The Valle de Bravo dam is one of the three main dams in the system.
The main dams that feed the water system that supplies Mexico City and México state are at their lowest level in 25 years, according to the National Water Commission (Conagua).
And the situation will only become more critical until the commencement of the rainy season in late spring.
The three main dams that supply the Cutzamala system – Villa Victoria and Valle de Bravo in México state and El Bosque in Michoacán – are currently holding 399 million cubic meters of water, a figure that accounts for 47.9% of their collective capacity.
Víctor Bourguett Ortiz, Conagua’s top official in the Valley of México, told the newspaper Milenio that the combined storage level in the three dams is typically almost 70% at this time of year. He predicted that water levels will decline to 40% of capacity by the end of May or the beginning of June.
“[The level now] is the lowest level in the last 25 years for this same date. It’s not the lowest level in history … but from now until it rains again it will certainly go down even more,” Bourguett said.
Capacity of the dams is shown in gray; blue indicates water levels as of March 12. milenio
“… We’re 22 points below average storage for the same date. … Last year was very bad for rain,” Bourguett said.
He estimated there will be 320 million cubic meters of water in the three dams at the end of May or start of June – when the annual rainy season will likely begin – and that “could be the lowest level in history.”
Bourguett said that Conagua and authorities in the Valley of México will decide next week on a strategy to reduce supply to conserve water while minimizing the impact on people who rely on the Cutzamala system, which receives water from eight dams in total. Data shows that household water usage has increased 30% since the start of the coronavirus pandemic a year ago as people spend more time in their homes.
Bourguett said that some Mexico City and México state residents are already experiencing water shortages. If Conagua significantly reduces supply to the water departments responsible for supplying those entities, the problems will be exacerbated and water tankers won’t be able to keep up with demand.
Citing both the scarcity of water and the high costs associated with getting it to people’s homes in the high altitude capital and surrounding area, the official called on citizens to use the resource more efficiently.
“We don’t recognize the value of the resource except when we lack it – then we realize how valuable it is. It’s worrying, … we call on people to look after water, take measures [to limit use],” Bourguett said.
Conagua official Luis Antonio Aguilar Meza said in late February that 83 of Mexico’s 210 most important dams were less than 50% full and that only three were at 100% capacity.
Located about 60 kilometers northwest of México state capital Toluca, the Villa Victoria dam is currently at 39.1% of capacity, making it the least full of the three main Cutzamala system suppliers.
The water levels in the El Bosque dam, located in eastern Michoacán near the border with México state, and the Valle de Bravo dam, situated in the México state municipality of the same name, are 45.1% and 59.7%, respectively.
Clocks will change to daylight saving time on Sunday in 33 northern municipalities.
The time change — clocks will be turned forward by one hour — comes in the north three weeks ahead of other regions so as to remain in sync with border communities in the U.S., whose clocks will also change.
The affected municipalities are:
Tijuana, Mexicali, Ensenada, Playa Rosarito and Tecate in Baja California.
Ciudad Juárez, Ojinaga, Ascensión, Coyame del Sotol, Guadalupe, Janos, Manuel Benavides and Práxedis G. Guerrero in Chihuahua.
Acuña, Piedras Negras, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jiménez, Zaragoza, Nava and Ocampo in Coahuila.
Anáhuac and Los Aldama in Nuevo León.
Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, Matamoros, Camargo, Guerrero, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, Mier, Miguel Alemán, Río Bravo and Valle Hermoso in Tamaulipas.
López Obrador might be looking at sanctions by Biden over violations of the trade agreement.
President López Obrador’s “exaggerated nationalism” in pursuit of energy sovereignty will lead to clashes with the United States, predicts a Mexico expert and senior official of a United States think tank.
Duncan Wood, vice president for strategy and new initiatives at the Washington D.C.-based Wilson Center and a senior adviser to the center’s Mexico Institute, said Friday that AMLO, as the president is commonly known, has focused on achieving energy sovereignty for the past two years.
The most recent example of that goal was the enactment this week of a new electricity law that favors the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) by prioritizing the injection of power it produces into the national grid over that generated by private and renewable companies. The law, however, was promptly suspended by a judge after it was challenged by renewable energy companies.
Speaking during a round table discussion that was part of Mexico’s annual banking convention, Wood noted the quest’s negative impact on private energy companies, some of which have spent billions of dollars in Mexico since the sector was opened up to foreign and private investment by the previous federal government.
“There is an erosion of regulatory and legislative frameworks,” he said, adding that he has no doubt that AMLO will block outside investment in the energy sector in the second half of his 2018-2024 administration.
Wood: US will respond to electricity law using the framework of the USMCA.
Wood said that Mexico should be attracting billions of dollars in investment annually, noting that the United States still has a lot of trade conflicts and asserting that it’s “Mexico’s time.”
