Aguilar, center, and the two suspects who have been arrested.
A couple has been arrested in Playas de Rosarito, Baja California, in connection with the disappearance in August of a Los Angeles firefighter who is still missing.
Frank Aguilar, a 20-year veteran of the Los Angeles Fire Department, had been on medical leave since March and traveled to a condo he owns in San Antonio del Mar in August to check on things. On August 20, he disappeared.
On Thursday afternoon Fanny Gabriela Gómez Castellanos, 32, and Santos González Casillas, 27, were arrested and found to be in possession of Aguilar’s bank card, which has been used since the man went missing.
The two denied any knowledge of Aguilar’s disappearance, but authorities believe otherwise.
The day he disappeared, Aguilar, 48, spoke by phone with his uncle and told him he was going to meet up with a friend in the Misión del Mar area of Playas de Rosarito.
Investigators believe that person was Gómez, who identified herself to Aguilar as Montserrat. Police found bloodstains on the highway where the two were supposed to meet. The blood matched Aguilar’s DNA and neighbors reported hearing shots fired that night.
It is believed that González tried to kidnap Aguilar after Gómez lured him to the meeting place, but Aguilar resisted and González shot him. Blood was also found in the suspect’s vehicle.
Aguilar’s condo was later found ransacked and his car and motorcycle were missing. González and Gómez appear on the condo’s surveillance camera footage the night he disappeared.
The suspects have been charged with forced disappearance and theft, and face 25 to 50 years in prison if found guilty.
Authorities say they will continue to search for Aguilar “as if he is alive.”
“We completely hope that we find answers from these people, but we are disgusted in these people,” said Bella, Aguilar’s daughter.
“I feel devastated, I need to know where he is because I don’t want him to end up on a hill, in a hole, in a grave, which I don’t know, “said Martha Carmona, Aguilar’s mother.
Suspicions that he may have been kidnapped surfaced early on.
“I want to say very clearly to anybody who would kidnap a member of our fire department that this is a member of not just of our city, government, family, but of our community here in Los Angeles,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said on September 2.
“We will work tirelessly to make sure that Frank is returned safely,” Garcetti added. “This is somebody who has put his life on the line for us, and we will do everything in our power to ensure that law enforcement in Mexico has whatever support it needs.”
The Baja California Attorney General’s Office said the FBI is assisting in the search for Aguilar.
The Audi plant that was closed by municipal authorities on Friday.
Authorities in San José Chiapa, Puebla, shut down the municipality’s Audi plant on Friday due to unpaid property tax and water bills.
After several hours of failed negotiations between authorities led by Morena party Mayor Arturo Graciel López Vélez and Audi representatives, the plant was officially closed late Friday night, the newspaper El Universal reported.
Local authorities say the plant, which employs some 7,000 workers, owes the municipality 90 million pesos (US $4.25 million).
Accompanied by police from San José and three other municipalities, the authorities arrived at the Audi plant at about 4:30 p.m. Friday.
After speaking to factory managers for 1 1/2 hours, the authorities concluded that Audi would not acknowledge the debt and attempted to place “closed” stickers on the plant’s exterior.
But private security guards prevented them from doing so on the grounds that Audi’s legal representative was not present, El Heraldo de México reported. The negotiations then continued until San José Chiapa authorities, backed up by police, eventually did put up the “closed” stickers.
In a statement, Audi México denied that it was behind on its bills, stating that it is a company that complies with all of its obligations in a timely manner.
“The request received from representatives of the municipal government will be reviewed and evaluated by the company. Audi México maintains close and permanent contact with the authorities and will schedule an appointment for the clarification of these issues,” the statement said.
The company subsequently said it would meet with authorities in state government offices on Monday.
The San José Chiapa plant, where Audi assembles its Q5 vehicles, opened in 2016 and usually makes more than 100,000 cars annually. However, production dropped 60% to just over 36,000 vehicles in the first half of the year due to its forced closure due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Independent Union of Volkswagen Workers, or Sitiavw, is threatening job action if the company doesn’t give employees their fair share of profits generated by the company’s Puebla operations.
