About 140 delegates from 10 countries attended the successful 2018 Wood Science meeting in Guadelajara, Mexico from 15--19 October. In ten parallel and four plenary sessions plus a lively poster session, a broad spectrum of current topics wasd addressed, with emphasis on the　 development of new sustainable and biodegradable products from wood. The subject of wood anatomy was well represented with contributions from Mexican graduate students and post docs as well as from some senior experts such as Robert Evans, Uwe Schmitt, Lloyd Donaldson and yours truly. Highlights in the social programme were the performances of two top notch Mariachi Bands at two conference dinners, and the day excursion to the Unesco World Heritage site of Tequila, where we observed the production of the eponymous liquor from planting and harvesting the beautiful Agave plants to the distilling and sampling of the best vintages of its main product tequila. Very appropriately the last morning's session dealt with the production of panels and bioplastics using Agave　fibre reinforcement - perhaps a good replacement of wood?  IAWA could do its usual business in selling special IAWA Journal Issues and recruiting new members. Thanks are due to Prof. José Antonio Silva Guzmán and his staff for hosting this stimulating meeting, and also for showing us around the department of Wood, Pulp & Paper Science on the day before the meeting.