However, López Obrador is a “genius for squandering these kinds of opportunities,” he said.
Wood predicted that once the Electricity Industry Law is enacted definitively the United States government will seek to respond using the framework of the USMCA, the new North American free trade agreement that took effect last July. Many lawyers have already said that the law violates the terms of the pact.
“Energy is one of the areas where we’re going to see an increase in clashes [between Mexico and the United States],” Wood said.
The former director of the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute said there is a possibility that Mexico will be punished or sanctioned in some way for violating the USMCA.
Although López Obrador lauded the new North American trade pact and asserts that his administration welcomes foreign investment, some of the actions of his government have been downright hostile to investors.
In addition to legislating to sideline private and renewable energy companies in the electricity market, the federal government has canceled new oil and gas block auctions, rewritten pipeline contracts and scrapped the previous government’s Mexico City airport project and a United States company’s brewery project in Baja California.
Rafael Fernández de Castro, director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California in San Diego, agreed with Wood that there will be friction between Mexico and its northern neighbor but predicted that migration and security will be the most contentious issues.
“On some issues there will be friction, on some issues there will be collisions,” he said.
With regard to the energy issue, Fernández said: “I don’t see a train crash but there is the USMCA and there will be reprisals for Mexico’s violations.”
Also speaking at the banking convention, the CEO of investment management corporation BlackRock, Larry Fink, warned that investors are increasingly looking to invest in sustainable, environmentally friendly businesses and sectors and are prepared to restructure their portfolios to do so.
Therefore, capital will leave companies, sectors and countries that show they are not willing to make changes to become more environmentally friendly, Fink said.
Investors are increasingly looking for environmental sustainability in the countries where they invest, said BlackRock’s Larry Fink.
He said climate change has come up in every conversation he has had with investors in Mexico, China, Japan and the United States, adding that he has fielded questions from them about how to withdraw their investment in unsustainable companies or sectors and reassign it elsewhere.
Fink said officials of all governments around the world need to meet with private sector representatives to discuss ways to increase long term investment in science and technology to reduce the impact of greenhouse gases on climate.
He acknowledged that there are differences between the Mexican and United States government but expressed confidence they can be resolved.
Meanwhile, the head of Iberdrola, Spain’s biggest power company, said in an interview with the Bloomberg news agency that he expects to see numerous legal challenges to Mexico’s new electricity law.
José Ignacio Sanchez Galán said that Iberdrola, which has invested almost US $12 billion in power projects in Mexico, could also file a lawsuit against the law.
If the company’s lawyers see “that the law affects our existing business, I’m sure we’ll try to defend the interest of our shareholders as we do in all countries,” he said. “I imagine everybody is going to do something similar.”
Iberdrola last year became the first major renewable energy company to halt new investment in Mexico, Bloomberg reported.
López Obrador, who has pledged to rescue the CFE and state oil company from years of neglect and give them a more central role in the energy market at the expensive of private companies, has been scathing in his criticism of the Spanish firm, accusing it of corruption and launching a media campaign against him.
Sanchez acknowledged that governments have the right to implement policies as they see fit but warned that the electricity law could raise power costs, harm the environment and damage investment.
“I’m sure that everybody is going to go to court to defend against these damages,” he said.
At Rambha distillery, the atmosphere is soothing, with hammocks at the tasting area ready to welcome you.
Oaxaca has so many things to offer — incredible food, beautiful landscapes, charming architecture — but one underappreciated gem is the state’s small, family-run distilleries sprinkled throughout the countryside. Here you find the masters of mezcal, the “elixir of the gods.” It’s a rapidly growing superstar among distilled spirits worldwide.
A few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to visit some of these tiny oases in the Oaxacan desert and came back with the memories of five palenques (mezcal distilleries) that are captivatingly beautiful. Such visits are a good way to experience this distinctly Mexican liquor.
While the settings invite flights of fancy, each palenque is serious about the business of mezcal. Come to these distilleries prepared to engage your senses and your mind about this important Mexican tradition.
Real Minero
Run by the Ángeles family, the Real Minero distillery and tasting room got a luxurious revamp in 2018, converting the 20+-year-old family distillery into the bright and modern setting you find today. The company’s offices are set among a vast array of wild agaves that they are planting and propagating to protect against biodiversity loss in the area.
Mezcal vats at Real Minero and the wooden poles mezcaleros use to mash agave hearts into pulp.
A cozy collection of tables and chairs is set among the gardens for private tastings, and a large outdoor greenhouse demonstrates the results of their cultivation project. A five-minute drive from the offices is where guests can take a tour of the production center. Two massive pit ovens sit under a wooden framed roof, ready to cook up to 10 tonnes of agave hearts at a time.
