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Desperately in need of a quick trade route between Southeast Asia and the Mexican Pacific in order to better compete with the British, among other European rivals, Philip II of Spain ordered the conquest of the Philippines, his namesake, and of the Molucca or "Spice" Islands, during the mid-16th century.

The landscape along the "Highway of the Sun," that places Mexico City within a scant three hours of Acapulco, is especially dazzling after the Querendes tunnel, with its palmetto forest, organ and candlestick cactus canefields - often tipped with frail, heather-like flowers - stretching into the distance, wide riverbeds and mesquite-covered red rock hills. We are entering the "Hot Country," where the sun like a hammer on the devil's anvil is king.

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."