A bloody ambush on a police unit in the state of México, in which 13 officials were shot dead, is exposing the Mexican government’s failure to control escalating violence outside of the capital.
Eight members of the México state police and five officials from the state Attorney General’s Office were gunned down March 18 while on patrol in Coatepec Harinas, a few hours outside of Mexico City, officials reported.
The confrontation, which caught the officers off guard in broad daylight, lasted just under an hour. Audio recordings revealed that the officers were desperately calling for backup but were outmatched by the gunmen, who used high-caliber weapons and left more than 250 bullet casings at the scene, according to the state’s attorney general.
Approximately 15 men in three vehicles participated in the ambush, according to one resident. Others said the gunmen circulated through the area before the ambush, telling people to stay inside because “there was going to be something.”
Control of the state of México is currently under dispute by various criminal groups, including the Familia Michoacana and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). The Familia Michoacana occupies the southern parts of the state near Guerrero, Michoacán and Morelos. The CJNG controls the parts closer to Mexico City.
Because the municipality of Coatepec Harinas is closer to the southeast part of the state, near the border with Morelos, the ambush appears to be the work of the Familia Michoacana, local reports suggest. But nothing has been confirmed.
The Familia Michoacana, which has splintered and lost power in recent years, moved into the state of México from Michoacán in the early 2000s.
InSight Crime analysis
The deadly ambush on police forces is a stark reminder that Mexico’s small, hyper-violent criminal groups, which can resemble mini-armies, are capable of coordinated armed attacks on authorities – even close to the nation’s capital.
The state of México is a strategic stronghold for criminal groups because it is sandwiched between the capital and other states with important drug trafficking operations. Michoacán, to the west, is a prominent fentanyl trafficking hub. Guerrero, to the east, is a leader in poppy cultivation.
Prosecutors told local media that the gunmen had targeted state authorities for a simple reason — retaliation for another shootout. Earlier this month, state police and the Attorney General’s Office managed to confiscate three luxury vehicles and a notebook containing information about lookouts and drug stashes.
Ambushes of authorities have become commonplace in Mexico, especially where criminal groups are trying to maintain control of disputed territory. Last year, three police officers carrying out a patrol in Zacatecas were shot dead by a faction of the CJNG.
The year prior, also while carrying out a patrol, 13 officers in Michoacán were killed by surprise gunfire and grenades. Such incidents, experts say, can be a way for criminal groups to test the limits of their power against the government.
Past ambushes in Mexico have seen officials respond by ordering large military units and helicopters to sweep cartel-controlled areas. But the results of those efforts are hit and miss at best, and there is little accountability if officials ultimately fail.
Whether the latest ambush will receive a similar response has yet to be seen. México state’s attorney general announced a nearly US $25,000 reward for information on three men thought to be involved in the ambush. And dozens of people have been detained for questioning.
However, the massacre has all but fallen out of the news cycle, with some commentators pointing out that, shockingly, it had barely registered in the media in the first place.
Max Radwin is a writer at InsightCrime, a think tank dedicated to researching and reporting on organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Zapatista dolls with trademark balaclava, rifle and bandolier.
A handcraft can sometimes document the rise and the disappearance of a historical movement.
In 1994, various indigenous communities in the southern state of Chiapas rose up against the Mexican government. At issue were a number of longstanding disputes over land as well as changes brought about by neoliberal policies, including the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
It was not the first rebellion in Chiapas against Mexico City. The difference with the Zapatista uprising was that it caught the attention of the entire world.
Headed by Subcomandante Marcos, the movement took advantage of the nascent World Wide Web, bringing flocks of international reporters to a place almost completely unknown to the outside world. The colorfully dressed indigenous peoples living traditional lives under threat of the modern world made for good stories.
Local street vendors saw opportunities to sell to these newcomers, but reporters looking for drama were not interested in handcrafts. That is until someone decided to take a traditional doll and made it a fighting Zapatista.
Cloth dolls in traditional women’s garb of the Chiapas highlands made by the Pastishtan family.
It is not known who created the first Zapatista doll, and oddly enough there is little interest in Chiapas in knowing the real story behind it. The closest we have is a report by Mexican researcher Eli Bartra. She interviewed the late Catalan reporter Joachim Ibarza, who claimed to be the inspiration behind the doll. According to him, one of the indigenous vendors stated that she was tired of people rejecting her traditional dolls. His suggestion was to add a balaclava to the doll and sell it as a Zapatista. This she did to great success. The name of the woman is never given, nor is an exact date.
