The city states of the ancient Mayan empire flourished in southern Mexico and northern Central America for about six centuries. Then, around A.D. 900 Mayan civilization disintegrated.

Fairs and festivals celebrating everything from saint's days to animals to death are a daily fact of life in Mexico. U.S. travelers are familiar with many of them, from Cinco de Mayo to Day of the Dead to seemingly endless Christmas celebrations, but many of Mexico's events are either not well known or are simply unlike anything you'll find in the rest of the world. Here are some of our favorites; there's no point trying to choose one over another, so they are arranged by date.

To say that the nationally recognized Green Tara reincarnation of Mongolia lives in the middle of nowhere is an understatement.
To find her, one must get to Khovd, a bustling city tucked between thick dollops of crumbling red mountains located 1,425 kilometers away from Ulaanbaatar. The sixty hour bus ride alone turns most people away. From Khovd, a local driver is needed to make the three to five hour drive to Durgon Soum.

“Is nothing sacred anymore?” asked Mike Wiggins, chairman of the Bad River Ojibwe Tribe in Wisconsin, in reaction to the proposed wolf hunt in the state.

When she started working with members of the Bagobo tribe at the foothills of Mt. Apo in Davao del Sur 13 years ago, cultural worker, researcher and former Department of Tourism Region 11 director Sonja Villarica Garcia recalled that almost none of the indigenous people she dealt with were wearing their tribal costumes.