Sitiavw said Friday that workers will strike on November 6 if Volkswagen doesn’t agree to distribute 293.5 million pesos ($13.9 million) in profits in accordance with its collective contract with employees.
Volkswagen said in a statement that it was challenging the claim that it owed money to its workers and that it believed its arguments had “sufficient legal support.”
It also said that it is maintaining dialogue with union representatives to clarify the issue and ensure that all the agreements it has entered into are complied with in accordance with the law.
The Guadalupe Chapel is one of the attractions in the Magical Town of Real de Catorce, San Luis Potosí. Óscar alemán
What makes some pueblos more “magical” than others?
You may have seen the signs for “Pueblos Mágicos,” 121 destinations designated Magical Towns by Mexico’s Ministry of Tourism (Sectur). It comes from a program started in 2001 to create an alternative to the decades long effort of promoting the beaches.
Instead of cities, the program focused on small towns as more representative of traditional Mexico. The selected towns have preserved architecture and ways of life from the pre-Hispanic period through the Mexican Revolution. In addition, the towns are economically marginalized, and the hope is that tourism can stem the flow of migration from them into the cities.
The first towns to earn the label of Pueblo Mágico were Huasca de Ocampo, Hidalgo; Mexcatltan, Nayarit; Tepoztlan, Morelos; and Real de Catorce, San Luis Potosí. They fit in well with the initial criteria — towns with a traditional way of life, infrastructure, historic significance, and close to a major city. Mexican city dwellers can easily make short trips to them.
The towns are promoted through their architecture, local environment, food, traditions, handcrafts, and other local products. Almost all have some connection to Mexico’s colonial past. However, the Pueblos can be categorized by type of history — former mining towns, pre-Hispanic settlements, type of environment — mountains, desert, lake, rainforest and/or social system.
Garden clock and monastery in Zacatlan de las Manzanas, Puebla. Alejandro Linares Garcia
Pueblos such as Mitla, Oaxaca, and San Juan Teotihuacan are promoted as complements to their famous archaeological neighbors.
Others are important because of their people and traditions. Pátzcuaro’s Purhepecha people are famous for their Day of the Dead traditions. The Sierra Norte of Puebla has a number of Pueblos because its isolation preserved many traditional societies. El Quelite, Sinaloa, is known for its rustic charm, its food, and a variant of the Mesoamerican ballgame. Tapijulapa, Tabasco, is noted for its social cooperatives that make and export handcrafted furniture.
Perhaps the richest source of Pueblos Mágicos are old mining towns. Their boom-and-bust nature means that elaborate building was done during the boom years, then lay in ruins nearly untouched after the bust. Almost all Pueblos of this type have colonial architecture, often with an elaborate church.
Many of these are in central Mexico including Taxco, Guerrero; El Oro, México state; Tlalpujahua, Michoacán; and Mineral de Chico, Hidalgo. However, similar towns can be found farther north and west such as El Rosario, Sinaloa, and Álamos, Sonora.
There is at least one Pueblo Mágico in each of Mexico’s states, but some have taken better advantage of the program than others. Those with the most Pueblos include México state (10), Puebla (9), Michoacán (8), and Jalisco (7).
The list of Pueblos has some really hidden gems, everything you would imagine. I personally recommend Orizaba, Veracruz; Teúl de González Orteza, Zacatecas; and Amealco de Bonfil, Querétaro. But others may be disappointing. Tepotzotlan, México state, has an awesome church, but it is overrun by the sprawl of Mexico City.
The main square in the Chiapas Magical Town of Comitán. Super Lapín
Some spots are worth visiting, such as Isla Mujeres, Taxco, and San Cristóbal de las Casas. However, these already had a flourishing tourism industry before designation, taking away from the idea of “alternative.”
Nevertheless, the list makes for a good starting point for those looking to see something more than beaches. Sectur does have requirements for Pueblos which include building maintenance, control of street vending, medical and public safety services, and internet/cell phone access. Towns must renew their status every year.