It is known that the dolls appeared by 1995, around the time that news reports of the conflict (and its preference for detente over bullets) began a phenomenon called Zapatourism: activists and others coming to Chiapas with the hopes of supporting or just getting a chance to meet a real revolutionary.
Through the rest of the 1990s and into the 2000s, thousands of people came into San Cristóbal de las Casas, the closest thing to a city in the region. There had been tourism before, but this influx has made the town one of Mexico’s major tourist attractions nationally. The Zapatista dolls fulfilled a need for a “meaningful” souvenir for Zapatourists. They are a variation of dolls from the town of San Juan Chamula. Although Chamula dolls can be made of wood, clay or cloth, the Zapatista version is almost always of cloth, originally dressed to represent the specific players in the 1994 drama.
The most popular were Subcomandante Marcos, designated with a pipe, and Comandante Ramona, in colorful traditional dress. At Zapatourism’s height, dolls were also made of the bishop of Chiapas (a principal negotiator), Red Cross workers and even United States president George H.W. Bush. The dolls were a response to a specific opportunistic market, but times have changed. By the end of the first decade of the 2000s, any fighting was a distant memory.
As late as 2009, Zapatista dolls were still easily found in local markets, although the variety had waned to a male and female version, simply dressed in black wool, with a balaclava, rifle and bandolier. A male figure might have a pipe, but female figures lost their colorful garb. Depictions of the other players disappeared completely.
On my last visit to San Cristóbal in 2020, I was taken aback at the absolute lack of Zapatista dolls. Instead, colorful stuffed animals made of wool and strings of pom poms (traditionally used in women’s braids) dominated souvenirs for sale. You have to go looking for Zapatista dolls to find some tucked away among a vendor’s wares. Perhaps younger generations of idealists have forgotten about the rebellion since it is no longer in the news.
Textile artisan Maria Pastishtan (far left) and family outside of their workshop and store in San Juan Chamula.
Despite the fall in demand, there is one family that still makes quality Zapatista dolls. They are not in San Cristóbal but rather in the town that originated the doll — San Juan Chamula.
María Pastishtan Licanchiton is a handcrafting legend in Chiapas whose work is recognized by state and federal cultural authorities. She and her progeny own a handcrafts store called Artesanías Rosario, located just behind the municipal cemetery (and visible on Google Maps).
Doña María is best known for her work in weaving on the traditional backstrap loom, but she and the rest of the family make and sell a variety of handcrafts. Zapatista dolls are indeed a significant part of that inventory, but only a part of the variety of traditional dolls of both wood and cloth. Most of the dolls are about eight inches tall or smaller, and some are depicted riding a stuffed wool horse.
They are likely the last handcrafting family who make the dolls in any significant quality or quantity.
It is unknown, however, how long such an endeavor can last. Tourism in towns like Chamula is touch-and-go even in the best of times. When crime, social unrest or a pandemic strike, such families are hit the hardest.
Doña María is a Chiapan cultural treasure, but she is well over 80 years old and no longer able to work. The family has status as her heirs and works together on the different aspects of making the dolls and other handcrafts, but it remains to be seen if they can survive after la maestra leaves for the hereafter.
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 moment when the writer realized he was in over his head. Miguel Ángel Gómez Cabrera
It was Easter Sunday morning in Casas Grandes, a small pueblo in Chihuahua.
I’d just arrived after spending the previous two weeks photographing in Mata Ortiz, an even smaller village about 20 miles away that’s world-famous for its pottery. I was hoping to photograph something on Easter Sunday, and since there are processions in every city and pueblo in Mexico during Holy Week, I figured I had a pretty good shot. But, apparently, there were none in Casas Grandes. At least none I could find out about. So, with nothing to do, I lay in bed, trying my best to come up with a reason to get up. When I heard mariachi music, I figured, “It’s Easter Sunday, there’s mariachi music; it must be a procession.”
I grabbed my camera, hung it on my shoulder and headed out. I don’t take photographs without permission and always made it a point to hang my camera on my shoulder so people would know why I was there. I learned on this particular Easter Sunday that that’s not always a good idea.
I followed the music to a small church a couple of blocks from my room. As soon as I arrived, it was clear that something was off. Sure, there was a mariachi band playing in front of a lovely little red church, but there seemed to be an awful lot of young men standing around looking very pissed off. Didn’t seem like much of a celebration.
A small group of women stood next to the band, chatting with them between songs, and I was about to cross the street and ask them what was going on when I felt someone standing behind me. Actually, I probably smelled the alcohol before I sensed his presence. When I turned around, I found myself staring into the chest of a very large man wearing a cowboy hat that shaded his eyes, making him appear even more ominous, and a plaid shirt that was a bit too tight, making him seem even larger. A mustache drooped over his upper lip. He looked down at me, and if people really could breathe fire, this guy would have turned me into a cinder.
