The first brick-and-mortar Ikea store in Mexico is scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2021 in Mexico City, although the company’s recently opened online site is already busy from unexpected demand.
“We are excited to open Ikea in Mexico only three years after the decision was made to enter the Mexican market, especially under the tough Covid-19 conditions in Mexico City,” said Ikea Mexico retail country manager Malcolm Pruys in a press release. “It took significant collaboration and support across the Ikano Group and the retail business to make this possible. We now look forward to opening the first store early next year,”
Ikano Group is a corporation that operates franchised Ikea stores in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. A conglomerate with businesses across several industry sectors, it announced in August that it plans to build a 100,000-square-meter manufacturing plant in Ramos Arispe, Coahuila, for mattresses and sofas to be sold in North American Ikea stores.
Ikea store manager Annie Chandler told the newspaper El Financiero that the new physical store will be an anchor in the Encuentro Oceania mall, currently under construction in a former industrial zone in the Moctezuma Section 2 neighborhood in Venustiano Carranza.
Originally, the brick-and-mortar store was meant to open before the online one, but Covid-related issues forced the company to open the online site first. The website opened with a soft launch with no publicity as the company wanted to get to know the Mexican market and work out long-term details like the kind of vehicles it would use in its delivery fleet.
A rendering of the Encuentro Oceania shopping center in Mexico City.
But customers found the site anyway. Within two days, the company was overwhelmed with orders from all over Mexico.
“We launched in a very discreet manner because we hoped to grow slowly,” Pruys told Forbes México. “There was a 1000% more demand than predicted, for which we were not prepared.”
The online site is currently dealing with the unexpected avalanche of orders with only about 150 customer service employees. The website warns customers that deliveries could be delayed up to 15 days.
Meanwhile, plans proceed slowly but surely to install the brick-and-mortar store in the Encuentro Oceania mall. The shopping center, which will have 85,000 square meters of commercial space available, will contain green spaces and will involve the renovation of the Romero Rubio Metro station and sidewalks in the neighborhood, said Galo Rosello, legal director for Pulso Immobiliario, the development company building the over 500-million-peso (US $25-million) project.
According to the Ikea website, the brick-and-mortar store is expected to create around 350 direct jobs and more than 1,000 indirect ones.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum recently announced that the mall will also host one of the 300 Pilares community centers she plans to open by 2021 to revitalize community life and reduce crime.
Technical problems with electricity infrastructure generated economic losses of just over 866 million pesos for the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) last year, a 16.2% increase compared to 2018.
According to a new federal auditor’s report for 2019, the CFE lost 866.07 million pesos (US $43 million) because power it supplied to the electricity grid didn’t reach consumers due to transmission problems.
The figure is 120.6 million pesos higher than the loss in 2018, which totaled 745.5 million pesos. Losses in gigawatt hours increased 10.7% last year to 8,609 from 7,773 in 2018.
The losses are caused by the overheating of conductors in transmission infrastructure and other technical problems. As expected, losses are greater on old power lines.
The increase in losses occurred despite the CFE having taken steps to rectify the problems. The company implemented two programs that were designed to reduce transmission losses by repairing or replacing faulty infrastructure but they were unable to stanch the bleeding.
The auditor found that a trust set up by the CFE in 2017 to fund four other projects to improve transmission infrastructure didn’t actually allocate any resources to them.
The auditor’s office advised the CFE to ensure that there are sufficient financial, administrative and operational resources available to mitigate energy losses due to technical problems. The state-owned firm should work to guarantee the expansion and modernization of electricity infrastructure while complying with its objective of generating profits for the state, it said.
Electricity theft and bad debts also generate huge losses for the CFE. The director of the state company’s distribution division said in February that the CFE had overdue customer debt of 55 billion pesos (US $2.7 billion) at the end of 2019.
Flooding has been severe across much of Tabasco but the residents of a town wedged between a river and the sea are worse off than most.
Villa Cuauhtémoc, a town of about 5,000 people 70 kilometers north of Villahermosa between the Santa Anita River and the Gulf of Mexico coast, has been flooded for the past month.
Making things worse is that the floodwaters are infested with caimans, snakes and fish with a penchant for biting people.
Local resident Mercedes May told the newspaper Reforma that the water inundating the town is not flowing out to sea because waves crashing into the coastline won’t allow it.
“So it stagnates here,” she said. “The problem is that people who are not affected have assistance [but] we don’t.”
