June 1999
Autlan, Jalisco, México

Hotel Autlan just before departing for Las Hoyas for the first time.  We stayed in this hotel during several visits to Autlan.
It took about three hour drive to Las Hoyas and the rocky and pitted mountain roads required the use of a 4-by-4.  Sitting in the truck's
bed over such terrain eventually gave me a big pain in the ass!

My first field biology experience was in tropical México.  It was an internship working with primarily forest birds in Jalisco, Mexico and I
was hired by Borja Mila, then a Master's Candidate at California State University, San Francisco.  I am an avid birder and had been
meaning to travel to Mexico for a summer or a semester and see the country long before I had decided to pursue a career in biology.  So
when I got offered a paid internship working with birds in Mexico it was almost like a dream come true.