Meh-hik-oh

Southern Mexico, late night, a couple of weeks ago: Sheets of rain blasting from the lightning-ripped heavens, burning tires belching greasy black smoke in the road, half-finished high-rises looming from the Veracruz roadside. And then south, through winding green valleys into the greenest of them all: a lake in the bowl of an extinct volcano, teeming with fishermen, the black soil so rich in nutrients that you can plant a stick in it and – pop – up grows a tree.