Five stations set up in the back part of the property demonstrate the ancient clay-pot distillation process traditional to this area, and among rows and rows of aging mezcal in shimmering glass bottles is a small underground tasting room that can be booked for private events.
Rambha Mezcal
In the same town as Real Minero, Santa Catarina de Minas, a new distillery, sits in the middle of a vast section of desert: Rambha Mezcal is less than a year old.
With only the cactus between it and the majestic hills beyond, Mezcal Rambha is still in its nascent stage, simply decorated and laid out. A long family-style wooden table takes center stage. Hammocks hang from the posts that support the covered outdoor tasting room, and a string of brightly-colored baubles tinkle in the wind.
The distillery has plans for a full kitchen that will soon provide lunch between sips of mezcal for its guests. A much smaller operation than some on this list, owner and mezcalera (mezcal maker) Rosario Ángeles will take you through the distillation process and even let you try your hand at macerating the agave hearts with a giant wooden pole (that calls to mind The Flintstones cartoon) in a low, narrow “canoe” that is carved into the floor of the distillery. This crushing process for making the agave mash before it goes into the fermentation tanks is typical of the area.
Family ties bind Oaxaca’s smaller mezcal distilleries: this mural at Gracias a Dios’s entrance depicts the owner’s mother, who taught him to make mezcal.
Already hosting visitors on local mezcal tours, Mezcal Rambha is open by appointment with Ángeles. The idyllic setting is sure to tempt you into a post-mezcal siesta in one of those hammocks.
Los Amantes
The entrance to Los Amantes distillery and hotel is both inauspicious and tricky to find, but once you are through the gates, the landscaping — which uses endemic plants, cacti and the surrounding views of the countryside — will both soothe your soul and impress you with the property’s expansiveness.
This distillery combines urban industrial chic with the homegrown beauty of rural Mexico. Started by Oaxaca artist Guillermo Olguín, it offers a wide variety of mezcals that will please even the daintiest of palates, including a triple-distilled joven, a double-distilled reposado, añejo and some wild-agave varieties.
The distillery (and mezcal bar in Oaxaca city) works with a local family for most of their mezcal production, using cowhide fermentation and clay-pot distillation, both fascinating techniques to get to know.
Visits are by appointment only right now, but they are open on a regular schedule, and programming a tour is a pretty simple process. Guests can see the distillation area, taste a few varieties in the glassed-in tasting room or even have a picnic in the nearby fields.
Los Amantes’s sprawling property combines urban industrial chic with the homegrown beauty of rural Mexico. Anna Bruce
FaneKantsini
The trip out to see the FaneKantsini distillery is half the experience. Located the furthest from Oaxaca city on this list, the three-hour ride south loops through small towns accustomed to welcoming tourists on their way to Puerto Escondido — meaning plenty of tiny eateries and public bathrooms along the way.
Once you hit the town of Sola de Vega, you have to follow a circuitous route out to the FaneKantsini property, passing breathtaking rows of giant agaves, donkeys laboring under their cargo and local folks ambling in and out of town.
This distillery is run by a cooperative formed from a large family of mezcaleros who work together to produce several times a month. Their production area is rustic, with simple cement-floor buildings covered just enough to keep out the sun and the rain.
The surrounding property, however, is a grand expanse of agave fields where the cooperative is growing various types of the plants for production, as well as an undomesticated section of land where wild agaves are being test-planted among the natural vegetation.
The cooperative is working with Mexico’s National Autonomous University to create a seed bank for their plants as well as to ensure the most ecologically sustainable cultivation.
At Gracias a Dios distillery, workers stack agave hearts.
Gracias a Dios
A few years back, three friends who owned a nearby mezcal bar teamed up with local mezcalero Oscar Hernández to create the Gracias a Dios mezcal brand.
Their distillery is at one end of Santiago Matatlán, but its grounds are double or triple the size of the small palenques you are accustomed to seeing along that highway. The mural that greets you on the outside wall is homage to Oscar’s mother, who taught him how to make mezcal after his father died when he was just 12.
With a grassy front patio and the production area set in the back of the property, the grounds feel more like a mini-hacienda than a distillery.
The folks at Gracias a Dios are committed to sustainability: beyond replanting agaves and managing their land in an ecological way (as most of the distilleries listed here do), they also run their distillery on solar power and use rainwater for 60% of the water in their production. Buildings are constructed with adobe bricks, using leftover maguey from the mezcal process.
Visitors can take a tour, do a tasting and even reserve ahead for a home-cooked meal. It’s closed at the moment due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but Gracias a Dios plans to reopen its doors in April, so get planning!
Lydia Carey is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
Salgado will be Morena's candidate in the June 6 election.
The ruling Morena party has confirmed that alleged rapist Félix Salgado will be its candidate for governor in Guerrero after completing a new selection process in which the former senator was reportedly pitted against four women.