Not yet are there reliable, nationwide statistics as to the effectiveness of the program, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence. A significant number of Pueblos have experienced growth. Álamos grew from 9,300 to 26,000 people after being named in 2005. The area north of Pachuca, Hidalgo, home to three mining Pueblos, is now filled with weekend homes for Mexico City residents.
Perhaps most importantly, towns clamor to be added to the list. Those that refuse to participate don’t worry that it will fail, but that the tourism will ruin their way of life.
Over 5.7 billion pesos were invested between 2001 and 2018, but the results have not been satisfactory to the federal government. Despite the requirement that spending benefit the entire municipality, the reality is that almost all the spending and benefit is concentrated in the historic center of the Pueblo, with local populations forced out as prices rise. The rest of the area sees little benefit, if any.
There have also been compliance and credibility issues. Due to demand, there was a sharp increase in the number of designations, even if the Pueblos did not meet standards. Some have been dropped, mostly because of crime and/or uncontrolled street vending, but almost all get reinstated. As of 2019, only 16 of 121 Pueblos were completely compliant with program requirements to maintain their status.
A carpet of flowers for Day of the Dead celebrations in Atlixco, Puebla. leigh thelmadatter
Although initial documentation stated that promotion would be both national and international, promotion has been almost entirely domestic. There is a lack of promotion on the internet and an absolute lack of promotion in any language other than Spanish. In October 2020, Sectur promised better international efforts, stating it needs to find out which towns would be most suitable. Perhaps the best place to start is to promote to the very sizeable foreign population that lives within Mexico’s borders now.
• Special thanks to Fernando Mendoza, founding president of the National Coordination of Pueblos Mágicos Committees (2015-2017) and currently the technical secretary of the Pueblos Mágicos del Noroeste.
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 weekly on Mexico News Daily.
A bakery in San Luis Potosí is using dancing pallbearers to market its Day of the Dead bread, a marketing effort that has succeeded in drawing attention to the bakery and its product.
A video of four men carrying a cardboard coffin emblazoned with La Superior bakery’s logo and dancing on the sidewalk while raucous electronic music plays in the background has been circulating on social media this week.
The bakery said it debuted the dancing pallbearers on October 5 in advance of Day of the Dead on November 1 as it handed out free pan de muerto to passersby.
La Superior manager Héctor Preciado said the idea came to him after his daughter carried bread around in a shoebox and started dancing.
“We toured what is the Alameda, Plaza de Armas, Plaza Fundadores, Plaza del Carmen and Callejón Hidalgo, and we also went to Plaza de Soledad,” Preciado said, where the dancers immediately drew attention.
#Cartera 🍞 Héctor Preciado, gerente comercial de panadería La Superior, cuenta a EL UNIVERSAL cómo se le ocurrió recrear “Dancing Pallbearers” para vender pan de muerto en SLP
— El Universal San Luis Potosí (@ElUniversal_SLP) October 8, 2020
“We went with the speaker in front, then people began to hear the sound and many people identify the song with the video … So, the reaction of the people was to take out their cell phones almost immediately,” he said.
As of Saturday, video of the publicity stunt posted to La Superior’s Facebook page had been viewed 39,000 times.
The marketing gimmick plays off Ghana’s Dancing Pallbearers, who dance while transporting coffins, an initiative intended to lift the mood at funerals and change the way people view them.
Molina was a joint winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995.
The only Mexican scientist to have won the Nobel Prize passed away this week in his native Mexico City.
Mario Molina, joint winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 and a leading voice in the fight against climate change, suffered a heart attack on Wednesday. He was 77.
Molina’s family announced his death in a statement issued by the Mario Molina Center for Strategic Studies on Energy and the Environment, an independent non-profit association.
“It is with deep sorrow that we inform you of the passing of Mario J. Molina, who died today in his house in Mexico City,” the statement said.
“Dr. Molina is an example to the world, he dedicated his life to research and working in favor of protecting our environment. He will always be remembered with enormous pride and gratitude.”
