

"Into a Desert Place" features many of the hallmarks of this unfortunate genre of "we nearly died" non-fiction. Baja California's alien landscapes, spiked with impassable mountains, rattlesnakes and boojum trees, certainly qualifies in many regions as a "need a sense of high adventure and a contempt for danger to tour there" area. Yet, "Into a Desert Place" does not repel in the way that "body count on Mount Everest" books can. On the contrary, this book simply charms. "Into a Desert Place" is a complete revelation--an accessible, winning account of how adverse conditions can be met by those most basic values--determination, a good attitude and, indeed, a good heart.

Mr. Mackintosh manages to convey the hardships of the trip, the kindness of most of the people he met along the way, and his own struggles to complete his quest, all without undue sentimentality or boastfulness. The book has a folksy, simple feel about it, but it is anything but a simple book. Instead of the usual travel book conceits based on machismo or "sheer pluck", we see Baja through the eyes of Everyman. We need more books like "Into a Desert Place" and fewer books about how many innocent tourists drowned at sea. We all belong in the desert place to which this book removes us. After reading this book, the reader may not wish to walk around Baja, but the reader might well wish to find that place of quiet, and think a bit.

I bought this book years ago, after reading a typewritten review in one of those "Doomsday Is Comming--Soon!" 'zines. Most of the books reviewed in it were those grim tomes about how to survive by eating nuts and berries after The Big One gets dropped and wipes out 50% of our population. Mr. McKintosh's book proved to be a pleasant suprise--a well- written account, an out-and-out adventure, a walk across the remote desert of Lower California on a shoestring budget.

When he got the idea to actually Do It, McKinstosh was slightly pudgy Scottish college professor whose main exercise seemed to have been lifting a bottle of beer to his lips while he watched football (that's soccer to us Yanks) on the telly. By the time he completed his several month journey, he was lean and sun-baked, the antithesis of his former couch potato self.

In the process, I'd say Mr. McKintosh grew, and actually "found the handle". He figured out what he was about, and what he wanted to do with his life.

For me, some of the most enjoyable parts were those describing how he begged equipment from manufacturers and outfitters, and how he raised funding along the way by writing accounts that he posted to newspapers and magazines.

Of course, there's The Adventure itself, including an amusing account of how he got sloshed from booze he obtained from gathering whiskey bottles that had washed ashore after being thrown overboard from cruise ships. (He sagely notes that staggering around in the boonies at night is risky business.)

Along the way, McKintosh gets befriended by all sorts of interesting, impoverished, and invariably generous folk. Those accounts have a Beginner's Mind freshness to them as well.

Since his original trek, McKinstosh has acquired a modicum of fame. He lectures and writes for the Baja Travel Club, and has since written another book about a second journey with a burro for company. That's a nice piece as well, but I prefer the freshness that only comes from seeing things for the first time.

I'm an old Baja hand myself, and over the years, I've collected a lot of books about Lower California. This one ranks at the very top.

So buy it, read it, and enjoy the photographs. I'm sure you'll find the money well spent.