The girl who appeared out of nowhere. Joseph Sorrentino
“Are you a tourist?” he fairly spit out.
“No,” I answered.
“Then who are you?” he demanded.
“I’m a photographer from the United States,” I said and then, not too intelligently and with just a little too much attitude, added, “Who are you?”
“I’m a member of the family. What are you doing here?”
“I heard the music and thought it was a procession for Easter.”
“We always bury our dead with music.”
That definitely got my attention. At the time of this event, my Spanish was still a work in progress, and I constantly cursed myself for not working on it harder. I vowed to redouble my efforts if I survived this situation and fervently hoped that I wouldn’t say anything insulting or stupid. I decided to keep it as simple as possible. “I’m very sorry. I didn’t know it was a funeral,” I said.
The sidewalk we were standing on was slightly sloped and, of course, I stood below him which made me feel even smaller. It really wasn’t steep but, because I was so nervous, every time I tried to step up so my head would at least be level with this guy’s shoulder, I slid down. I don’t know if I looked ridiculous, but I felt ridiculous.
I eventually succeeded in getting up the incline and stood next to him. I kept trying, with my limited Spanish, to explain my presence, but my bone-dry mouth was making that even more challenging. The fact that several of the pissed-off-looking young men were edging closer didn’t ease my sense that things could go very badly very quickly.
“I don’t photograph without permission,” I continued, “and I don’t want to photograph a funeral.”
I probably apologized another half-dozen times. He seemed to relax a little and asked where I was from. I said New York. That broke the tension — everyone loves New York — and he said he’d worked in the U.S., on a farm in Michigan. We talked for a few minutes longer, and it actually went quite well. Considering. I mean, I was still alive.
The lovely little red church where it all happened. Joseph Sorrentino
I asked him who died. “My brother,” he said.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “That’s terrible. I don’t want to bother you, so I’ll be going now.”
We shook hands, and as I turned to go, he said, “Be careful. Life is short.”
As I walked down the street, I noticed several police and army vehicles, something I thought was a little unusual for a funeral. A young man called out to me as I passed by, but instead of stopping, I quickened my pace. That seemed to be the smart thing to do. I stopped in a small store a couple of blocks away, and although I hadn’t smoked in years, I bought two single cigarettes — sueltos, they’re called in Mexico — and a Coke. I went to the park across the street and sat on a bench.
I wouldn’t learn until later that day that the funeral was for a drug dealer — the man’s brother — who’d been shot dead the day before. He’d been shot 20 times. But even without knowing that at the time, the encounter was so tense that I found my hands shaking as I stared at the cigarette.
I looked up and saw, a few feet away, a little girl dancing. She had curly black hair and large dark eyes and wore a green flowery dress and a big smile as she twirled around, not a care in the world.
Our eyes met. She stopped dancing and walked toward me. Without hesitating, she planted a kiss on my cheek and then, smiling, danced away.
Joseph Sorrentino, a writer, photographer and author of the book San Gregorio Atlapulco: Cosmvisiones, is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily. More examples of his photographs and links to other articles may be found at www.sorrentinophotography.com He currently lives in Chipilo, Puebla.
Pemex would benefit from the law, which would allow the government to revoke permits on security or economic grounds.
The federal government is forging ahead with its plans to increase state control in Mexico’s energy sector, which was opened up to private and foreign companies by a 2014 reform.
President López Obrador, a staunch energy nationalist and fierce critic of the reform, sent a proposal to Congress on Friday to alter the federal Hydrocarbons Law, which governs activities in the oil sector.
With an argument based on safeguarding national security, energy security and the national economy, AMLO, as the president is commonly known, is proposing that the federal government have the authority to suspend permits granted to private companies that operate in any part of the oil industry chain including production, processing, storage, transportation, sales to the public, importation and exportation.
All permits granted by the Energy Ministry (Sener) and the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) to private firms that operate in the Mexican oil sector would be subject to suspension in case of “imminent danger to national security, energy security or the national economy,” according to the initiative sent to Congress.
It was unclear how “imminent danger” would be defined.
The proposed reform, which would benefit the state-owned oil company Pemex, comes after the passing of legislation that gives power generated by the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) priority on the national grid over that produced by private and renewable energy companies.
However, the Electricity Industry Law, and the government’s energy reliability policy which also favored the state-owned CFE, have both been struck down by courts after they were challenged by private companies that have invested heavily in Mexico since the 2014 energy reform took effect.