Born in Mexico City in 1943, Molina entered the National Autonomous University in 1960 to study chemical engineering. He completed postgraduate studies in Germany and the United States and in 1973 joined the team of Frank Sherwood “Sherry” Rowland at the University of California, Irvine.
Molina and Rowland published a groundbreaking paper in 1974 that demonstrated that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) – chemicals used in products such as refrigerants and solvents – have a damaging effect on the ozone layer. Molina said in an interview that before the research paper was published, CFCs were not thought to have a significant impact on the environment.
In 1995, the two scientists, along with Dutch chemist Paul Crutzen, won the Nobel Prize “for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone.”
Molina’s work contributed to the drafting of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which entered into force in 1989 and phased out the use of CFCs.
Later in his career, Molina dedicated much of his time to seeking solutions to air pollution in large cities, including Mexico City. He also advocated for global actions to promote sustainable development.
Molina was a member of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States and for eight years was one of 21 scientists who constituted former U.S. president Barrack Obama’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. In 2013, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Obama for his work on combatting climate change.
Molina received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in 2013.
“The Nobel is given for work that you do in your field. But the Presidential Medal of Freedom is given for people who are thought to have had an impact on society. This is really an incentive to keep working on the issues that I have been involved with, including climate change,” Molina said shortly after receiving the award.
In 2017 he described the environmental policies of the administration of President Donald Trump, who withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change, as “irrational.”
The denial of climate change and the denial of the benefits science can bring to the world is “alarming,” Molina told the newspaper El País three years ago.
With his passing, Mexico no longer has a living Nobel laureate. Alfonso García Robles, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982 for his work toward nuclear disarmament, died in 1991, while Octavio Paz, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1990, passed away in 1998.
Molina’s death, coincidentally on the day this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded, was acknowledged by several members of the federal government, including President López Obrador.
“I lament the death of Dr. Mario Molina Pasquel y Henríquez, an outstanding Mexican scientist, defender of the environment and Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. A hug to family and friends,” he wrote on Twitter.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, who appeared with Molina at a recent video conference, said on Twitter that one of Mexico’s greats had died.
“He dedicated his life to … helping to improve the environment and the natural resources of our planet and our city.”
A family from Mesa, Arizona, whose vehicle was stolen while they traveled through Sonora earlier this week, has announced that their truck, nicknamed Starla, has been found.
“Starla is coming home!! I want to thank all of the Mexican government and so many of our dear friends in Mexico for your support in helping us recover our vehicle. God is a God of miracles,” said Mason Davis on his wife’s Facebook page after learning his truck would be returned.
Davis, his wife Natalie, and two of their seven children were traveling to their vacation home in Puerto Lobos, Sonora, Tuesday night when men in a sedan wielding an automatic rifle ordered them out of their 2017 Toyota Tundra and drove off with it, as well as the trailer it was pulling carrying three ATVS.
Because Davis didn’t realize he had to have Mexican insurance, the theft was a total loss, setting them back an estimated US $70,000.
It was also a traumatic turn of events for the family, who have vacationed in Puerto Lobos for the past 20 years without incident.
While his wife and daughters hid in a field, Mason Davis was able to flag down a passing vehicle. They spent the night in Puerto Peñasco where they ended up spending the night with strangers who opened their home to the family after hearing of their plight.
“I thank the Lamberts for inviting us to stay with them in Puerto Peñasco when we needed a place to stay, the Puerto Peñasco municipal police who helped us file a report and made sure to provide a transfer when we had no other transportation,” Mason Davis said.
The Tundra, sans trailer and ATVs, was located Friday afternoon on the Caborca-Desemboque highway, near San Felipe.
Despite the incident, the Davis family says they will continue to travel to Mexico and do not hold the country accountable.
“We do not blame Mexico or its citizens for what happened. We have many great friends in Mexico who have always treated us like family. For those who know the Latino community, you already know that as soon as you walk into their home, you’re offered food to eat, a cold drink and a comfortable place to sit/sleep. There is nothing our friends wouldn’t do for us. This situation could have happened [in] many other places in the world,” Natalie Davis wrote on her Facebook page on Saturday.
