Buenos Tardes!

Let's start at the ending and work our way backwards. "Buenos Tardes!" shouts our guide as we motor past this hombre. He lifts his head, touches his hat in a quick salute and smiles his retort as we pass...

That being said, we crossed paths with him in the middle of the day as he was tending to his (somewhere around) 2 acres of a milpa at about 7,000 feet in the mid day sun. I looked at the valley beyond where he toiled and could see America's first farms in Yagul and Mitla, and I wondered if this man learned to farm from his father, who learned from his father, who learned from.... and let's go back generations to 12,000 years before today. There are about 4 places on this rock where people stopped migrating, took a stand and domesticated food. This valley you see in front of you is one of them.

Let that sink in for a second...

If humankind can take a stand here, in the middle of a valley more than a mile high in an area that is arid half of the year then maybe...just maybe.... we can channel their grit just a tad and make a stand against...well....anything.