The legal challenges haven’t dissuaded López Obrador from pursuing his quest to “rescue” Pemex and the CFE from what he describes as years of neglect and give them greater control of the energy sector. Just last week, the president said he was prepared to send a bill to Congress to change the constitution if the new electricity law is deemed unconstitutional.
While that law aims to bolster the CFE by relegating private firms in the power supply pecking order, the objective of the proposal to change the Hydrocarbons Law is to expropriate private oil sector interests, according to one energy expert.
Gonzalo Monroy, a Mexico City-based energy analyst, said on Twitter that he had read and analyzed AMLO’s proposal and reached the conclusion that the aim is expropriation.
“Once and for all I’ll put it on the table: THEY WANT TO EXPROPRIATE – direct expropriation – by taking the place of owners and operators … of everything related to fuels,” he wrote.
“A detail: not just fuels but ALL hydrocarbons and ALL petrochemical products,” Monroy said in a subsequent tweet.
The Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (Imco), a think tank, was also critical of López Obrador’s proposal.
“If it’s approved, this initiative will have negative implications for competitiveness,” Imco said on Twitter, noting that Sener and the CRE could suspend permits granted to private companies if they – “in their judgement” – represent a danger to security or the economy.
“[AMLO’s proposal] also says that Pemex could take over the administration and operation of installations of companies whose permits have been suspended and make use of their personnel, which would represent an act of direct expropriation,” the think tank said.
“… This initiative is presented at a time at which national and foreign investors are questioning the energy policy decisions of the current administration within the framework of the recently approved reform to the Electricity Industry Law,” Imco noted.
The global consulting firm Kearney this week cited the government’s energy sector measures as a major reason Mexico wasn’t included on its 2021 index of the 25 most attractive countries in the world for foreign investors.
The new stoplight map presented by health officials Friday.
Mexico will have seven green light low risk states during the next two weeks after the federal Health Ministry presented an updated coronavirus stoplight map on Friday.
Coahuila, Jalisco, Nayarit, Tamaulipas and Veracruz will all switch to green on Monday, joining Campeche and Chiapas.
Sonora, which switched to green two weeks ago, will regress to medium risk yellow after the Health Ministry deemed that the coronavirus situation had deteriorated in the northern state.
Yellow is the predominant color on the updated map with the coronavirus risk level designated as medium in a total of 18 states.
The yellow light states for the next two weeks will be Aguascalientes, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Colima, Durango, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Michoacán, Morelos, Nuevo León, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tabasco, Tlaxcala and Zacatecas.
Fourteen of those states are already yellow while Morelos, Oaxaca and Tabasco will switch from high risk orange and Sonora will switch from green.
The number of orange states declines to seven on the new map from eight on the one currently in force.
Mexico City, México state, Puebla, Querétaro and Yucatán are already orange and will remain that color for the next two weeks while Hidalgo and Chihuahua will switch from yellow.
For the third consecutive fortnight there will be no red light maximum risk states between March 29 and April 11.
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.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s accumulated coronavirus case tally increased to just under 2.22 million on Friday with 5,303 new cases reported. The official Covid-19 death toll rose by 651 to 200,862.
None of Mexico’s 32 states has hospital occupancy levels above 50% for general care or critical care hospital beds and the vast majority have rates below 30%.
Just under 6.5 million Covid-19 vaccine doses had been given by Friday night, mainly to health workers and seniors. About 4.8 million people aged 60 and over have received at least one shot, meaning that over 10 million seniors remain unvaccinated.
President López Obrador said last week that all of Mexico’s seniors will receive at least one dose by the end of April, a target that has shifted several times.
Manuel Bartlett speaks Friday at the government's morning press conference.
Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) chief Manuel Bartlett reaffirmed Friday that private energy companies don’t pay to use state-owned transmission lines and claimed that they have stolen 76,000 customers from the public utility.
Speaking at President López Obrador’s morning press conference, Bartlett, an 85-year-old former federal cabinet minister and ex-governor of Puebla, said private companies have 223 “self-supply” power plants and tens of thousands of phony partners.
Reiterating a point he has made previously, including during an interview last May, the CFE chief said that large companies join partnerships with private energy firms to get around having to purchase power from the CFE.
Bartlett said last May that large companies like corporate conglomerate Grupo Salinas, convenience store chain OXXO, big-box store Walmart, cinema chain Cinépolis, manufacturer Kimberly Clark and others pay very low electricity rates because they are passed off as partners of firms such as Iberdrola, Enel Energía and American Light and Power.
