Hola from Laurie!

Our next meeting will be March 2, 2002. The usual: 4:00pm at the Wings Theater, 154 Christopher Street.

The subject is MEXICO! I will be in Mexico myself at the end of February but will be back in time for our March meeting… Matt Link is back again! And along with Gretchen Kelly, they will explain the interior of the Yucatan peninsula with an emphasis of staying at small villages near archeological sites in lieu of staying at the plastic, commercial areas like Cancun. They will delve into the mysteries of the Maya, touching upon their spiritual practices and history in the area, as well as present day problems modern Maya face in Mexico. They will also be visiting the historic town of Merida as well, one of the loveliest towns in the country. We will have slides as well as some arts and crafts to pass around. Both Matt and Gretchen have attended the Maya World Conference, a meeting of all the countries that have Mayan populations. So this will undoubtedly be a slide show and lecture not to miss!

Gretchen Kelly is the News Editor for Business Traveler magazine and the travel editor for Design Times magazine. Recent feature stories Gretchen has worked on include profiles of Buenos Aires (where she interviewed Eva Peron's living relatives), Aboriginal Australia and the story of porcelain from Dresden to Chungking. She is currently at work on a feature article about Jakarta, Indonesia. For those of you who did not meet Matt at previous meetings, he has been traveling since the age of twelve, when he boarded his family's boat for five years and sailed around the Pacific including the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Micronesia, the Solomon Islands, and New Zealand, where he attended high school. He hasn't stopped since, having visited dozens of countries in Eurasia and living for a number of years in both Hong Kong and Hawaii, where he ran kayak tours and published the guidebook Rainbow Handbook Hawaii. He now lives in New York where he works with Arthur Frommer as Associate Editor of the magazine Budget Travel. See you all soon. Adios!

New York meetings are held at The Wings Theater, 154 Christopher Street (btw Greenwich Stand Washington St), to the right of Crunch Fitness, in the Archive on the first Saturday of each month at 4 pm.