Construction of a highway that will connect and drastically cut travel time between Oaxaca city and the coastal city of Puerto Escondido is currently 58% complete, according to state development bank Banobras.
Oaxaca Governor Alejandro Murat announced in February that the long overdue highway is on track to be completed in 2022.
The 6.8-billion-peso (US $280-million) Barranca Larga-Ventanilla highway will cut the 6 1/2-hour trip from the state capital to the popular surfing and beach destination to an estimated 2 1/2 hours.
The 104.2-kilometer route will connect Highway 175 at the town of Barranca Larga — a little over an hour south of Oaxaca city — with coastal Highway 200 in the municipality of Santa María Colotepec, just to the east of Puerto Escondido.
President López Obrador announced in June 2019 that the highway would finally see completion during his administration, as well as the similarly long overdue Mitla-Tehuantepec highway, in the east of the state. The projects floundered during previous administrations.
He toured the highway with Governor Murat earlier this month and said that Oaxaca was an example for the rest of the country in road construction.
“The construction workers in Oaxaca are the best in the world,” he said. “We’re building roads differently, not the conventional way, not how it was done before. We’re doing it with the participation of the people.”
In January, he visited Oaxaca communities to observe the results of a government program to give road investment money directly to communities in order to improve infrastructure. He called the road a “work of art” built by the people and “free of corruption.”
During his visit earlier this month, he said that his administration was able to make the investments happen as a result of its efforts to root out corruption in the government.
“That’s why we can have this budget without raising taxes or gas prices, without getting the country in debt,” he said.
The Barranca Larga-Ventanilla highway will have 10 bridges, a viaduct, three tunnels, nine junctions and two toll booths. In addition to tourism, it will benefit over 100,000 inhabitants of the region it traverses, as it will provide them with a faster way to get to the coast.
It is expected to see around 2,000 vehicles per day upon completion, and the speed limits will be set to 90-110 kilometers per hour.
Banobras said that the project will have generated 1,800 direct and 3,500 indirect jobs in the region.
As cases of Covid-19 continue to rise steadily, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell issued some blunt advice to Mexicans on Saturday: stay at home for the next month.
Flanked by Health Minister Jorge Alcocer and Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard, López-Gatell spoke forcefully at a press conference on Saturday night, telling Mexicans they have a final opportunity to slow the spread of the virus and thus reduce deaths and avoid the health system being overwhelmed.
“We must [all] contribute to reduce the intensity of the pandemic,” he said. “We need to adopt all of the instructed [social distancing] measures.”
Reducing the speed of the transmission of the virus – there were 993 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the country as of Sunday – is “urgent,” López-Gatell said.
“It’s our last opportunity to do it and we have to do it now. This requires us … to stay at home en masse. That’s why we’re saying directly to society, to each and every one of the members of this republic, stay at home, stay at home, stay at home because … it’s the only way to reduce the transmission of this virus,” the health official said emphatically.
López-Gatell said that there is evidence that less than a third of Mexico City residents have heeded the call to stay at home as much as possible.
“There is traffic monitoring that allows us to gauge if people are at home and we see that they are not,” he said.
“There has been a reduction of less than 30% [in movement around the capital] despite the government directive. We see that the [social distancing] measures are not being applied with the necessary rigor. … Stay at home … If we don’t all stay at home what will happen in coming weeks is that we will have more cases than we can attend to … and that will lead us to unfortunate outcomes.”
The deputy minister, who is leading the government’s coronavirus response, said that authorities are not currently thinking about ordering an obligatory home quarantine or making use of the police to enforce social distancing recommendations. Therefore it is up to the individual to act responsibly, he said.
Presenting graphs detailing how serious coronavirus outbreaks developed in countries such as Italy, Spain and the United States, López-Gatell said that Mexico must do all it can to avoid reaching a similar situation.
“It’s something that we don’t want to experience – not the government or society because it’s something uncontrollable. That’s why we’re emphasizing this moment of opportunity” to act, he said.
“We haven’t passed 1,000 cases, we still have the opportunity to slow down” the spread of Covid-19, López-Gatell declared.
“Let it be clear that this doesn’t mean that an increase in cases will be avoided; they will keep going up and there will be serious ones and deaths. What we can achieve is slow down the speed of infections so that the hospitals have enough beds when we reach the highest transmission phase,” he said.
On Sunday, health authorities announced 145 new Covid-19 cases, taking the total number of confirmed cases across the country to 993. Among those confirmed to have the disease are Hidalgo Governor Omar Fayad and Tabasco Governor Adán Augusto López.
Authorities also announced that coronavirus-related deaths had increased to 20 from 16 on Saturday.