Morena’s election commission announced Friday night that citizens in Guerrero had once again chosen Salgado, who is accused of rape by several women, as the party’s candidate for the June 6 election.
Morena polled citizens in Guerrero last weekend to determine levels of support for five different possible candidates, according to media reports. Among the four women who were included in the process were Acapulco Mayor Adela Román and Senator Nestora Salgado.
Félix Salgado was the clear winner of the survey, even coming out on top when those polled were asked to opine on the potential candidates’ respect for the rights of women. He also prevailed in all other categories including honesty and knowledge of the municipality in which the poll respondents lived.
Women in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, march to protest Salgado’s candidacy.
Morena’s election commission said in a statement that it was obliged to respect the people’s will and therefore Salgado, who has maintained the support of President López Obrador and other party power brokers despite the allegations he faces, would be its candidate for governor.
“One of the great objectives of the fourth transformation [a nickname for the federal government and the Morena movement more broadly] is to live in an authentic democracy in which the people are in charge. The people of Guerrero assessed [the potential candidates] and took a decision. We’re obliged to respect it. In the new survey, Félix Salgado Macedonio proved to be the best positioned so the National Election Commission confirms him as the candidate for governor in Guerrero,” it said.
Many women have protested against Morena’s decision to nominate Salgado – including thousands at last Monday’s International Women’s Day march in Mexico City – but the election commission asserted that feminism is strong within the fourth transformation, or 4T.
“Feminism and the fourth transformation are the two main movements in 21st century Mexico (that’s why feminism is so strong inside the 4T). We can have painful disagreements about [certain] issues … but we’re historical allies. Both fight against oppression, violence, inequality and injustice,” the statement said.
“The macho culture in Mexico is a deep cultural problem that has hurt our country for centuries. We have to eradicate this culture.”
After the election commission made its candidacy announcement, Salgado took to social media.
“Thank you very much to the people of Guerrero for … your confidence in another democratic exercise that my party, Morena, carried out. We’re sure that we’re going to win and that the fourth transformation that our president Andrés Manuel López Obrador leads will come to Guerrero. Women and young people are the driving force of the 4T,” he wrote on Facebook.
It was his first post on the social media platform since Monday when he sent a message to women on International Women’s Day even as many of them raged against him.
“My respect and admiration for all the women of our state, Mexico and the whole world. Long live women,” Salgado wrote.
His confirmation as candidate for governor was unsurprisingly met with anger by those who have called for Morena to dump him.
The decision to make Salgado the candidate is “offensive” for the victims of the candidate and all women and citizens, Eunice Rendón, a security and migration expert, tweeted to her almost 30,000 followers. “There is very little shame and empathy with the victims of abuse of this man.”
The Oxxo convenience store chain is a story of how a national brand beat out foreign ones, as well as mom-and-pop stores.
“Rumor has it if you discard your Andatti [Oxxo’s house brand of coffee] cup in a vacant lot, up will sprout a new Oxxo” says Russell Parsons of Tijuana.
Obviously, that is a joke but despite them seeming to be everywhere, more and more Oxxos do keep appearing.
The first Oxxo opened on October 16, 1978, the brainchild of Eugenio Garza Lagüera of the Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma beer company, today FEMSA. Its initial purpose was to sell the company’s beer directly to the public, along with cigarettes and snacks. Its name most likely comes from its initial “shopping cart” logo (with the O’s standing in for the wheels), but another story says it comes from the percentage sign, indicating a discount.
Within two years, there were locations in Chihuahua, Sonora and Baja California. In 1982, the company began its expansion program, recruiting Mexican families to operate new stores. These locations are not franchises but rather “mercantile commissions,” where the families become agents or “collaborators” with the company.
Meme making fun of just how ubiquitous Oxxo stores are, with the Mars Rover finding one. Russell Parsons
The stores are extremely profitable for FEMSA. They account for 40% of the income of the company, which is also the largest bottler of Coca-Cola in Latin America. As Oxxo grew and developed name recognition, it began to create its own branded products such as Andatti coffee and Bitz snack foods and even Oxxo gas. Today, it is the third most valuable brand name in Mexico, behind Corona and Telcel, with an estimated value of 44 billion pesos.
According to FEMSA’s website, Oxxos see 13.2 million customers per day at 19,556 stores, which employ over 150,000 people in Mexico. More recently, it has expanded into Chile and Colombia and even has a couple of stores in Texas. In Mexico, Oxxo dwarfs United States-based chains 7-Eleven and Circle K. Both have fewer than 2,000 stores in the nation, and neither are found in all 32 states. Circle K is something of a latecomer, but 7-Eleven México was founded two years before Oxxo.
