A semester in tropical Mexico - the idea

It's been over three years now since Ellen and I decided that tropical Mexico was the best place to bring UC students for a full semester mix of biological and cultural studies. (Actually, it was Doug Cameron's idea – thanks Doug!) But, since we never actually had been to Mexico – our prior experience had been taking students to Costa Rica for a three-week course over winter break – we had some serious homework to do. So we began planning the first of our three trips to Mexico to lay the foundation of the semester program.

Doug had suggested the Yucatán, because it combines the tropical habitats we wanted to visit with numerous remains of one of the great ancient civilizations – the Classic Maya – in a safe and friendly environment. Sounded great to us!

How do you plan a semester program in a country that you’ve never been to? For us – since we’re profs – the obvious first step was to start reading. A bit of research at amazon.com suggested that the best travel guide for the Yucatán was Yucatan and Mayan Mexico by British travel writer Nick Rider.

Yucatan & Mayan Mexico

And so it proved. As I’ll explain in my next post, Nick’s book has been invaluable in introducing us to the region and in helping us plan our first three-week visit, traveling throughout the region on our own, safely and productively, with only the most rudimentary Spanish at our disposal.