“We will continue to love Mexico and all those who continue to better this beautiful country.”
The September 3rd death of 137 sea lions whose bodies were found on San Lázaro beach in Comondú, Baja California Sur (BCS), was caused by red tide, scientists said after studying samples of the animals’ vital organs and body fat.
The natural phenomenon occurs when domoic acid produced by a massive bloom of algae accumulates in shellfish, sardines and anchovies which are then eaten by mammals. Reactions can begin 30 minutes after ingestion and may include vomiting, diarrhea, seizures, respiratory distress, coma and sometimes death.
Studies show that the sea lions, 136 males and one female, fed on schools of fish that had consumed the biotoxin.
In an interview with the newspaper Excélsior, Ricardo Rebolledo of the Museum of the Whale and Marine Science in La Paz reported that results obtained by the state’s Marine Mammal Stranding Network and the federal environmental protection agency Profepa are currently being compared before making an official announcement as to the cause of the die-off in the Gulf of Ulloa.
The gulf is located on the west side of the Baja California peninsula between Cabo San Lázaro and Punta Abreojos.
“Sometimes this type of algae does not affect the fish so much, but it does affect those that consume the schools. In this case, they would be dolphins, whales or sea lions,” he said, indicating that a few final tests have yet to be run.
The high mortality of male sea lions, he explained, is because bulls typically band together and separate from cows while hunting.
Rebolledo said that red tide is likely responsible for other sea lions found dead last month in Bahía Asunción and San Juanico.
The red tide was not reported at the time by the Federal Commission for Protection Against Health Risks (Cofepris) because Rebolledo said it may have occurred far from the coast and thus did not represent any danger for humans.
A whale of a photo
Mexican photographer Jospeh Cheires has taken first place in the nature category in the 2020 Drone Awards. His winning photo, which was selected by an international jury, is entitled Gray Whale Pushing Tourists, and was taken in Puerto Adolfo López Mateos.
The prize-winning photo by Jospeh Cheires.
“At the end of the gray whale season, I was told about a gray whale that, for the last three years, used to play with the boats, pushing them gently,” Cheires says. “So we went back the year after and incredibly the gray whale appeared and this shot is the result.”
López Mateos plays host to the annual Gray Whale Festival in late January, where in years past 14,000 people have gathered to celebrate the return of the leviathan. Gray whales travel to Baja Sur from the Bering Sea to mate and give birth in the state’s warm, coastal waters, making the longest migration in the animal kingdom.
Wayward whale
A beluga whale last seen alive in southern California in June was found dead in the waters off Laguna Ojo de Liebre this week, baffling scientists.
Belugas typically are found in the frigid waters off Alaska and Russia and one had never been seen before in California, much less in BCS. A team of scientists is attempting to recover the body, which from photos did not appear injured or emaciated, to determine the cause of death and, if possible, why the whale journeyed this far south, The Orange County Register reports.
Beluga whales, easily identified for their distinctive coloring, are white to blend into the snow and ice of their northern habitat.
High-end tourism flourishes
High-income tourism in Los Cabos is on the rise despite the coronavirus pandemic, officials say. Luxury travel to the popular resort destination by visitors whose annual income exceeds US $500,000 has increased by 13% over 2019, rising from just 5% of all visitors to 18%, said Rodrigo Esponda Cascajares, director of the Los Cabos Tourism Trust.
He attributes the boost to Los Cabos’ reputation for safety, an increase in direct flights, and the fact that there are relatively few countries people from the United States can travel to due to coronavirus restrictions.
In addition, private aviation increased by 75% in July and 88% in August over last year’s numbers, Esponda says.
Romance tourism, visitors who typically come to Los Cabos to get engaged, married or celebrate an anniversary, is also up, increasing by 2% over 2019. This year 8% of all visitors have come to Los Cabos for a romantic celebration, BCS Noticias reports.
