Forget Barak Obama – he’s so 2009. Evo Morales is the new rock star president, as I learned in Coyoacan this weekend. A sea of enthusiastic people of every ethnicity waited for hours in the hot sun to hear his plea for a more just society, one that provides a dignified life for all and respects the rights of the Pachamama, Mother Earth. His rousing speech was preceded with performances by indigenous dancers and musicians and a Four Directions ceremony.

Here are a few scenes from the rally on Sunday.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

We all know and understand that to reduce any environmental impact we might have when we travel we have to change the way we travel as whole. However, it’s a misconception that in order to partake of sustainable travel, one must make many a sacrifice.

Sustainable travel doesn’t have to mean abstain-able travel. You don’t have to forego things in their entirety; rather, you just have to give it careful consideration and maybe go about travel with a different mindset.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember when embarking on a venture (or adventure) would be to first of all remember to travel with an attitude that is geared towards sustainable travel. It’s all well and good if you start a journey with a mind to travel in a sustainable fashion, but it’s a person’s attitude and ethic that will carry them through and aid them in making the right decisions.

A good – and easy – way to do this is to just not do anything unnecessary. Avoid paper by booking your travel plans and subsequent tickets online; e-tickets are a great way forwards. Support not only the indigenous culture of your destination, but support efforts that promote sustainable tourism and stay in hotels or residential facilities that also promote a sustainable way of life.

As the sayings go, “it’s easy when you know how” and “practice makes perfect”, so with this in mind, you have to understand that it might not come naturally to you, but with practice and help you too can become a sustainable travel guru. The most damaging thing you can do is to just not care, so start caring today and if you already cared, then care more!

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Outside in the darkness, up in the hills not far from here, a chorus of coyotes is greeting the coming of the dawn. How appropriate, I think with a smile. Here in Huehuecoyotl, place of the old, old coyote, I’ve just bid farewell to the greatest coyote of all, Subcoyote Alberto Ruz Buenfil, who is letting me use his home as a base for a few days. Now it’s his time to head into Mexico City, where he is taking the lessons of the Rainbow Caravan for Peace into the barrios of that other place of coyotes, Coyoacán.

I’ve come to Huehuecoyotl to meet his family and some of the people who form this core group of world-changers. I’ve come to break bread, share stories, and glean advice for the journey ahead. Alberto has been in a whirlwind of activity since I arrived – he’s playing a lead role in a film about Fellini’s spiritual journey through Mexico, and the ghost-spirit of the great Italian filmmaker was just here to supervise from another dimension the shooting of some scenes; longtime friend Jose Arguelles, author and visionary, just spent some time here. During my two days here he’s just finished another book and sent it out to the reviewers, underwent a root canal and many hours of community meetings and obligations, and bid farewell to his daughter who is on her way back to Spain; now he’s preparing for a thousand-drum salute and fundraiser for the people of Haiti and a visit from Bolivian President Evo Morales, but still he took time to show me around, orient me to the solar shower and the composting toilet, share photos and reminisce about the incredible 13-year nomadic ecovillage whose trail I now follow, from Mexico to Patagonia.

An old legend tells of a time when the Earth is in crisis, and life itself is in danger. In these times, the legend goes, a new type of warrior will arise: a tribe of all races, creeds and nationalities who will be known by the universal symbol of the rainbow, and driven by love, their mission will be to save the planet from extinction.

So writes Alberto in his book, “Los Guerreros del Arcoiris.” (Rainbow Nation Without Borders-Bear & Company publishers)-Alberto has dedicated his life to nurturing this tribe, leading the Rainbow Caravan of Peace on an epic journey through Mexico, Central and South America. This nomadic ecovillage traveled from country to country, led by Alberto’s old schoolbus, La Mazorca, colorfully painted to resemble the iconic ear of corn. The ever-changing tribe sought to connect groups active in resistance to the destructive corporate model. They set up camp in jungles and mountains, in indigenous villages and urban ghettos, sharing music, theater and seeds of practical eco-wisdom: green building techniques, simple alternative technologies, natural healing techniques and more. At the same time, they gathered up bits of local lore and wisdom and connected the disparate groups into a hemispheric network. In August of 2009, the tribe finally disbanded, each dispersing to different parts of the continent to continue the consuming work of social change.