Their “simulated” partnerships allow the client firms to receive electricity without paying for transmission costs, he said.
Bartlett said Friday that the arrangements were “a fraud of the law.”
“Although it’s illegal, although it’s a crime, they [the private energy companies] don’t pay [to use] the [state-owned] network. … They have 76,000 fake customers,” he said.
Bartlett also said that the CFE has accrued losses of 437 billion pesos (US $21.2 billion) because of electricity dispatch rules.
He said the CFE is forced to buy power for the national grid from private companies – which generally generate cleaner and cheaper energy than the commission – and can’t place all of the electricity it generates in the system.
“We have a loss of 215 billion pesos by not dispatching [our energy],” he said. “… And due to the energy the CFE has to buy from private companies, the CFE loses 222 billion pesos more. … We have to buy energy from private companies, this requirement is absurd but that’s the reality of the [previous government’s] energy reform.”
The Congress recently passed a new Electricity Industry Law which gives CFE-generated power priority on the national grid over that produced by private and renewable energy companies. But the law was promptly suspended through a court injunction and more court rulings against the legislation have followed.
López Obrador said last week that he would send a bill to Congress to change the constitution if the new electricity law is deemed unconstitutional. He doubled down on Friday, saying that the government won’t be bumped off course despite the legal action against the law.
If his administration changed course, it would become an accomplice to corruption, said the president, who claims that the 2014 energy reform allowed foreign and private companies to loot Mexico.
López Obrador said that companies challenging the law don’t want to lose their privileges, such as government subsidies, in the Mexican energy market.
“As they don’t want to lose those privileges, they go to judges and seek to protect themselves and they have the support of the media with [some] honorable exceptions,” he said.
López Obrador charged that the Spanish newspaper El País is opposed to his government because it is owned by companies that have looted Mexico. “They saw Mexico as a land of conquest,” he said.
“We offer them an apology but we’re not going to allow them to continue looting and hopefully they understand us. It’s the same thing with Reforma and El Universal and even The New York Times because they’re [pro] business newspapers that have forgotten ethics and forgotten that the media should be as close as it can to the citizens and the truth and as far away as it can from … economic power – that’s journalism,” López Obrador said.
“In this case, … all of them are against us but we’re not going to move because we would become accomplices of corruption, we would be accessories and we came to government to end corruption, the cancer that destroys our country.”
Bartlett also railed against judges that have opposed government efforts to guarantee the stability of the national electricity network.
“They’ve given permits without limits to everyone that wants them – they are mainly intermittent [energy generators], wind farms and solar farms that represent a serious risk for the stability of the network. Intermittence creates big problems,” he said.
“The judges haven’t realized that the the network must maintain balance and reliability; … if this intermittent [energy] is injected … it is placed at risk. The judges voted against an agreement to guarantee the stability of the network,” Bartlett said, apparently referring to a Supreme Court ruling against the government’s energy reliability policy.
The government has been widely criticized for its energy sector reforms that many analysts say will discourage private investment. It has also been criticized for its opposition to renewables and reliance on fossil fuels at a time when much of the world is moving to phase out the use of coal and other highly-contaminating energy sources.
Like many 12-year-olds, Alexander Vivero likes to play with his friends online, watch movies, and read. He’s currently almost finished with the Star Wars TV series The Mandalorian.
However, in one way, he’s pretty different: the middle-school student is busy rehearsing a Beethoven piano sonata to perform at Carnegie Hall.
The Guadalajara native will play at the fabled musical venue after winning an award in the American Protégé International Music Talent Competition.
Alexander won first place in the competition’s school students category for entrants 12 and under.
“I’m really happy because I never expected it,” he told the newspaper Excélsior. “I’m excited because it means my teacher … and I are doing well.”
Alexander Vivero plays Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.
Alexander’s music teacher, Joel N. Juan Qui of the University of Guadalajara, posted an enthusiastic message on his Facebook page on Friday with an image of the award letter the teen prodigy received from American Protégé, saying, “Study mijito [my son]! Next stop, NY, Carnegie Hall!”
Not yet a teenager and still with a bedroom full of stuffed animals, the young pianist already has an impressive list of accomplishments under his belt.
He became a recognized composer at just 6 years old when he was selected by Yamaha México to perform a piece he had written for piano, La ardilla saltarina (The Jumping Squirrel) at the Roberto Cantoral Cultural Center in Mexico City.
He has already composed several pieces in his short life, one of which, El Circo (The Circus), was performed on March 3 by the Chamber Orchestra of Zapopan, for which he is currently composing yet another work. In October, he won an award in the Grand Prize Virtuoso International Music Competition in Bonn, Germany.
