Nueva España, present-day Mexico, was in the seventeenth century an extraordinary meeting point of very different cultures and traditions, that of the Spanish and Portuguese colonizers, that of the American Indians, and that of the slaves brought in droves from Africa. This state of affairs produced a most peculiar combination of languages, music, rhythms, instruments, and writings, where the Nauhatl language mingled with Bantu, the dialects of Guinea and Angola with Spanish and Portuguese, European polyphonic writing was enriched with tribal rhythms and dances, and violins and cellos found themselves playing alongside peculiarly shaped instruments made from exotic materials. This singular music, rooted in the Renaissance and Baroque later transformed into the Central and South American musical language, now comes to us, in an imaginary caravel return voyage, to restore to us intact the invaluable image of how we were and helping us to understand how we are now.