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The main reason why humanitarian aid hasn’t reached Villa Cuauhtémoc is that it has been cut off due to flooding outside the town.
The highway between Villahermosa and Frontera, the municipal seat of Centla, is flooded near the community of El Espino due to the overflowing of water from nearby lagoons and swamps, making it impossible to reach Cuauhtémoc by road from the capital.
Entering the town from Nacajuca is also impossible because the road between that municipality and Cuauhtémoc has been closed due to landslides.
Cuauhtémoc residents are becoming increasingly worried about the situation.
“There are people who are sick, children and old people mainly. Where are we going to take them and how?” asked María Alicia Ramírez, a 30-year-old woman who lost two of her toenails as a result of constantly having her feet submerged in water.
“The water has been like this for a month, since the first rains started,” she said.
Ramírez added that the release of water from the Peñitas dam in Chiapas after recent heavy rains made the flooding worse. She said that her fridge, washing machine and the mattresses on the beds in her home were all damaged by floodwaters.
“We had to get our pigs out [of their pen] because they were going to drown,” Ramírez said.
She also told Reforma that she had to install a wooden barricade to prevent caimans from getting into her home.
“We’re asking for help, … our feet are hurt, we’ve got fungal infections, we don’t have water, the children are getting sick,” Ramírez said.
Another local woman said that residents can’t leave their homes to go to shelters due to the risk of robbery.
“There is a town near here, near the river, called Paso Nuevo and last night they were robbing [homes] using canoes,” Edith May said. “They [thieves] have already gone into some homes here as well. What we want is for help to come.”
A woman finds a dry place for her poultry.
While women are doing their best to clean up their homes, the men of Villa Cuauhtémoc are trying to make a living, Reforma said. Some are fishing, some are transporting people through the flooded streets on motorbikes and others are working at food stalls. But business is slow because few people have money to spend.
Although they have lived with the floodwaters for the past month, many residents are anxious that they are about to rise even more.
“Tonight or tomorrow, [the water] will rise double [the current level] as they send the water from the Peñitas dam,” said Edith May.
President López Obrador, a Tabasco native, admitted Sunday that federal authorities chose to divert water from the dam away from Villahermosa to low-lying areas of the state. The municipalities of Centla, where Cuauhtémoc is located, Nacajuca and Jalpa were hit especially hard by the decision.
Many residents of communities in Jalpa are facing a similar situation to those in Villa Cuauhtémoc.
“We’ve been like this, in the water, for 22 days,” said Asunción Vargas Hernández, who is camping out near a highway waiting for the floodwaters in her town to recede.
“We no longer know what to do, [the water] hasn’t gone down at all. We survive on what the people passing by give us, the government hasn’t given us anything,” she said.
However, the federal government did send more than 100 tonnes of essential supplies to Tabasco over the past two days and families were to be given food packages containing items such as rice, beans and canned tuna.
The government announced Wednesday that it would begin a census of victims next week and that each affected household will receive 8,000 pesos (US $395) and vouchers exchangeable for domestic appliances.
Salvador Cienfuegos is back in Mexico, and a free man. file photo
A secret “brotherhood” of high-ranking army officials was instrumental in getting former defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos out of jail in the United States and securing his return to Mexico, according to a report by the news website Emeequis.
Cienfuegos, army chief in the 2012-2018 government led by former president Enrique Peña Nieto, arrived at the airport in Toluca, México state, on a private plane last night just hours after a United States federal judge agreed to a request from the U.S. Department of Justice to drop drug trafficking and money laundering charges against him so that he can be investigated in Mexico.
The federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) is conducting an investigation and has received evidence gathered by United States authorities. But the former defense minister doesn’t currently face any charges in Mexico and was allowed to return to his home after a health check and brief interview at the Toluca airport.
According to the Emeequis report, neither Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard nor Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero – who announced the decision to seek the dismissal of the charges against Cienfuegos in a joint statement with U.S. Attorney General William Barr – were ultimately responsible for obtaining the former army chief’s return ticket to Mexico.
An army general paid a visit to current Defense Minister Sandoval, requesting he take a message to the president.
It said that a “brotherhood” within the army called “El Sindicato” (The Syndicate) can in fact take the credit for Cienfuegos’ return as a free man.
Emeequis said that it was told by army sources that just a few hours after news broke of the former army chief’s arrest, a representative of El Sindicato – mainly made up of active and retired four-star generals – knocked on the door of the office of current Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval.