He also plays several instruments besides the piano, including the violin, cello, drums, and saxophone. And music isn’t even his only area of excellence: he’s also a polyglot, speaking English, French and German, and he’s currently studying Italian.
Asked if he thought his early accomplishments in music meant he’s had to sacrifice his childhood, Alexander rebuffed the idea, saying he’s passionate about music and is studying how to play several instruments because he has ambitions to be an orchestra conductor.
“I think music should be included in school [curriculum] so that kids can get involved in culture,” he said.
But he also likes other “normal” childhood activities, he said.
“I also like to play chess, ride my bike, play with my dog and watch TV,” he said. “I don’t sacrifice anything for music because when I do it, I enjoy it; my passion is what I like to do most.”
A trail leads to the summit of Cerro El Coronel in Rosarito. baliza mexico
Hiking is becoming an increasingly popular activity in Baja California and the northern border state looks set to attract even more nature lovers with the certification of what will be the longest trail in Latin America.
There are currently 12 certified, marked trails in Baja California, according to state officials, more than any other state in Mexico. They include trails in the Sierra de San Pedro Martír National Park as well as coastal tracks in Ensenada and Rosarito.
The newspaper The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the state is now in the process of certifying a 68-mile, or 110-kilometer, trail that will run across the state and along the coast down to Baja California Sur. It will be the longest in Latin America.
The Union-Tribune also reported that the state government has partnered with the company Baliza México to certify Baja California hiking trails according to an internationally accepted system that makes them both safer and easier to navigate and enjoy.
“People want to escape the day-to-day. If we add in the pandemic, people have had even more to deal with, and they are looking for that escape,” said Mónica Véjar, executive director of Baliza México, explaining the increasing popularity of hiking.
Hikers on one of Baja California’s hiking trails. baliza mexico
She said that Baliza works with people who live near the hiking trails so that they can become informal guides or sell water or offer washroom access.
“At first, some [locals] were asking, ‘Do we need to put in cabanas and restaurants?’ and we said ‘No, no, no. Water, restrooms and a trail-head,’ and that makes for a great hike,” Véjar said.
“[Now] they are telling me they are already overwhelmed by the number of people who are arriving, and while it is certain that people want to escape, it is very important that people do it responsibly and part of doing it responsibly is going to places that are already marked,” she said.
One person who has recently caught the hiking bug is 45-year-old Mexicali resident Beatriz Ojeda, who was laid off from her job as a dialysis technician during the pandemic.
While she was feeling depressed about losing her job, Ojeda was invited by a friend to go on a hike and really enjoyed the experience. She, her 24-year-old daughter and a friend recently set out on a hike to climb the highest mountain in Rosarito, Cerro El Coronel, which affords breathtaking views over the Pacific Ocean.
During the hike, markers installed by Baliza were very helpful to Ojeda and her companions, the Union-Tribune said, noting that the precarious path to the peak of El Coronel makes for a challenging hike.
A trail marker on one of Baja California’s 12 certified trails. baliza mexico
“I feel totally different today,” Ojeda said the day after the hike. “It just opens up your mind, your heart and gives you a totally different perspective. You don’t need to go all the way up to take it all in. You can just sit down and breathe and watch the view and it does a world of good.”
Tourism officials hope to attract people from nearby San Diego, and farther afield, to enjoy the state’s trails, which Baliza is also geocoding so that maps show up on search engines such as Google.
“The truth is we’re inviting the whole world,” said Dr. Ruben Roa, Baja California’s deputy minister of sustainable economy and tourism.
Promotion of the hiking opportunities is an extension of a concerted effort to make tourists aware of activities in the state beyond spring break partying. Culinary tours, the abundant craft beer offerings and the wineries in the Valle de Guadalupe have all helped to attract new and different kinds of visitors to Baja California.
Now, the state’s certified hiking trails look set to do the same.
“The idea is to extend the [Baja California] experience … to complement it,” Roa said. “In other words, we’re not closing off those other activities that are welcome, but I must admit that have exploited us for a long time, and did not allow for a recognition of the natural and pristine beauty of the state, especially in the southern portion of the state.”
Long, beautiful Los Cocos beach has soft sand and small waves.
“Let’s go camping on the beach!” we decided. “But which beach will we choose?”
“The beach?” said my friend Josh. “That’s a long drive, and I’ll be the one doing the driving.”
Google Maps immediately confirmed that it was close to a five-hour drive, whether to Puerto Vallarta or La Manzanilla in Jalisco or to Bucerías in Michoacán. But, to our surprise, we found that San Blas, Nayarit — which is farther away than any of the aforementioned towns — can now be reached by car from Guadalajara in approximately three hours.