For years, FEMSA has been opening up hundreds of Oxxos per month nonstop. However, 2020 saw the first significant decline in sales because the pandemic kept people home. By November 2020, there were only 139 new openings for the year, with 108 stores closing permanently.
Over its history, Oxxo expanded its stores’ inventory to include things such as basic staples, but beer, cigarettes, soft drinks and junk food remain the base. However, a real change came in the early 2000s, when it began providing electronic payment services, starting with buying airtime for cell phones. Today, you can do everything at an Oxxo: basic banking transactions, payment of utilities and other services, sending and receiving money, purchasing intercity bus tickets and more. These services are important in a country where many people still pay with cash and receive remittances from abroad.
But not all is rosy for the company. There are people, both foreigners and Mexicans, who at least try to avoid going into one.
One main issue is that the opening of an Oxxo puts pressure on local mom-and-pop corner stores, which often cannot compete with the chain’s ability to be open 24/7 and take debit and credit cards. A related issue is that it is owned by one of Mexico’s largest companies.
Oxxos in historic town centers are often required to tone down their facades. This does not always keep them from being controversial.
“I avoid them because they are part of the Coca-Cola monopoly here in Mexico, and I think monopolies are not good,” said Chucho Herrero of México state. “I use them only when I don’t have another option, such as when I get gas on the highway.”
Oxxo’s collaborator system has been criticized as unfair to the families who operate the stores.
There are also complaints about not being able to do electronic transactions sometimes, either because the system is down or the cashier does not have the cash available. This problem is common enough that there are popular Spanish-language memes about it on the internet — and about the cashiers being rude or unavailable.
Oxxos have also been associated with crime, blight and other social issues, even leading to restrictions against them in some communities. There have been movements to eliminate or seriously limit their presence, especially in the south.
Writer Juan Villoro wrote in a Reforma article in 2017 that Oxxos serve as a place to meet at whatever hour, even for illicit business like recruiting hitmen.
“Here in Xochimilco [in Mexico City], all Oxxos have been closed because they promote alcoholism in minors and others; also, they take away customers from traditional food stores,” said Alice Aguilar of Mexico City.
A very typical Oxxo store of today, with its blaring red and yellow facade. Wikimedia Commons
“Our [local government] decided not to allow them in Loreto,” says Baja California Sur reader Kathy Hill, “… and in their place, we have a chain of similar stores owned by a local family …”
But despite Oxxo’s problems and somewhat higher prices, it is obvious that many people love them — or at least find them very, well, convenient.
Regular users cite the hours, the electronic payments, the products not available anywhere else (like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups) and proximity to home or work as reasons for their preference.
One thing people seem to be split on, however, is the coffee: you either love it or you hate it.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 17 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture. She publishes a blog called Creative Hands of Mexicoand her first book, Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta, was published last year. Her culture blog appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
The number of green light low risk states on the federal government’s coronavirus stoplight map will increase from two to three next week after the Health Ministry announced Friday that Sonora will switch on Monday.
The northern border state will join Campeche and Chiapas at the lowest risk level, while there will be 21 states at the yellow light medium risk level, an increase of one compared to the map currently in force, and eight at orange light high risk, a decrease of two. For a second consecutive fortnight there will be no red light maximum risk states.
The yellow states for the next two weeks will be Baja California, Baja California Sur, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, Sinaloa, Durango, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, Veracruz, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Guerrero, Tlaxcala, Hidalgo and Quintana Roo.
Nineteen of those states are already yellow and will remain so while Nuevo León and San Luis Potosí will switch to that color from orange on Monday.
The eight orange light states for the next two weeks will be Querétaro, México state, Mexico City, Morelos, Puebla, Oaxaca Tabasco and Yucatán. All of those states are orange on the current map. Health Ministry official Ricardo Cortés said that Querétaro is the state most at risk of regressing to red due to a recent increase in case numbers and hospitalizations.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio
Each stoplight color, determined by the Health Ministry using 10 different indicators including case numbers and hospital occupancy levels, is accompanied by recommended restrictions to slow the spread of the virus but it is ultimately up to state governments to decide on their own restrictions.
In Sonora, which has been at the yellow light risk level for the past month, authorities have begun making preparations to reopen schools but decided they won’t do so until teachers and other staff have been vaccinated against Covid-19.
According to federal government guidelines, schools can reopen in green light states but neither Chiapas nor Campeche has done so despite reaching the low risk level.
Sonora Governor Claudia Pavlovich welcomed the news that the state will switch to green but urged residents not to drop their guard.
“To be at the green light level is an achievement for all sonorenses but it doesn’t mean we should relax the [health] measures. … It’s the first truce that this pandemic has granted us but the virus is still present. Let’s keep taking care of ourselves. #Let’sStayGreen,” she wrote on Twitter.
