I blinked and it’s the rainy season again. There are fewer people around, yet the invigorating thundershowers that began June 9 have perked up the place, refreshing everything animate and inanimate and ending a string of nearly 500 forest fires that were reported in this area in the past four very dry months.

It’s common knowledge that most of the fires were deliberately set – so called “controlled burns” that are traditionally used in Mexico to clear land for building, cattle grazing or planting. But way too many times things go wrong. The beauty of the Sierras is one of our biggest draws, and the value of centuries-old trees is not something to ignore. So, government agency SEMARNAT, responsible for regulating and supervising how these burns are carried out, might consider giving this problem a little more attention next year.

Meanwhile, as H2O plunges down mountains to the sea, inspectors from the Jalisco Health Department are going door to door, checking for any of the wet stuff lingering in obscure places like backyard flowerpots. Hoping to prevent Dengue-spreading mosquitoes from breeding, it has also launched a bilingual print campaign outlining simple preventive measures we can all take – like changing the water in pet dishes every day.

When it comes to being safe rather than sorry, have you ever heard people say you should avoid driving at night in Mexico? Sadly, the death of 37-year-old Canadian William Alan Taylor at 3 am May 24 reminds us why. Returning home from his bachelor party in Bucerias – he was to have married May 26 – he rammed into a dump truck parked on a bridge, the driver sleeping and not a single light on.

The toughest thing about our 15-day-long May Cultural Festival was deciding which events to attend. Musical, dance, theater, mime, poetry events and more were happening simultaneously in several venues around town, including the recently inaugurated Cuale Cultural Center on the island. With indoor and outdoor stages, it accommodates audiences of up to 480.

Among highlights were a Hungarian dance troupe, bilingual play “My Life with Maria” by director Tencha Avila of last year’s much applauded “Vagina Monologues,” and perennial favorite Paco Renteria, whose “New Flamenca Rumba” wrapped up an incredible two weeks. It’s a pity that most of the snowbirds missed it because they’d already departed for cooler climes. And I think that if we start giving the festival more promotion, more tourists will visit while it’s going on.

Besides, it overlaps with the Annual Sports Classic, also held in May every year for the past 10. Good clean fun for everyone, its tennis, basketball, beach volleyball, soccer and bike spinning competitions, as well as an aerobics marathon and five-kilometer run/walk are healthy counterpoints to lazing on a beach chair.

Not that there’s not a zillion other things to do here, we can even swim with dolphins! And those who do rate it as one of the most incredible experiences they’ve ever had. At the end of May, a second Pacific Bottlenose was born at Vallarta Adventure’s Nuevo Vallarta dolphin facility – as was the first such dolphin ever to be born in captivity in Mexico two years earlier. Another calf is due in December.

I’m so impressed with this growing local company, because everything it does demonstrates an awareness of how precious our limited resources truly are. And it has managed – sometimes at great effort and cost – to respect nature’s integrity while opening up exciting new worlds for you and I to explore.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions about what you’re reading, you’re encouraged to let me know at heather@mexmags.com.