26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazingly accurate and insightful!, February 8, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Moon Handbooks: Northern Mexico (2nd Ed.) (Paperback)
Joe Cummings' tome on Northern Mexico is a refreshing breath of fresh air in an atmosphere polluted with mexico travel guides that either completely ignore the north, or treat it as a merely tolerated region that must be passed through to get to the south.
I've read all of the major travel guides for Mexico, and Cummings is the first writer I've encountered who seemed to not only have actually traveled through Northern Mexico, but who did so with open eyes and with an attitude of actually WANTING to be there.
This book talks not only about sights to see in the region, but also delves into the culture, the music, the arts, and the customs that are particular to northern mexico. For example, when he talks about music, he describes the sounds of the norteño and tejano music that is popular throughout the frontera region---not 30 years ago, but in 1999. When he talks about the cuisine of northern Mexico, he describes the cooking of cabrito in such gloriously accurate detail that I can tell he's talking about the way it is done today in some of Monterrey's most popular restaurants, such as El Rey del Cabrito or El Gran Pastor. My mouth is salivating at the thought!
If your travel plans are taking you to any of the northern states, then you owe it to yourself to get this book. No other guide will do.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent!, December 11, 1998
This review is from: Moon Handbooks: Northern Mexico (2nd Ed.) (Paperback)
Traditional tourism guides ignore what has to be Mexico's most dynamic region - the northern border. But not Joe Cummings! This is a welcome second edition that expands the work of his original classic. I don't use that word lightly. The Northern Mexico Handbook is destined to become one of my most dog-earred books... again! (El Planeta Platica journal)
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Grade A, August 5, 2005
This review is from: Moon Handbooks: Northern Mexico (2nd Ed.) (Paperback)
After picking up Northern Mexico Handbook as a remainder for 3 or 4 bucks, I was surprised years later to see the cheapest one on Amazon Marketplace going for $32.95 and rising very steeply after that into the hundreds. This could mean only one thing: the once-remaindered guide had stood the test of time and become a classic, coveted by collectors.
As I thumbed through the text in preparation for a trip from Nogales down to Hermosillo and Guaymas, it didn't take long to see why. Joe Cummings is several cuts above the typical travel writer. In addition to the usual thumbnail sketches of hotels and restaurants, there were sidebars on the curious plants and animals of the region, one page glossaries on branches of cuisine such as antojitos and agave liquor, and, to me most fascinating, short profiles of various aboriginal cultures that have been in Northern Mexico for centuries-the Seris, the Tarahumaras, the Huicholes, and even a group of Kickapoo who left Wisconsin in 1775 when they saw the neighborhood was going downhill, and who've lived in Coahuila ever since.
The pictures, small as they are, are superb. There are accurate maps of the entire region and of every state, and of all but the smallest of towns, and of the centers of cities. The first 132 pages are jammed with every sort of useful general information one can think of, from a short history of the area, to a discussion of the food, to tips on shopping, to a list of Mexican consulates on this side of the border. And, once you are in the state by state travel section of the book, those thumbnail sketches of hotels and restaurants cover a great many establishments, with the emphasis on the more economical ones, but occasionally straying into luxury.
The book winds up, as any good reference volume does, with a series of lists: airlines serving Northern Mexico, railway schedules, a Spanish glossary, and a thorough bibliography, where I saw two books that I'd read previously but which I never dreamed I'd see on the same page: A translation of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's "Naufragios" and Suzy Gershman's "Born to Shop Mexico", which really shows how far the region has come since the 1530s.
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