Sonora has recorded just over 69,000 confirmed coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic and more than 6,000 deaths, according to federal data. There are just over 900 active cases in the state while the occupancy rate for general care hospital beds is 11%.
The Health Ministry added 6,743 new cases to the national case tally on Friday and registered 709 additional deaths. Mexico has now recorded just over 2.15 million cases and 193,851 fatalities since the coronavirus was first detected here just over a year ago. There are an estimated 46,291 active cases across the country and the hospital occupancy rate is 26% for general care beds and 29% for those with ventilators.
The Health Ministry reported that 147,891 additional vaccine doses were administered Friday, lifting the total number of doses given to just over 4 million.
The government has pledged to vaccinate everybody who wants a shot but the national vaccination program has not yet reached people aged under 60, apart from healthcare workers and some teachers, while millions of seniors are also waiting for their first jab.
The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) has come under fire for not carrying out restoration work that could have helped save a 17th-century church in the Purépecha region of Michoacán that was destroyed by fire last weekend.
The St. James the Apostle Church in the town of Nurio, described by Culture Minister Alejandra Frausto as “one of the most beautiful churches in the world,” was severely damaged in a blaze on Sunday evening. The cause of the fire is unknown.
The newspaper El País reported that both INAH and the Michoacán Ministry of Culture had planned projects to preserve the building that could have given it a better chance of surviving Sunday’s blaze. But they didn’t commence the work in January as originally scheduled.
At a meeting between town representatives and officials earlier this week the former sought explanations for the delay and their anger was “palpable,” El País said.
“The local authorities criticized INAH because they did not meet their deadlines. By January 8 they should already have started their projects,” said José Manuel Caballero, mayor of Paracho, the municipality in which the church is located.
The interior of the church in Nurio before Sunday’s fire.
Michoacán Culture Minister Claudio Méndez told El País in a telephone interview that the work hadn’t started due to a lack of resources. He conceded that the poor condition of the church hampered firefighters’ efforts to extinguish the blaze.
“[The firefighters] couldn’t even direct a jet of water against the stone walls because we did not know if they would hold,” Méndez said. “Fortunately we have records to copy the paintings of the artists of the time and the interior decoration.”
The minister said that other places of worship in Michoacán are also at risk because of a lack of funds for restoration.
El País said that an insurance payout will be essential to rebuilding the church, which has been reduced to a shell of four walls, but noted that the Michoacán and federal governments will also provide funds.
INAH delegate to Michoacán Marco Rodríguez acknowledged that the institute has a limited budget, describing the situation as a “terrible reality” and explaining that the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated funding problems.
Rodríguez also said that Nurio residents had requested that the roof of the church be covered with sheet metal to protect it but explained that such an old building couldn’t support the extra weight.
Nelly Sigaut, an art historian at the Colegio de Michoacán, said the fire had “wrung out” her heart. She said that priests to whom she teaches heritage classes had tears in their eyes when they found out about the blaze at the church, located about 130 kilometers west of Michoacán capital Morelia.
“This is a treasure that was unique in the world, singular in its style,” Sigaut said. “They call it the Sistine Chapel of the [Purépecha] Plateau, and they weren’t exaggerating.”
This lynx, rescued from a rancho, will be returned to nature next month.
A few years ago, Mexico had a very fine national wildlife rescue service: CIVS, as it is known in Spanish. It had centers all over the country where the police, customs officials and firefighters could turn in mistreated or illegally trafficked exotic animals — anything from jaguars and crocodiles to tarantulas and macaws — so that they could be returned to the wild or cared for by professional vets and biologists.
Ordinary citizens could also call CIVS if they happened to find a puma with a broken leg in their backyard.
All this changed a few years ago when the entire chain of CIVS centers was shut down and their highly skilled staff members were either let go or given new jobs unrelated to rescuing animals.
This situation worried me a lot. What would be the fate of the thousands of distressed birds, mammals, reptiles and invertebrates in need of help? Fortunately, Mexicans are inventive and never too trusting of anything run by the government.
“What is Guadalajara doing about this?” I asked environmentalist and tarantula rescuer Rodrigo Orozco, who assured me that animal advocates in this area were just as concerned as I was and had already taken steps to deal with the problem.
Although they are members of the raccoon family, coatis are active by day and sleep at night.
Orozco told me that there are now three locally managed wildlife rescue centers in greater Guadalajara and offered to take me to each of them. In previous articles, I have reported on the centers at Agua Azul and Villa Fantasía, and a few days ago, I spent a pleasant morning at the new digs of the recently organized wildlife rescue service in the little town of Tlajomulco, located just south of the Guadalajara metropolis.
The new digs were not quite what I expected. The external walls were dismal, foreboding and in need of a paint job.