Alberto returned to Huehuecoyotl, the picturesque ecovillage established in 1982 in the mountains near Tepoztlan by Alberto and his community of rainbow warriors. He is letting me use his home as a base for a few days as I organize myself for the next phase of my journey. The beautiful adobe-brick home is filled with light from the arching windows that look out upon the grassy valley below; out the front door, past a tall green row of fragrant hoja santa plants, limestone cliffs tower protectively beyond the beautiful home of his son Odin, a musician and one of Mexico’s leading permaculture practitioners.

I will see Alberto once again before I go, when he hosts Bolivian President Evo Morales for a brief visit to the city on Sunday. Meanwhile, here is a short interview I did with him recently, at his office in the Casa de Cultura Reyes Heroles in Coyoacán. His warning comes as a coyote howl in the fading moonlight.

“Like the Mayan Zapatistas said, we have had a long time to dream. Now is the time to wake up. Because any dream we don’t manifest becomes a nightmare, made by somebody else.”

This week I finally got a chance to go and see it for myself, and to meet some of its inhabitants. It was as beautiful as I’d imagined; constructed in the early 1980s by artists, green architects and permaculturists, the community is infused with a colorful yet gentle aesthetic that pleases the spirit as well as the eye.

Many of the residents, like “Subcoyote” Alberto Ruz Buenfil, divide their time between Huehue (as it’s known for short, pronounced ‘Wayway,”) and various other spots around the globe, where they teach, play music, act in films or otherwise engage in another aspect of their lives, generally related to promoting social change in one way or another.

The community was formed in 1982 when its founders, most of them belonging to a troupe of itinerant actors called the Illuminated Elephants, decided to put down some roots. Ecology ranked high in the group’s values, so the community became Mexico’s first Ecovillage, a concept based on ecological design principles. “It’s a very low-impact community, utilizing every type of alternative technology we can,” said Giovanni Ciarlo, one of the residents I spoke with during my stay. “Our biggest capital is our tight social network, and also the fact that it’s integrated into nature and has an artisitic sensibility.”

Giovanni and his partner Kathleen are musicians and teachers, migrating back and forth between here and Waterford, Conn. Giovanni and Kathy are the founders of Sirius Coyote Music, an innovative Latin America-inspired musical group that incorporates environmental education and community building into their work. They perform on more than 30 different instruments from a variety of cultures, some of which they’ve crafted themselves. As if that’s not enough, Giovanni also serves as board president for the Global Ecovillage Network.

That tight social network includes Liora Adler and Andrew Langford, who just returned home after several months of teaching in the U.S. Virgin Islands and traveling in Andrew’s native England and Liora’s native U.S. to visit with family and meet new grandchildren. Now hard at work fully reintegrating into the work of running the revolutionary Gaia University, they took time for tea and an interview, which I’ll be publishing here shortly.

It also includes Alberto’s son Odin, a world-class musician and permaculture designer who shared with me many tracks of his globally influenced compositions, and his partner Sadie, a teacher and author, together with their winsome toddler Nayeli.

You can meet Giovanni and Kathy, Alberto and Odin, Liora and Andy and take a little virtual tour of the beautiful community of Huehuecoyotl here, on the Flickr slide show I’ve created. Click “show info” for captions.

Currently the community is accepting visitors on retreat with advance notice, and periodically organizes workshops on a variety of topics. For more information, contact Giovanni at sircoyote@aol.com, and see the Huehuecoyotl web page.

To learn more about ecovillages, see the Global Ecovillage Network homepage.

To learn more about permaculture, an ecological design system that is making waves throughout the world, see the Permaculture Institute page. To learn more about permaculture efforts throughout Latin America, see Permacultura America Latina.

To read about them, please visit Guerreros de Guadalajara, a bilingual entry in my Flickr account.