The representative, according to the sources, was a general who has experience combating drug cartels in the north of Mexico and a longstanding friendship with Sandoval.
One source told Emeequis that the message to the defense minister was: “The high-ranking commanders of the army were not going to remain with their arms crossed while a foreign government tore their credibility to shreds.”
The general told Sandoval to pass the message on to President López Obrador, making it clear that the high-ranking members of El Sindicato were not happy about the federal government not going to bat for their former colleague.
Emeequis said that in addition to generals, lieutenants and colonels began complaining that López Obrador appeared to be siding more with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) than the powerful “brotherhood,” which according to the report “pulls strings” on crucial issues for the federal government, such as the deployment of the National Guard, the construction of the new Santa Lucía airport and the construction of the new refinery on the Tabasco coast.
When Cienfuegos was transferred to a prison in New York from Los Angeles, even the most patient army officials – people who had been calling for the president to be given more time to negotiate with U.S. authorities – were infuriated, the report said.
El Sindicato consequently increased its pressure on the government. Several more representatives of the organization visited Sandoval or spoke to him over the telephone to tell him to tell López Obrador that there was a risk that the discontent in the army could cause problems for the government.
The president then reportedly ordered Foreign Minister Ebrard to harden his tone in complaining to the United States about arresting Cienfuegos without informing the Mexican government, and told him to insist on having the former defense minister returned to Mexico given that he allegedly committed crimes here rather than in the U.S.
To support their demand that the former defense minister be sent back to Mexico, the FGR and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the United States that the federal government would reevaluate its future collaboration with the DEA, Emeequis said.
The Washington Post reported that prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York attributed the decision to drop charges against Cienfuegos to the Mexican government’s threats to limit the role of the DEA in Mexico.
Many analysts believe that Cienfuegos will never be tried in Mexico.
“What was put on the table was the collaboration with the DEA,” an army source told Emeequis.
“In the end they [the U.S. authorities] had to give in because the bilateral relationship is more important for them than capturing a single individual as high ranking as he may be.”
Indeed, U.S. prosecutors said in a filing asking a judge to dismiss the charges against Cienfuegos that “the United States has determined that sensitive and important foreign policy considerations outweigh the government’s interest in pursuing the prosecution of the defendant.”
Still, the decision was unprecedented and a major shock given that the United States spent years collecting evidence that Cienfuegos colluded with the H-2 Cartel and has previously shown little faith in the Mexican justice system.
According to Emeequis, the United States agreed to return Cienfuegos under terms set out by El Sindicato – with all charges withdrawn and without seizing any of his assets or freezing his bank accounts.
The only “blemish” on the brotherhood’s plan is that the U.S. government has shared its evidence against the former defense minister with the FGR, the news site said.
However, there are doubts about whether much of the evidence obtained by U.S. authorities – specifically thousands of incriminating Blackberry messages they intercepted – will be admissible in Mexican courts because it was obtained in Mexico without the authorization of a judge.
Many analysts believe that Cienfuegos will never be tried in Mexico let alone go to jail despite the United States’ apparent confidence in the Mexican justice system and its assertion that it has a “strong” case against the former army chief.
“The chances of Cienfuegos being convicted in Mexico are slim to none,” said Mike Vigil, a former DEA chief of international operations.
“The idea that he could be publicly tried is ludicrous,” said Benjamin Smith, a professor at the University of Warwick and a Mexican drug trade expert. “He knows exactly where all the bodies are buried.”
The latest crime data was presented Thursday morning.
Homicides increased 7.7% in October compared to September and Mexico remains on track to record its most violent year on record, according to data presented by the federal government on Thursday.
There were 2,944 homicides last month, 211 more than in September.
Data presented by Deputy Security Minister Ricardo Mejía at President López Obrador’s regular news conference also showed that there were 29,182 homicides in the first 10 months of 2020, a 1.1% increase compared to the same period of 2019, which was the most violent year on record.
Although 2020 is likely to become the most violent year in recent history, Méjia claimed that the government has stopped the “exponential growth” in homicides that began in 2015, asserting that a “containment line” has been established.
Mejía said that 52% of the homicides occurred in just six states. In descending order from the most violent, they are Guanajuato, Baja California, México state, Chihuahua, Jalisco and Michoacán.
Mejía noted that some states have recorded fewer than one homicide per day this year including Yucatán, Campeche and Tlaxcala. Those three states have recorded fewer than 100 homicides so far this year.
