Getting around Mexico - in particular, Northern Mexico and the largest state of Chihuahua - is no longer the logistic nightmare once accepted as gospel, even to the veteran traveler. The major border crossings of Juarez/ El Paso; Douglas/Agua Prieta; and Palomas/Columbus, bring the traveler directly onto exceptionally good Mexican highways where food, fuel and lodging are plentiful. Terrain changes are sometimes as subtle as climbing out of desert vegetation to high plateau. Often, however, the changes are spectacular as one leaves the major basins, plains and plateaus and begins the ascent into a mass of mountain ranges collectively known as the Sierra Madre. Here, the flatlands are given over to alpine and timberline forests; small and friendly Mestizo and Tarahumara settlements; the fertile, black soil that raises hundreds of varieties of apples, delicious pears and peaches, and the cheeses introduced by the Mennonite population that escaped religious injunctions from abroad to settle and live peacefully among their kind and welcoming Mexican neighbors.

There remain some foreign visitors to Mexico, who, for reasons unknown, enter this land of rich history, unparalleled warmth, generosity and joyful spirits, with trepidation. Some fear the water, the food, even the lovely peoples themselves. To these I respond with honest conviction, "You will be transformed in the most positive of manner." I can speak with my own heart made larger from these Mexican friends when I suggest that here, in this land that has seen the ravages of conflict, the pain of death and suffering, and the vicissitudes of politics that has undermined and often destroyed culture and history, the heart and soul of the inhabitants of the Sierra Madres continue to shine and to teach the visitor who has eyes and ears to see and to listen.