Health and Safety in Mexico

Itzamná, supreme Mayan deity in Northern Yucatan, is credited not only with founding the grandiose ceremonial center that later became the Peninsula's greatest monastery, but he also founded religion and the priesthood. He discovered the cultivation and application of henequen fiber, for the ropes, mats and clothing on which the local economy was based.

Actually another world, as different from the central plateau as it possibly can be, Monterrey is considerably more than business and industry, though its well-earned fame does seem to center on steel, cement, paper, beer, glass and banking.

Everyone in México City, especially those who drive south on the Periférico or look west from a tower in Lomas, is familiar with the silhouette - like a crooked bracket lain sideways - of the Ajusco.

Mayapan was considered the last Mayan capital, at least within Mexican territory. It was undoubtedly the final, urban center just before the Spanish conquest - what academics insist on calling, euphemistically at best, the "contact period."

Forty-five miles along the Mexican Pacific, framing broad bays or steeply pitched coves, are known as the Costa Alegre. Departing Manzanillo's "Playa de Oro" Airport and turning north, we are in the state of Colima until halfway across the Cihuatlan bridge. The other half, and the once earthquake-scarred town, hurtle us into the state of Jalisco.

Cantona is wonderfully situated on a fortified basalt bluff called the Cerro de las Aguilas, the Pizarro volcano and Cofre de Perote in the distance, there are three roads and a rail line into the precinct, but the most beguiling is a raised causeway over a shallow lagoon, between the Jalapa highway and the carefully cultivated fields on the agricultural flats that extend to the foot of the site.