Femicides – the killing of women and girls on account of their gender – declined slightly in October to 76 from 79 the month before.
There were 801 femicides in the first 10 months of the year, an increase of 1.5% compared to the same period of 2019.
Mejía said that México state, the country’s most populous state, leads the country for femicides with 119 between January and October. Veracruz, Mexico City and Nuevo León follow, with 73, 64 and 57 femicides, respectively.
Mejía also said that reported incidents of domestic violence increased 3.4% in the first 10 months.
López Obrador acknowledged that the government has struggled to contain violence in Guanajuato, where the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel are engaged in a turf war.
“Criminal groups were allowed to establish themselves [in the state]. If there wasn’t collusion [with past governments] … the problem was [at least] not attended to and it grew a lot from below, from the neighborhoods and municipalities,” he said.
“So confronting [the problem] is taking time, it’s taking a lot of work but we’re dedicated to it. It’s the state with the most homicides, 12% of the national … [total]. We’ve achieved a reduction but we’re going to continue [combatting violence] and we’re going to continue insisting that there mustn’t be criminal association between authorities and gangs.”
Puerto Vallarta is among the destinations being chosen over London and Paris.
With the coronavirus pandemic keeping people at home and socially distanced for the United States’ Thanksgiving holiday on November 26, the usual high volume of air travel will be significantly lower. But those who do travel are likely to be visiting Mexico.
The insurance company Allianz examined 632,757 flight plans leaving U.S. airports from November 21 to December 1. As the company expected, scheduled travel was down about 75%, in line with other industry estimates. In comparison, the insurer analyzed 2.4 million flight itineraries for the same period last year.
This year, top international destinations were all in Mexico, including Cancún, San José del Cabo, and Puerto Vallarta.
Interest in Mexico helped push two perennial European Thanksgiving entries off the annual list: London and Paris are almost always among the top destinations for Thanksgiving travelers, according to Allianz, but not this year.
“Always a popular destination, Mexico has been a leader in tourism recovery since Covid-19 began — the country’s accessibility and safety protocols, like restricted capacity at resorts to enable proper social distancing, may be helping to drive demand along with the promise of a warm-weather escape,” Allianz said.
However, the official word in the U.S. is don’t travel at all.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a recommendation Thursday against traveling for the holiday. The agency told a news briefing that the first danger is infecting relatives during family gatherings.
From there, holiday-related infections could spread through the communities visited.
Previously the agency said holiday travel was risky and urged travelers to check on restrictions at their destination, wear a mask, maintain distance and get a flu shot. Now it says that postponing travel and staying at home is “the best way to protect yourself and others this year …”
Meanwhile, travel to Puerto Vallarta is on the rebound this month.
Allianz counted 710 flights destined for the Jalisco beach destination from the United States during November, compared to 697 in 2019. Currently, 15 U.S. airports have flights to Puerto Vallarta.
The city has also ranked high on the list of destinations sought by Canadians planning travel on Expedia. The tourism industry magazine Periódico Viaje reports that Vallarta is the No. 1 Pacific coast destination for travel in 2021.
It also reported that Air Canada has announced that its luxury product “The Jetz Experience” will operate flights from Vancouver from December 21-28.
A soldier helps a woman and her child escape flooding in Tabasco.
Households affected by flooding in Tabasco will receive 8,000 pesos (US $395) and vouchers exchangeable for domestic appliances just before Christmas.
Flooding caused by heavy rains brought by two cold fronts and a tropical storm has affected an estimated 900,000 people and more than 90,000 homes in the Gulf coast state.
Federal Welfare Minister Javier May Rodríguez announced Wednesday that a census to identify victims will start next Monday and conclude on December 6.
Speaking at the state government palace in Villahermosa, May said the relief payments and appliance vouchers will be distributed in affected communities between December 16 and 20.
“We want to make it clear that the assistance is for each [affected] home, not per family,” he said.
The Ministry of Agrarian Development and Urban Planning will be responsible for distributing the cash payments for home cleanup and repairs while the Welfare Ministry will manage the voucher scheme. The latter will sign an agreement with department stores where affected residents will be able to exchange vouchers for appliances.
Assisted by the army, some 2,000 government social program employees known as national servants will conduct the census in communities across all 17 municipalities of Tabasco.
“Even if it’s in a boat or canoe, we will arrive,” May said.