“Don’t let the looks fool you,” said Alberto Cayo Cervantes, the new director of the rescue center. “These facilities were previously an abattoir, of all things. They may still look like a prison or a factory, but we just moved in here and are in the process of transforming this place into the exact opposite of what it was before.”
I suggested the place might need a limpia (a sort of Mexican exorcism), and Cayo assured me that that had already been taken care of.
As I began to tour the place, I realized that Cayo’s team had really been handed a magnificent gift by the Tlajomulco municipality: the former slaughterhouse included lots of buildings and lots of land, with plenty of room for the highly specialized enclosures needed to house and rehabilitate the great variety of creatures that end up in trouble after they come into contact with our species.
“De veras [truly],” said Cayo, “it was truly a happy surprise for me when the municipality of Tlajomulco contacted me and said they wanted to set up an animal rescue center and that they had the funds to do it. It was like a miracle because we’re more used to governments caring nothing about wildlife.”
A tame caracara gets a pet at the Tlajomulco Wildlife Center.
To me, it seemed equally miraculous that the officials of Tlajomulco had not appointed a political flunky to run their new center but had chosen a true professional with tons of experience and both feet firmly planted on the ground.
More good news is that the new center will also have funding for furnishing and operating both a clinic and a research lab. The facilities will also be given permanent status in Tlajomulco’s political structure, which means that they cannot be abandoned and forgotten when the next change of administration comes along.
While I was talking to Cayo, he invited me to take a peek inside a big cardboard box on his desk. I did so and discovered an enormous snake curled up inside it.
“The Guadalajara police just brought us this. It’s an alicante [an indigo snake], and it was being illegally shipped to somebody in the big city.”
We wandered out of Cayo’s office and came to a long row of newly built cages, many of which were covered with large sheets of canvas. I peeked inside one of them through a small hole. In the corner was a beautiful lynx, which immediately showed me its teeth.
“We keep many of our animals in covered cages because we don’t want them to see people passing by or to get used to us. We received this lynx three months ago from a woman who said a mother lynx and its baby had somehow made their way into her rancho near San Isidro Mazatepec.
The peregrine falcon is the fastest bird in the world, clocked at 389 kilometers per hour.
“Naturally, there were lots of dogs there, which scared off the mother and then surrounded the cachorrito [cub]. Fortunately, the ranch owner was able to save it, and when she brought it to me it weighed only 250 grams. Now it is fully grown and capable of surviving on its own. It is presently in the second stage of its rehabilitation. During the third stage, we will move it to a very large cage where it can run and climb and move around. In a month or so, we will release it into the wild.”
Next, we came to a caracara, a big bird which, curiously, prefers walking to flying.
“When caracaras are small,” said Cayo, “it’s not unusual for one to fall out of its nest, maybe because it’s malnourished or maybe just because it’s clumsy. So people find them and they raise them by hand, and they end up calling me when they find out they can’t handle them.
“Some time ago, we had a caracara like this that had been hand-raised, and we did attempt to return it to nature. Well, only five days later somebody brought it back to us! It apparently had been doing well on its own, but the first time it spotted people, it went straight to them because it considered them a source of food. So we learned our lesson, and now we try to find zoos to take these hand-raised birds.”
After the caracara, we came upon a kestrel, a kind of falcon famous for its ability to hover in the same spot, even in still air.
“This cernícalo, as we call it in Spanish, is a female. It suffered an accident in Guadalajara and was found by somebody who tried their best to take care of it. Unfortunately, they gave the bird sausage and ham to eat. Desgraciadamente [unfortunately], this kind of food is high in sodium and not at all suitable for a bird. Of course, instead of getting better, this poor kestrel got worse.”
Alberto Cayo with unwanted baby crocodiles received during the last week.
“So the people who found her realized something was wrong and called the Guadalajara Zoo, and they gave them our number. We went right out and picked it up and put it on a proper diet, and now it is doing just fine,” Cayo said. “We expect to release it in a week, and soon it will be back on its way to the U.S.A. These kestrels are migrating birds, so they have to return to their point of origin to breed. It’s okay here, but it’s nervous. It tolerates us, but just barely, and that’s what we want with this type of bird, so they’ll be able to go back to their natural habitat.”
Eventually, we came to a large enclosure, the new home of a big crocodile. I followed Cayo inside it, continuing to record his comments. It was the second time I have found myself inside a crocodile’s home, only a few feet away from the master of the house.
“Somebody was keeping this crocodile in a water fountain, and when the owner of the place had to move out, he or she simply abandoned the creature,” he said. “So the new owners discovered they had a croc in their patio! Well, they called us, and now it lives here.”
They have actually put the animal to work.