La Minerva, warrior woman of old and symbol of modern-day Guadalajara, photo courtesy of TheLittleTx, Flickr Creative Commons.

We still had nearly three hours to go before we reached Bancos, but meanwhile, a group of comuneros from Buenos Aires awaited a ride in the back of his pickup truck. Chávez jumped out from behind the wheel he’d manned since 10 p.m. the night before, greeting a shivering cluster of men with good cheer and a round of hearty handshakes. A breakfast invitation followed, and Nora, Cristian and Yaser, three other AJAGI members, joined us as we were led through what looked like a refugee camp. Nora and Cristian had passed the night in the back of the truck; Yaser was less fortunate, having passed the stormy night in Buenos Aires.

A bitter windstorm had ripped through the village, stripping the tin roofs from many of the mud-brick homes in the middle of the night as the residents slept. The unrelenting rains and near-freezing temperatures compounded the misery as residents tried to piece their lives back together.

Nonetheless, a visit from Carlos Chávez and the folks from AJAGI was more than reason enough for a gathering. One family with a sheltered outdoor kitchen still in good working order invited us to huddle together underneath as the rains began again, and steaming freshly ground tortillas came off the grill one by one to envelop home-grown scrambled eggs and savory pork-seasoned beans and potatoes. Family members clustered around to beam at us and urge us to eat more as we wolfed down what was likely their sole daily portion. But to decline would have been an insult, so we obliged.

The strange winds, the unseasonable rains, and the unthinkable snowstorm of two weeks prior were recurring themes in our visit. The summer rains didn’t come in time to water the harvest, and much of the corn crop dried on the stalk. Of what survived, much succumbed to fungus when the rains arrived late. And then, month upon month of winter rains – and now the tornado-like windstorm that has just descended upon them, the likes of which they’ve never seen.

Climate change is not a theory for the Wixaritari, the tribal people named Huichol by the Spaniards for easier pronunciation. They are convinced that they are living it every day, and they are seeing it in shorter growing seasons and strange weather patterns. They don’t know the reasons, but it worries them.

There’s no time to dwell on it, however. There’s firewood to be gathered, roofs to fix, children to feed – and, for some, a regional assembly to attend down in the valley in Bancos.

Attorney Santos De La Cruz Carillo, technical advisors Yaser Ventura and Cristian Chávez, and community members Don Jesús and Prudencio, left to right - and still enough room for me.

Spirits were high as we clambered into the back of Chávez’ well-worn and mud-caked Toyota pickup truck. Bancos is in a sheltered valley, and considerably warmer than Buenos Aires, up in the mountaintops some 7,000 feet above sea level. Also, most of these families originally lived in Bancos. The residents of Buenos Aires are modern-day pioneers engaged in the act of resettling and at the same time reforesting the land ravaged by timber poachers from the neighboring mestizo communities.

The resettlement is all a part of a larger strategy, devised by Huichol community leaders hand-in-hand with Carlos and the rest of the AJAGI team, which has provided legal and technical assistance for nearly two decades, helping the community reclaim 55,000 hectares of land that had been annexed away from their territory and encroached upon over the years. An estimated 140,000 acres are at stake, including a 10,720-acre swath separating Bancos from its core community of San Andres Cohamiata in the neighboring state of Jalisco. In a groundbreaking decision in 1998, the International Labor Organization ruled that the Huichol people had a right to the land based on ancestral ownership, even though they don’t hold legal titles – a ruling the Mexican government has thus far failed to acknowledge. Repeated pronouncements from the international agency received no response until last year, when the Mexican government finally ruled in Bancos’ favor – but with a catch. It failed to recognize the ancestral rights outlined in a key document called Convention 169, and so the case remains in litigation.

“The case of Bancos at one point was once described by the current director of the United Nations Forum on Indigenous Peoples as probably the most important case in the world” with respect to indigenous land rights, said Chávez. “If the case is resolved in the community’s favor, it will be of benefit to all indigenous people in the world.”