Bars to remain closed
Bar owners in La Paz and Los Cabos demonstrated in the state capital on Wednesday, demanding that bars and nightclubs which have been closed since March be allowed to reopen.
The protest took the form of a caravan of vehicles, many of which made the journey to the Ministry of Tourism from Los Cabos to plead their case, arguing that they are in a critical situation after being closed for seven months, El Universal reports.
In Los Cabos 200 bars remain closed, as do 50 in La Paz, a situation that is unlikely to change any time soon.
“The state health safety committee is there to protect this and all sectors of the population, but we are not here for parties. The time will come, but it is not today,” said the commissioner for the Protection against Sanitary Risks, Blanca Pulido Medrano. “… this is not feasible due to the high risk of contagion that it implies.”
Bars will be allowed to reopen when BCS reaches the low risk “green light” level on the state’s coronavirus stoplight system.
Currently, BCS is at the first of two yellow stages. The state has recorded 10,849 reported cases of the coronavirus and 510 people have died. Health Minister Víctor George Flores says that 94.57% of those infected with the virus in BCS have recovered.
Erick Rasgado, the lifeguard who was honored this week in Cabo San Lucas for attempting to save the life of a young woman.
Lifeguard honored
Lifeguard Erick Rasgado Bonilla was honored in Cabo San Lucas this week for his courageous attempt to save the life of a young woman struggling in strong surf that was kicked up by Hurricane Genevieve on August 18.
The 33-year-old selflessly rushed into the waves in front of the Riu Palace Hotel in Cabo San Lucas after noticing the 15-year-old was in peril, but both lost their lives.
“He was a proactive, brave, attentive person with a positive attitude and always willing to help. His loss really hurts us a lot,” said Matías Ponce, general manager of the Riu.
Family, friends and co-workers gathered at the Cabo San Lucas fire department on Wednesday to pay an emotional tribute to Rasgado, honoring him with a plaque that emphasized his courage and heroism, Primero BCS reports.
“There is no greater sacrifice than losing one’s life for that of another,” a portion of the plaque reads.
A man in possession of 30,000 sea turtle eggs was arrested Thursday in Santa María Huamelula, Oaxaca, the state Attorney General’s Office reported.
The man was driving a Nissan pickup without headlights just after 10 p.m. on Thursday and refused to stop for authorities who gave chase and pulled him over. The eggs were found in the bed of the pickup in 60 black plastic bags.
The eggs were being taken to a buyer in Mexico City, authorities said. Sea turtle eggs are considered a delicacy and in some places an aphrodisiac. On the international market, just one turtle egg can be worth up to US $300.
Sea turtles and their eggs are endangered and protected under Mexican law. The man could face a fine of 300,000 pesos (US $14,186,) and up to nine years in prison for illegally collecting the eggs.
Although the sale of turtle eggs has been banned in Mexico since 1990, it continues in many locations, especially the area where the man was arrested on Oaxaca’s Pacific coast.
This latest seizure brings the total of sea turtle eggs seized by authorities in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region to 79,000 since July.
Meanwhile, a California group of wildlife conservationists has developed a product that could help authorities fight trafficking of the eggs by identifying major trade routes as well as small-time poachers.
The non-profit Paso Pacifico has developed a decoy egg they are able to 3D print and equip with an inexpensive GPS transmitter. The eggs can then be placed in a nest of real eggs and tracked using a cell phone.
The eggs have been tested on beaches in Costa Rica with success, and they do no harm to the nests they are placed in.
“The incredible part of this egg is how it can be so cryptic and hidden among hundreds of real sea turtle eggs, and [it is] really the only way that we can figure out what happens from the time that sea turtle eggs illegally leave the beach to the time they get to consumers throughout the world,” said Paso Pacifico executive director Sarah Otterstrom.
Seven states will regress to orange light “high risk” from yellow light “medium” on Monday according to the federal government’s stoplight system to assess the risk of coronavirus infection, while five states will move the other way.
