Introduction

Can a man have a love affair with a foreign land? Ron Butler never dreamed Mexico would capture his heart and his soul. But when his ex-wife moved to Guadalajara with their children in the wake of divorce, he found himself crisscrossing the country, seduced by its charms and moved by its rhythms and its melodies.

Like the diver of an old Mexican legend who lives beneath the sea seeking the best pearl, Butler lost himself in Mexico and found the hidden treasures of every tiny hamlet and big metropolis. He writes about the endangered monarch butterflies of El Rosario, the street bands of Zacatecas, and the mummies of Guanajuato. He takes a magical night ferry ride from Mazatlán and a train excursion into Copper Canyon—a chasm four times larger than the Grand Canyon—in Mexico's most mysterious mountains. He goes off the beaten path in such tourist havens as Acapulco and Cancún. And he walks in the footsteps of movie stars and artists who too have been enamored of Mexico.

Poking into the nooks and crannies of Mexico, Butler indulges in tasty Mexican specialties at both the finest restaurants and out-of-the-way street stands. He finds the best tequila in the town named Tequila, the world's most delicious cup of coffee in Veracruz, the sweetest dulce in Morelia, and the best mole—a Mayan chile and chocolate sauce embellished by nuns anxious to please a visiting Spanish viceroy—in Puebla. Sharing his considerable knowledge of art, Butler also uncovers the best of Mexico's museums and advises shoppers about folk crafts.

Informative and helpful as the best travel guide, Dancing Alone in Mexico will help even seasoned travelers to get the most out of their trips to Mexico. Casual and lively as the best travel memoir, the book will also delight the armchair traveler with south-of-the-border stories and adventures that come only to those who dance not alone but with an entire land.

Editorial Review

In Dancing Alone in Mexico, Ron Butler offers an enchanting account of his capricious travels criss-crossing Mexico, presenting a country rich with history and alive with present-day vigor. An effort to maintain a relationship with his two children after his wife leaves him for the inland city of Guadalajara leads Butler on a trek through almost every region of Mexico, showing off the land and its people with a mix of straightforward historical research and tantalizing personal discoveries.

Just as Mexico is colored with celebration, so are Butler's travels. He tastes the marrow of the land, not merely as a tourist, but as a participant in local traditions. He seizes an opportunity to visit the last great American Matador, Diego O'Bolger, capturing the machismo spirit of the matador's dressing room. He claims to find the world's most delectable cup of coffee in the venerable city of Veracruz. He describes area legends, such as an ageless pearl diver forever searching the waters off La Paz for the best pearl its oyster beds can produce, and the portentous mummies stolen from unpaid graves and grotesquely displayed in a museum of Guanajuato. The reader is also treated to an in-depth exploration of the tangled relationship between Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera, two of Mexico's most famed artists.

Butler gives of himself in these pages. His sentiments are fiercely expressed--often as veracious loneliness or estrangement:

The trip seemed incomplete somehow; I was sorry it was over. I imagined that, meanwhile out at sea, deep below the water's surface, a bearded figure with ghostly flowing hair paused briefly and then continued on, content in the knowledge, for the moment at least, that someone, somehow, shared his ceaseless wandering.

Dancing Alone in Mexico is as alluring and sweet as cajeta, the caramelized Mexican candy, and will draw any reader into reveries of this magical land. --Jacque Holthusen

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