Back in New York now, after wrapping up the whole Mexico Adventure. The last night I was there, I had dinner with Jules Siegel and his wife, Anita Brown. The great privilege of being a guidebook author is that it gives me license to just email people on the pretext of “research” and demand to meet them.

Jules is the author of the Cancun User’s Guide, a really excellent book that singlehandedly changed my attitude of Cancun, by gently reminding me that Cancun is barely 30 years old, so of course it’s not pretty or historic, so just get over it–there are plenty of other great things, real Mexican things going on. Jules has been shopping a book called The Real Mexico for a while, which, ironically, he can’t seem to sell because no one can grasp the idea that some guy wearing a hard hat is more real Mexico than a guy wearing a sombrero. Which of course is the point. Sigh.

Anita takes photos, and she’s put a few of them up online. Like Jules, she has an affection for Cancun and an eye for the things that make it a whole, functioning city–not just the crazy resort Xanadu that exists in most people’s imagination. There are only a few pics up now, but check back–and while you’re on the site, read more about Jules’s book, or buy it online.