The Health Ministry announced Friday that Chihuahua, Coahuila, Sinaloa, Durango, Aguascalientes, Querétaro and Oaxaca will switch to the higher risk level next week.
As of Monday there will be 17 orange light states, an increase of two compared to the current number.
Ten states will remain at the orange light level for another two weeks. They are Nuevo León, Zacatecas, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Hidalgo, Guerrero, Mexico City, México state and Yucatán.
The five states where the coronavirus risk level will be reduced to yellow from orange on Monday are San Luis Potosí, Veracruz, Michoacán, Baja California Sur and Quintana Roo.
They will join nine states that are currently yellow and will remain at the same risk level for the next two weeks. They are Tamaulipas, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Morelos, Guanajuato, Sonora, Baja California, Chiapas and Tabasco.
The Health Ministry uses 10 different indicators to determine the stoplight color allocated to each state including the Covid-19 effective reproduction rate (how many people each infected person infects), the weekly positivity rate (the percentage of Covid-19 tests that come back positive) and hospital occupancy levels.
It also recommends coronavirus restrictions for each risk level but several states ease and tighten rules according to their own criteria rather than that of the federal government.
Presenting the updated risk levels at the coronavirus press briefing on Friday night, health promotion chief Ricardo Cortés urged state governments not to drop their guard in the fight against Covid-19.
He stressed that the infection risk level within a state can differ even though it is allocated a single stoplight color on the federal government map.
“Our national epidemic is made up of 32 local epidemics and each one of these local or state epidemics is made up of various municipal epidemics. Even within each municipality there can be different areas, different neighborhoods, different postal codes [with different risk levels],” Cortés said.
Earlier in the press briefing, Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía reported that Mexico’s accumulated coronavirus case tally had risen to 809,571, an increase of 5,263 cases compared to Thursday. The official Covid-19 death toll rose to 83,507 with 411 additional fatalities.
Alomía said that after nine consecutive weeks of declines in new estimated case numbers, infections increased 1% in epidemiological week 39 – September 20 to 26 – compared to the previous week.
“This situation is not occurring yet,” he said, adding that if and when there is a new wave of infections, the government will be forthright about it.
“The conviction of this government [is that] when things are going well they are communicated and when things aren’t going well they are communicated.”
The construction technique: coils of earth bags in a bee-hive shape.
A few years ago I reported on a curious eco-training center on Lake Chapala’s south shore called Igloo Kokolo, which looks, more than anything, like a Smurf village.
Here I was introduced to superadobe houses, solar showers, dry toilets, bicycle-operated blenders, recycled waste water and ingenious techniques for living off the grid.
“Igloo Kokolo,” I was told by its owners, Salvador “Chava” Montaño and his wife Jessica Romero, “is really a place for experimentation in alternative ways to live in equilibrium with our environment … and with the creatures we find in it. We are learning through doing, and sharing what we are learning.”
The Montaños’ creation, I felt, was indeed a marvelous example of teaching by deeds rather than by words, but I wondered whether it was going to survive economically, because its income came principally from ecologically oriented people taking training courses in subjects like permaculture and geodesic dome building, along with glamping enthusiasts who had discovered the place on Airbnb and wanted the experience of spending a night in a warm igloo.
The kitchen at Igloo Kokolo.
The egg-shaped superadobe house was developed by Iranian-born architect Nader Khalili, founder of Cal-Earth, the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture. Troubled by the ever-growing problem of refugee housing, Khalili searched long and hard for inexpensive building material and construction techniques that anyone could master.
That material turned out to be dirt, feed bags and barbed wire and the way of using them for building was truly revolutionary. Sandbags are filled with moistened earth and arranged in layers or long coils, with strands of barbed wire between each layer to act as both mortar and reinforcement. The builders stack the bags much like a potter stacks coils of clay to make a jar.
The technology has been endorsed by the United Nations and proposals have been made to fill the superadobe tubes with moon and Mars dust for a low-cost solution to setting up the first colonies outside our planet.