The minister said the head of each affected household will be required to show official identification to the census workers. Decals with QR codes will be placed on homes that have been visited to ensure that there is no duplication of the census process, he said.
It will be the second time this year that the government provides financial aid to people affected by flooding in Tabasco.
About 38,000 payments of 10,000 pesos each were distributed to flood victims last month. Many of those who received the aid were also affected by this month’s severe flooding.
Tabasco Governor Adán Augusto López Hernández, who accompanied May at Wednesday’s announcement, said that funds will also be made available to repair highways, drainage systems and water treatment plants that were affected by the flooding.
There will also be resources for river dredging and other flood prevention projects, he said, and measures will be developed to help affected farmers. A multi-year plan to prevent flooding in Tabasco’s towns and cities will also be drawn up.
President López Obrador announced last week that the federal government would implement a new plan to stop recurrent flooding in Tabasco and the neighboring state of Chiapas.
The same announcement has been made in the past by previous administrations but little actually materialized.
Lake Chapala, Jalisco, combines gorgeous landscapes and understated luxury.
In these pandemic times, when the coronavirus has made us all a little wary of taking public buses or airplanes, the iconic road trip is making a comeback. You’ll see it featured in most travel sites these days as a viable option for getting away and staying safe.
I thought I would try it out myself when I was presented recently with a weekend trip opportunity to Lake Chapala, Jalisco, with friends. The great thing about a road trip when you have time is to linger and to make pit stops at roadside cafes.
Our first stop on the way out of the city had to be La Marquesa, an over 4,000-acre national park in México state outside the city limits.
The park has lots of beautiful nature and horseback riding, but like all the best things in Mexico, it’s also known for its food. Lots of little stands line the highway as you pass through, with more inside the park. They are all similar in what they offer and charge, so it’s just a matter of choosing which place looks most appealing.
La Marquesa National Park is a great place to get tinga.
We drank steaming hot bowls of oyster mushroom soup, ate buttery tacos de barbacoa and had quesadillas with tinga de pollo (shredded chicken) inside. It was what we needed to set off with real determination on the six-hour road trip ahead.
While the hearty breakfast kept us from needing to stop for lunch, we dawdled a good bit along the route, stopping to take photos of the burnt orange- and deep amber-covered valleys of Michocán. Michoacán is one of the largest flower-growing states in the country, providing tons of tercipelo rojo and cempasúchil flowers that are so common during the Day of the Dead holiday. I could already imagine the trucks overflowing with these holiday flowers in the market in a few days.
We also stopped for a look at Laguna de Cuetzao, the country’s second-largest freshwater lake (Lake Chapala being the first). Bright white egrets stalked for fish at its marshy edges, and herds of cattle waded into the water’s edge to cool off in the midday heat. We made a mental note to come back soon to explore the lake in greater detail.
Arriving in Chapala around 7 p.m., we just missed the final rays of sunset over the lake, but the back deck of our Airbnb did provide an excellent view.
The house was great, if a little heavily religious in the decor, and for US $125 a night we had four bedrooms, each with their own bathrooms. We also had a large dining and living room and great views of Mexico’s biggest lake from the two large patios – one off the main dining room and the other a private deck connected to the master bedroom. We were about a 10-minute walk from the shoreline of the lake and so decided that the following day we would explore what the town had to offer.
The next afternoon, we headed out to the town’s popular malecón (boardwalk) which, while populated by tourists, was not overrun on this Friday afternoon. The water’s edge here doesn’t exactly make you want to take a swim, but there is something distinctly vacation-y about a cool breeze off the water and palm trees lining the sidewalk.
One of Chapala’s most popular spots is its boardwalk.
We took a stroll through the town’s market (that borders the malecón), also calmer and more enjoyable than when we returned the next day (Saturday) for a last-minute purchase.
The market is famous for its outrageous micheladas (beer combined with various different mixers and condiments) and cocktails that arrive at the table with an outrageous myriad of garnishes and overall “flair.”
The group ordered a cecinamichelada with about a half-pound of dried beef sticking out of the top, a piña colada complete with blue gummy candies and slices of pineapple, a pink panther (the same as a piña colada but with some kind of pink mixer in it) and a regular michelada, which includes your weight in cucumbers and carrots covered with chile and salt.One is all you need.