In addition to being quick, the route to San Blas is picturesque. We skirted the beautiful volcanoes of Tequila and Sangangüey, and suddenly there we were at Stoners Surf Camp on the beach, a favorite San Blas hangout for surfers in the summer months but practically deserted in February.
After splashing in the water and soaking up the sun, what else is there to do in San Blas?
Pelicans gather to watch the sunset at San Blas.
Well, if you love nature and want to see all sorts of animals in their natural habitat, you can’t beat a boat ride in the estuary.
Over the years, the boatmen of San Blas have cut channels through the mangroves that fill the Estuary of San Cristóbal. So tall are the mangroves and so thick is the vegetation that parts of these channels have become tunnels, interconnected in an extensive labyrinth that only the boaters can navigate.
In the early morning, the perfectly still water mirrors the jungle canopy overhead. Long, smooth mangrove roots reach down like fingers from the branches above, where giant bromeliads are perched among exotic orchids.
Such beauty would seem more than enough reason to visit this strange world, but the most exciting thing about the boat ride is the amazing variety of birds that you can see as you silently glide through this tropical paradise. In fact, it is said that half the known birds of Mexico are lurking among the mangroves!
We arrived at the estuary jetty at 7 a.m. on the advice of friends who told us that if you really want to see birds, you should be on the very first boat out.
To our surprise, besides being the first, we were also the only customers who climbed into the boat of a friendly and knowledgeable old-timer named Don Pancho. Apparently, those movie stars who supposedly frequent San Blas were all still in bed.
Members of the local indigenous community prepare for a fiesta.
As we headed toward the jungle, we passed several fishing boats. Each of them had a pelican tagging along behind, eager for tidbits. And as soon as we approached the mangroves, we began to see birds everywhere. Don Pancho, it seemed, was better at naming them in English than in Spanish. We saw whimbrels, wood storks, roseate spoonbills, among others, and lots of anhingas, which are also called anhingas in Spanish and doubly so in Latin (Anhinga anhinga).
We saw many of these perched in strategic spots along the waterside, soaking up the rays of sunshine like Germans on holiday, their beautiful wings fully extended, completely ignoring our gawks and comments as we floated by. Several times, when we were under thick jungle cover, Don Pancho would point straight above us. “Look, there’s a boat-billed heron … we call it garza canela in Spanish.”
These little birds were always hiding in shady spots and somehow managed to look cute even though they have a bill shaped more like a shoe than a boat.
Besides birds galore, we saw several huge, toothy cocodrilos — or crocodiles, fortunately lurking a good distance away from our boat — as well as an iguana sunning itself while precariously balanced on a thin tree branch, and a few turtles. This was more than we had hoped for because we took the shortest tour, which is to a spring called La Tovara.
Other tours go to a bird sanctuary and El Cocodrilario, a nursery that raises crocodiles and releases them in the wild.
On our way back to San Blas, we spotted a pair of eyes looking at us from the center of the river. A moment later, there was a loud bump and the boat hopped into the air.
The American crocodile, just one of the many surprises in San Blas’s estuary, can reach four meters in length but isn’t as aggressive as other species.
“Don Pancho,” we shouted to our skipper, “what was that?”
“We just accidentally hit a cocodrilo!” he replied with a sly smile, “but I think he will survive.”
As we approached the jetty, we met several tourist boats that were speeding along, making lots of noise and waves. Obviously, at San Blas, “the early boat gets the birds.”
Our last day at San Blas was February 3, the feast day of the saint who gave the village its name. We walked to the plaza and found it festooned with colorful decorations. Right in the middle, several young men were hard at work constructing a castillo (castle) out of thin lengths of bamboo, to which countless firecrackers had been attached.
Outside the church door, we found several young girls in white dresses so fancy that I asked them if they had just been married. This brought forth a torrent of giggles. “No, we just made our first communions,” they announced.
When darkness fell, a large circle was formed in the milling crowd and a dozen flamboyantly dressed dancers appeared. Each of them was either veiled or masked. They wore elaborate headdresses, which were lightweight, hollow frameworks shaped like beehives, which the people called coronas (crowns).
A great egret waits motionlessly for its prey to pass by.
Each dancer held a longbow with double crossbars and wore wooden sandals and long, colorful capes. They beat out the rhythm with their sandals as they wove in and out of two lines, occasionally stooping down, nearly doubled over, shaking their bows, held parallel to the ground. The dance was carried out with great precision and much repetition, and the strenuous effort of each dancer to do it perfectly was evident.