When I was offered a chance last week to spend my own night inside one of those igloos, I feared I would find that the place no longer looked as cool as it did when I was last there in 2017 — especially after the hard impact of the pandemic.
Well, I was quite amazed. Igloo Kokolo is prospering and today it looks better than ever!
The brecha (dirt road) to the igloos used to be in such bad shape that even trucks had a hard time negotiating it. Today an impeccably crafted cobblestone road — which looks as if it had been plucked right out of a fairy tale — takes you to a large parking area.
The new multi-use palapa.
I was then surprised to see that the number of igloos had doubled, a two-story bungalow had been added and the place now boasts a second huge palapa, this one operating as a multi-use center. But the most attractive new addition is a well-designed, four-stall restroom building incorporating the very latest in dry-toilet technology.
I turned to Chava Montaño. “How did you manage to do all this?”
“It was Covid,” he replied. “Everything was closed down everywhere else, so we decided to work full time on all sorts of projects we had only been dreaming about. So, here you can see the results.”
Sorry if I seem to be carried away by sanitarios, but Chava’s restrooms really looked elegant and clean, and they smell great, with not even a hint of unpleasant odor. When the user sits down on the toilet, solids go one way and liquids another, and toilet paper can be tossed right in, something completely prohibido in many Mexican homes.
When finished, the user scoops a mix of dry crushed leaves and black dirt, with a dash of lime and ash added, and sprinkles it down the solids hole. “This dry cover material varies according to what you have at hand,” Chava told me. “Sawdust, wood chips or shredded paper will also do the trick.”
Amazingly, those solids are converted into odorless, high-quality compost, which is removed every three months through a small door on the back side of the building. This can now be used to fertilize flowers, trees and bushes, or it can be set aside to continue decomposing until it reaches the point where it’s actually safe to use in vegetable gardens.
The new dry-toilet restroom building can accommodate four people.
As for the urine, it’s mixed with nine parts of water “and we’ve found it’s the very best thing imaginable for watering your plants,” says Chava. “I just spray it on the leaves.”
Perhaps the cleverest thing in these waterless toilets is the bug trap. This is a bottle, the end of which extends outside the building. Flies and other bugs go into the bottle, attracted by the light, and there they die.
In 2011 water treatment expert Malcolm Sargeant estimated that every day 350 billion gallons of water are flushed through the world’s toilets into city sewer systems and problematic septic tanks and from there carry human waste to our planet’s rivers, lakes and aquifers. How is it possible that the whole world uses precious water for this purpose when such a logical, clean and beneficial alternative exists?
After hiking down to the edge of the lake, we returned to Igloo Kokolo’s dining palapa for a delicious lasagne dinner accompanied by a glorious sunset over the water, complete with dramatic lightning flashes above the north shore.
Later that night, I was handed a light bulb recharged by solar power to hang above my bed, and then, tucked into my little orange igloo, I fell asleep to the chirping of crickets and the hooting of owls.
I find Igloo Kokolo utterly fascinating and from the reports I checked on Airbnb, I’m definitely not the only one. In fact, Igloo Kokolo gets 4.97 stars out of 5, and glowing reviews.
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For example, one of the guests named Christie said: “Igloo is an amazing place using 100% sustainable resources. Salvador earned first place in design for his project and he is a wonderful man with great ideas. The baby donkey, the awesome dog and friendly cat were great companions and the lake views and night sky amazing. The igloos are thoughtfully designed and appointed and very cozy. LOVED everything about it. I would live there!”
And I’ll end with the report of another guest named Gavin: “An amazing experience in a magical place. The dream of all eco-friendly visitors come true. An actual village of beautiful igloos built following sustainable, earth-centered design — safe, cozy, embedded in their natural environment. A great place for yoga retreats, family gatherings, team building or just a romantic get-away to reconnect to each other and to nature. We will go back!”
If you’d like to spend the night in a warm igloo or want to learn how to build one, check out the Igloo Kokolo website or call Chava (who speaks English) at 376-690-0915.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 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.