There are a handful of moderately priced seafood joints at one end of the malecón and we chose El Quetzal only for its lower music volume, as some of the others were eardrum-popping loud. It turned out to be the right choice – spicy grilled octopus, fried fish fillets, fish egg tacos, and peel-and-eat shrimp.
El Quetzal has a pool in the center of its outdoor patio if you want to take a dip. With average temps almost never dropping below 20 C year-round, you might just want to.
There are plenty of al fresco activities in and around Chapala – bike rentals, boat rides, hot springs – but we decided kayaks would give us the greatest sense of the lake and after a little bit of research we found a place that would rent us kayaks but not force us to take a guide – Hotel Tahawi just a few minutes outside Chapala.
Al fresco activities abound in Chapala, such as kayaking.
All their equipment was in good condition — lifejackets included — and an hour rowing around was a super steal, around $10.
The lake has a respectable windiness to it, but nothing too difficult to handle, and we paddled up the coastline a few miles, ducking marsh grass and greeting the fishermen out for lobina and tilapia in their john boats. While it’s no Laguna de Bacalar in terms of beauty, Lake Chapala is quite lovely, and I personally would have been happy to spend a few more hours exploring it.
The next day we headed a little further down the road to the Jocotepec malecón, in the town of Jocotepec, which was another world entirely from Chapala’s.
For folks who don’t like the crowds, helter-skelter market stalls and kiddie rides galore, Jocotepec is much more like a coastal park, with soccer fields, a running track, lots of grassy knolls and an eerily beautiful collection of bare-limbed trees stuck midway in the water.
There are stands that sell food and drink, and also one that advertised a spa but wasn’t open when we were there, but they are all constructed with a similar wooden-shack design and have much more space to spread out around them. Plus there were no hawkers of micheladas waving menus in your face and pleading with you to sit down at their locale.
That night, we stayed in San Juan Cosala at the chic La Vita Bella boutique hotel and spa. We had heard about the great hot springs in San Juan Cosala, accessible in various local balnearios and resort hotels, but weren’t sure we were ready to face all those folks maskless. We opted instead for the more intimate setting at La Vita Bella.
La Vita boutique hotel’s boasts three thermal swimming pools and a spa.
On the weekends, their three thermal swimming pools and tiny spa are open only to hotel guests, so we ended up being completely alone for our couples’ massage and a long dip.
During the week, non-guests can purchase a day pass for about $15 that gives you access to the pools and the rest of the hotel facilities, as well as a day-spa pass which includes a massage, breakfast and lunch for about 50 bucks.
For an even greater variety of pools and experiences, you can head up the road to La Vita Bella’s sister hotel Monte Coxala. Built in the 1980s, it’s a bit kitsch, but it’s immaculately maintained.
There are all kinds of options for relaxing — the sauna and thermal pool inside a massive Olmec head, a sauna inside a glass-roofed pyramid and several pools nestled away in the greenery of their property; there’s an infinity pool that looks out over the lake and its companion mountain behind it.
That night we decided to skip the Sunday crowds at most of the lakeside dining spots and opt instead for the Brew House in Ajijic. Owned and operated by craft beer brand Corazón de Malta, it was the balm to our quarantined souls – flights of three or six different craft beers, above-average bar food and a handful of customers nicely spread out. We ended up buying an assorted case of 12 beers to take home and they were easily drunk by the time the sun set.
You can get beer samplers at the Brew House in Ajijic.
The hotel has a Grecian whitewashed facade and 12 simple but elegant suites. It’s high on a hill away from most noise of the surrounding towns. A musical cricket was our only companion as we ended the evening out on our balcony enjoying the fresh air – free from Mexico City smog.
We took in breakfast with a view the next morning in La Vita Bella’s open air dining room and took one last long look at the lake before heading back to the city. We would hit the hottest part of the drive earlier than on the trip to Chapala, and so we decided to break it up by stopping at La Piedad, a town in Michoacán renowned for their carnitas (honestly the whole state is famous for them).
On the suggestion of a friend, we stopped at Carnitas Simitrio, a small, family-run restaurant right near the Lerma Rver. They sold truly some of the best carnitas I had ever tasted – tender, salty, not too greasy. So much so that we brought a kilo and a half back with us to eat later.
The remaining four-plus hours of the drive seemed neverending, as a return trip often does, but we made it back to the city knowing we had beer and carnitas in tow and felt a little less sad about leaving vacation behind.
Lydia Carey is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
After a seven-month silence, former president Enrique Peña Nieto reappeared on social media on Wednesday but not to refute the corruption allegations that have been made against him.