No one in the audience ever clapped or cheered. This was obviously not entertainment. I turned to the man next to us and asked if there was some special significance to this dance.
“Claro que sí,” he said, “and I can tell you something about it because I’m the one who trained them to do it.”
What a stroke of luck! The maestro explained that this dance has not changed since the days of the Conquest and tells the story of two warring tribes and their eventual collaboration to fight against the Spaniards.
Many details — for example why the faces are covered — he couldn’t explain because the information had been lost over the centuries, but he assured me that great pains had been taken to perform the dance exactly as their ancestors had.
He added that the same held true for many other dances performed at San Blas on special days throughout the year. We felt privileged to have witnessed an ancient, undying ritual.
On February 3, the feast of Saint Blaise, residents of San Blas line up for the traditional blessing of the throat.
After the dance, we went inside the church to see what was going on there, for a great crowd of people had been filing inside for hours. Up in front of the altar, we found the local padre, barely able to stand up, praying while holding two long, flickering candles on either side of the throat of a person at the head of a long, long line.
Having gone to a Catholic school, I immediately recognized what was going on.
“It’s the blessing of the throat!” I told my wife Susy. “Your San Blas is our Saint Blaise!”
But it turned out she had no idea what I was talking about. She had somehow survived all her life without having her throat blessed every year, for it appears that in Mexico, this custom is only practiced right here in the town of San Blas.
Well, I suspect the fourth-century martyr Saint Blaise, lying in his crypt in far-off Armenia, could probably hear all the noisy firecrackers that had been set off early each morning of that week in his honor. No doubt he took pride in the colorful fireworks and burning of the castillo that night in the plaza of old San Blas on the coast of Nayarit.
Let me add that there is one more thing that the town of San Blas is famous for: jejenes, which are no-see-ums or gnats in English. They’re said to be worse in the summer, but I find them tolerable if I methodically splash on repellent throughout the day.
Who needs sunscreen in San Blas when you’ve got an umbrella?
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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.
Let the military run the country, say many Mexicans
Many people argue that the armed forces already have too much power in Mexico but four in 10 Mexicans wouldn’t mind having a government led by them, according to a national survey.
Developed by the national statistics agency Inegi and the National Electoral Institute (INE), the National Survey of Civic Culture (ENCUCI) found that 16.6% of respondents totally support having a military government and 23.5% somewhat support the idea.
The remaining 60% of those polled rejected the idea of having a government led by the military, to which the current federal administration has entrusted a wide range of tasks including public security and infrastructure construction.
The survey, conducted with the occupants of more than 25,000 households in urban and rural areas of the country last August and September, also found that almost eight in 10 people are in favor of having a government headed by a strong leader.
Just over four in 10 of those polled said they agreed very much that a strong leader should be in charge of the country while 36% said that they somewhat agreed. The remaining 22.5% of respondents said they disagreed.
Although 40% of the respondents indicated that they would accept a military government, 90% of those polled said they were in favor of a government that is democratic in its decision making and included experts in a range of areas such as health and the economy.
Just over half of the respondents – 52.7% – said they are satisfied with democracy as it currently works in Mexico but 46.8% said they were not. Almost one third of those polled – including perhaps many of those who indicated support for a military government – agreed that a democratic government might not always be the best option in certain circumstances.
Among the other findings of the ENCUCI were that 61% of respondents believe that laws are not respected or barely respected in Mexico and that 45% believe that reducing corruption – a central aim of the current federal government – is not possible.
The survey also found that 76% of respondents don’t trust political parties and 50.7% believe that they serve no useful purpose.
Seven in 10 respondents said they had confidence in public universities, making them the most trusted institutions in the country, while social organizations ranked second with 51.4% saying they trusted them.
After political parties, the second least trustworthy institutions are unions. Just over half of respondents said they don’t trust business leaders while just under half said they lacked confidence in the media. Two-thirds of respondents said they don’t trust public servants and other government officials.
At the presentation of the survey on Wednesday, INE president Lorenzo Córdova acknowledged that there is still mistrust about elections in Mexico, although the democratic system has made signifiant progress in recent decades after the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, ruled the country as a virtual one-party state for much of the 20th century.
“Mistrust continues to be present in the election and is even fueled by some political actors as an electoral strategy. … The mistrust of society in the state of democracy and political institutions, on one side, and the use of a discourse of mistrust as a mechanism of political action have an impact on the elections,” he said, explaining that many people are not well-informed about the improvements made to the Mexican electoral system over the past 30 years.