But this is only one of many strategies, one layer of the many layers of stories to be told about the Wixaritari people. I was fortunate to hear many of them in the past week, and I will be sharing them as time permits. Meanwhile, here are some images from the enormously resilient little community of Bancos.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

As is the case in many big cities, one of the best things about Guadalajara is what lies outside its boundaries. That’s the case with two colonial villages just outside the city limits, Tlaquepaque and Tonalá.

Tlaquepaque is the more carefully groomed, tourist-brochure version of the colonial village – and it’s delightful, with its nightly serenades by mariachis, streets that were made for strolling and lushly landscaped courtyards. Tonalá, on the other hand, is still a little rough around the edges, with an outdoor market where you can still get a hearty meal of steak, chicken or fish in the market for about $2.50, or pick out your fresh produce and a cut of meat to go with it, all while watching the children run and play in the plaza next door.

Tonalá is a destination for shoppers of bargain artenanía, which ranges from kitchy Aztec calendars and frog-shaped ceramics to sophisticated creations from some first-rate artists. Here’s a little peek.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

“Guapos” y “guapas” read the sign. “Guapo” means attractive.

The good lady was taking 3 pesos and giving out carefully wrapped sections of toilet paper at the door, as is the custom in public places.

“I’m not sure I’m guapa enough to enter,” I told her, dubiously.

“Ah, por mucho,” she assured me. “Todos somos guapos aquí. No hay feos.” (Absolutely – everyone is good-looking here.)

I was so amused that I returned with a camera to document the moment. “Ay no, voy a salir espantosa,” she protested. “Oh no, I’m going to come out looking frightful!”

“Not so,” I reassured. “Todos somos guapos aquí. No hay feos.”

She got a chuckle out of this, and sent me on my way with a blessing from God, and a fun memory of Parque Metropolitano.

Here’s a little slideshow of our sunny Sunday in the park.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

My friend Alicia, like me, struggles to remember to bring the cloth shopping bags when she goes to the supermarket. This day, she remembered. Here’s a little reminder she likes to keep handy:

“It’s not enough to be biodegradeable; it’s necessary to be bioAGREEABLE.”

I liked the way this clever slogan captured one of the most important principles of sustainability: “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” In that order.

Carlos with his collection of miniature bicycles and a photo of his father, an avid bicyclist.

This intrepid group of biking photographers is dedicated to promoting biking in a variety of ways. Besides their weekly outings, which traverse a variety of rural terrains around Guadalajara and further afield, they’ve organized get-out-the-vote campaigns, children’s outings, first aid workshops, bicycle repair workshops, and a fundraiser for Haiti – all aboard the seat of a bicycle.

(Haiti Benefit Ride – Photos by Carlos Ibarra)

Founded by Carlos and other local photographers about two years ago, the group has grown to include non-photographers, as well, and works to initiate beginners into the biker’s life.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner, or a child, or even if you’ve never been on a bicycle,” Ibarra said. “The idea is to get out there and start pedaling, and we want to help with that. We’ve even had some riders who want to go faster, and they’ve gone on to form their own groups because we’re too slow – that’s ok. There’s room for everybody.”

That said, the group does some pretty heavy trekking, by a beginner’s standards. A recent fundraising ride for Haiti went 100 kilometers. And the off-trail mountain biking in Jalisco’s rugged countryside can be a challenge, especially when a storm comes up – as it did on a recent campout in Juan Rulfo country, from San Gabriel to Tapalpa.

“It was cool,” Ibarra enthused, showing photographs of dripping, smiling bikers. “It was an adventure.”

And indeed, this must be the most documented biking group of all time, with as many photographers as there are among its ranks. Here’s a slide show of the highlights from the group’s last two years.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

The group provides plenty of fun for the younger set, as well. A recent bicycle fiesta for the children, neices, nephews and young friends of Camara Rodante featured piñatas in the shape of cars.

“We were playing a little with the idea: Get rid of the cars!” said Ibarra, chuckling. “que no son muchos. It was something symbolic, and the kids loved it. Others didn’t want to because they liked the little car. But we were reinforcing the idea of using the bike – that it’s good for your health, that it doesn’t pollute, that you can move yourself quickly and easily.”