The ex-president instead offered condolences to his successor, whose 56-year-old sister passed away this morning.
“I express my heartfelt condolences to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his family for the passing of Professor Candelaria Beatriz López Obrador. Rest in peace,” Peña Nieto wrote on Twitter.
It was just the third tweet this year from the ex-president who left office just under two years ago and vanished from public life.
On April 15 Peña Nieto offered his condolences after the death of former México state governor Ignacio Pichardo Pagaza and he did the same on April 1 after his communications and transportation minister, Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, passed away.
Before those tweets, the former president’s most recent social media remark was in June last year when he rejected a newspaper report that claimed that he was under investigation by United States authorities in relation to a bribery case involving the state oil company Pemex.
In more recent times, Peña Nieto has remained silent on social media despite the arrest – and subsequent release – of his defense minister, Salvador Cienfuegos, on drug trafficking charges, and the publication of details of a document in which the federal Attorney General’s Office alleges that he led and personally benefited from a criminal scheme within his government that paid bribes to lawmakers and committed treason.
It appears that the 54-year-old ex-president, who reportedly lives in an exclusive residential area near Madrid, Spain, is more focused on his love life than speaking online about the scandals that plagued his 2012-2018 presidency.
Peña Nieto announced on Facebook in May 2019 that his marriage to actress and singer Angélica Rivera had “legally concluded.” He is now in a relationship with 33-year-old Mexican model Tania Ruiz.
Ruiz, who is much more active on social media than her partner, took to Instagram last week to show that all is well in her relationship with the erstwhile leader.
In the “stories” section of her account, she posted a series of photos accompanied by phrases such as “Forever and ever!! My Love!!” and “Loving you today and if God wishes always.”
Some of the photos showed Ruiz’s hand – with a ring on her middle finger – clasping what is believed to be the hand of Peña Nieto. It appeared that an engagement announcement could be imminent but in her last “story,” Ruiz said that a wedding was not about to happen.
“I’m not getting married, I’m just very happy. I love my boyfriend!!” she wrote.
Her romantic posts may have been an attempt to cheer up Peña Nieto – they were published the same day as the Attorney General’s Office’s allegations against him were made public.
Despite accusations of wrongdoing, the former president is not currently sought by Mexican authorities but that could change should a majority of citizens vote in favor of putting ex-presidents on trial at a referendum planned for next year.
How can the mexicanidad — Mexicanness — of a car made in Mexico but designed in Germany be increased? By covering it in Mexican indigenous art, of course.
The Volkswagen beetle was designed and first made in Germany but is nevertheless considered a Mexican icon because millions of the vehicles were made at the automaker’s Puebla factory until production ceased last year.
Nine years before the last Beetle rolled off the production line, a group of eight Wixáritari, or Huichol, artisans from two families worked painstakingly for eight months to cover the exterior of a 1990 vocho, as the car is known in Mexico, with more than 2 million colorful glass beads and thus create a unique piece of vehicular art.
After thousands of hours of work the vochol – a portmanteau of the words vocho and Huichol – was born.
The more than 2 million beads, approximately 2,277,000 to be more precise, together depict geometric patterns as well as animals and other aspects of the natural world.
More than 2 million glass beads were used for the design.
They include snakes on the hood and deer, scorpions, birds and peyote flowers on the car’s sides. All are considered important symbols in Huichol culture and spirituality.
There is also a sun on the roof, which symbolizes the union between humans and gods, and four two-headed eagles that offer protection to the vehicle’s passengers. On the vochol’s rear is an image of shaman steering a canoe.
The phrases “200 years of independence” and “100 years since the Mexican Revolution” appear in the Huichol language on the fenders of the vochol, whose creation was sponsored by several public and private organizations including the Jalisco Ministry of Culture and the Nayarit Culture and Art Council.
The Huichol people are native to and continue to live in those two states as well as parts of Zacatecas and Durango.
Parts of the interior of the vochol including the seats and steering wheel are also covered in the intricate beadwork for which the indigenous people are well known.
The bead-adorned Beetle is perhaps the largest piece of Huichol beadwork art ever produced. It was first put on display at a museum in Guadalajara before being exhibited in numerous countries around the world.
It could be the largest piece of Huichol beadwork art ever produced.
When it is not on loan, the vochol can be admired at the Museum of Popular Art in Mexico City’s historic center.