“Whenever we have to teach people about crocodiles, like for environmental education, we bring this croc along with us,” Cayo said. “It’s not exactly friendly, but it tolerates us moving it around. It’s especially helpful for training firemen, by the way. We can show them how to capture a croc, how to pick it up, for example. It’s been here with us for two years, but we can’t really let it go because we have no idea where it came from originally. As with all of our animals, we haven’t given it a name because we don’t want to get too attached. For us, it’s just El Cocodrilo Grande.”
There is, however, an exception to that rule about no names. Before I left the Tlajomulco Center, I had a chance to meet Shaka the Hawk, who has been with Cayo since 2005.
Harris hawks are social animals and cooperatively hunt in packs.
“When they brought this creature to me,” he said, “she was very tiny. I hand-raised her, and in 2006 I got a legal permit for her. Since then, she has accompanied me on all my adventures. She is my official helper for environmental education, to show children what hawks are like and why they need to be protected. Because she’s special, she does have a name: Shaka. And she is a star too. If you look for Harris hawk in the Guide to the Birds of the Primavera Forest, you will see a picture of Shaka.”
Should you find a puma on your patio, just call 911. Not only will they rescue you, they will also rescue the puma by alerting the nearest Unidad de Protección de Fauna Silvestre. If that center is at all like the three I visited in Guadalajara, you can expect a quick response at any hour of the day or night.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for 31 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
After getting off a diet of sausage and ham, this kestrel is ready to fly to the U.S.A.
This jaguarundi was brought to the center after its owner discovered it was not quite as docile as a house cat.
Preparing high-quality meals for the animal residents of the wildlife center.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said Thursday that Mexico will continue to use the AstraZeneca vaccine to inoculate people against Covid-19 despite cases of thrombosis among recipients in Europe.
Denmark, Norway and Iceland suspended use of the vaccines on Thursday after several reports of severe blood clots. Denmark announced its suspension after a 60-year-old woman who received an AstraZeneca shot died after developing a clot.
Speaking at the government’s coronavirus press briefing on Thursday night, López-Gatell said there have been no reports in Mexico of the development of thrombosis among people who received the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Mexico to date has received one shipment of 870,000 AstraZeneca shots that were manufactured by the Serum Institute of India. Another shipment of more than 1 million doses from India is expected and the government also has an agreement to purchase more than 40 million AstraZeneca doses that will be manufactured in Argentina and bottled here.
López-Gatell asserted that there is no evidence anywhere in the world that links Covid-19 vaccines to serious illnesses or death.
López-Gatell appears at the nightly press briefing via video link.
“The European Medicines Agency has already determined that there is no evidence of causal relation between the AstraZeneca vaccine and the phenomenon of thrombosis,” he said.
“… In the whole world including Mexico there is no evidence that links the vaccines against Covid to serious organic impacts that could place life at risk. … The vaccines are safe and effective and they will continue to be used,” López-Gatell said.
Almost 3.8 million vaccine doses had been administered in Mexico by Thursday night and there have only been about 11,000 reports of adverse reactions of which just 71 were considered serious. The death of a 75-year-old woman in Hidalgo after receiving a Sinovac vaccine is not linked to the application of the shot, according to preliminary post-mortem results.
The rollout of vaccines has been fairly slow in Mexico since the government’s vaccination program began on December 24 but picked up pace during the past three days. More than 300,000 vaccines were administered on Tuesday and a new single-day record was set on Wednesday with 360,000 doses given, according to Health Ministry data. At least 208,000 doses were administered on Thursday although the number will likely be revised upward because the figure didn’t count vaccines given after 4:00 p.m.
Mexico is currently in stage 2 of the national vaccination program, having begun the inoculation of people aged 60 and over in the middle of February. Some 2.3 million seniors have received a first dose of one of the four vaccines – the AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Sinovac and Sputnik V shots – that have been used to date in Mexico. More than 800,000 health workers have been vaccinated, and almost 600,000 of them have received both required doses.
The vaccination program got a big boost on Thursday with the arrival of 3 million doses of the single-shot CanSino vaccine from China. Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said that vaccination with those doses will begin in the coming days.
Official numbers for coronavirus cases and Covid-19 deaths indicate that the pandemic has receded considerably since January, which was the worst month for both cases and fatalities since the virus was first detected in Mexico over a year ago.
The risk level in Mexico City, the country’s coronavirus epicenter with almost 600,000 confirmed cases and more than 37,000 deaths, was downgraded to high risk orange in the second half of last month but it has not declined any further.
Government official Eduardo Clark said Friday that the capital will remain at the orange light level next week but casinos and 10-pin bowling centers will be permitted to reopen at 20% capacity starting Monday. Cinemas and theaters will also be allowed to reopen using a maximum of 30% of their available seats.
The federal Health Ministry will present an updated stoplight map at its coronavirus press briefing on Friday night and any changes will take effect on Monday. Mexico’s accumulated case tally is currently 2.15 million while the official Covid-19 death toll is 193,142.