Ricardo Cortés, general director of health promotion at the Health Ministry, told a press conference Sunday night that there were also 2,564 suspected cases of Covid-19 and that 4,955 people had tested negative for the disease.
Of the 993 confirmed cases, 132 are considered community transmission cases while the remainder are linked to overseas travel or direct contact with someone who recently returned to Mexico from abroad. Mexico City has the highest number of coronavirus cases followed by México state, Jalisco, Nuevo León and Puebla.
Cortés said that 86% of the people confirmed to have Covid-19 have not required hospitalization while the other 14% have. Of the latter cohort, 65% are in stable condition, 30% are in serious condition and 5% are on ventilators, he said.
The official said that the ages of those confirmed to have coronavirus range from 0 to 88.
“Although the most serious cases are in people older than 65, we can all get sick. That’s why we should all stay at home; young people can also get serious cases [of Covid-19]; they’re not immune even if they don’t have any comorbidity,” Cortés said.
“When you ask yourself should I go out or not, remember that the virus is waiting for you outside. If you’re young, nothing might happen to you but don’t forget that when you return to your homes, you could transmit the virus to others.”
Cortés said that 90% of the 20 coronavirus-related deaths – 18 in total – have been of men while two women have died.
There have been two deaths in the 35-39 age bracket; four in the 40-44 bracket; one in the 45-49 bracket; five in the 55-59 bracket; three in the 60-64 bracket; and five among Covid-19 patients aged 65 or older.
Cortés said that 50% of those who have died suffered from obesity, 50% had hypertension, 45% had diabetes, 15% had chronic kidney problems and 15% had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Mexico City's chinamperos are also delivering their products to people's homes.
In quarantine at home due to the Covid-19 outbreak and don’t want to go out? Fear not: there are a growing number of businesses in Mexico that are offering home delivery options.
Many of the major supermarkets, such as Walmart, Soriana and Costco, offer consumers the option to shop online and have their purchases delivered to their homes, while public markets in cities including Mexico City, Querétaro city and Xalapa, Veracruz, have announced that they now have home-delivery services.
The food delivery service Cornershop (most of the sites mentioned here are in Spanish only) is also an option for supermarket groceries in Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Querétaro, Puebla, León, Cancún, Toluca, Metepec and Mérida, while Chekele delivers market products to the Mexico City neighborhoods of Del Valle, Navarte, Condesa and Roma.
At least 18 public markets in the capital as well as wholesale market Central de Abasto are now offering home delivery too.
Among them: the Melchor Ocampo (Medellín) market in Roma, the San Juan Arcos de Belén market in the capital’s historic center and the Mixcoac market in the borough of Benito Juárez. A list of all 18 markets offering home delivery (and the telephone numbers to place an order) appears below.
Mexico City markets that are offering home delivery. animal político
Chinamperos, or floating garden farmers, in the southern borough of Xochimilco are also offering home delivery in Mexico City of fresh products including lettuce, radishes, carrots, beetroot, spinach and chives. Orders can be placed with the Rincón de la Chinampa service by calling 55-25-18-88-24 .
Mexico City food supply official Gabriel Leyva said that the number of markets in the capital offering a home delivery service will grow in the coming days. He also said food supply to all Mexico City markets is guaranteed, meaning that there is no risk of shortages.
Although there is a growing number of markets offering delivery services, Leyva encouraged citizens to continue shopping at their local markets, explaining that they are taking hygiene even more seriously due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Stallholders are using antibacterial gel frequently, especially after handling money, and face masks, the official said, adding that they are constantly cleaning. Mexico City authorities are carrying out inspections of markets to ensure that all stalls are meeting hygiene standards, Leyva said.
For people interested in avoiding cooking, prepared restaurant meals can be ordered in many large Mexican cities via the apps of companies such as Rappi and Uber Eats as well as many restaurants themselves.
For those seeking to purchase non-food products without leaving their homes, the online shopping behemoth Amazon and rivals such as Mercado Libre and Linio are all open for business.
However, Amazon México has announced that it is currently not delivering products that weigh more than 25 kilograms because such deliveries require two delivery workers and makes it difficult for them to observe social distancing practices. Amazon is asking people who have already made purchases exceeding that weight limit to cancel them because they won’t be delivered for the foreseeable future.
While demand for home delivery services has already increased due to the growing outbreak of Covid-19 in Mexico, it is predicted to spike even further if the federal government imposes tighter restrictions to limit the spread of coronavirus such as ordering an obligatory home quarantine.
Pierre Blaise, general director of the Mexican Association of Online Sales, said that with the growing threat of infection with Covid-19 (Mexico officially entered a local transmission phase last Tuesday), more and more people are turning to online shopping for essential purposes.
“We’re seeing in Mexico what is happening in other countries due to the coronavirus,” he said on March 20.
“The businesses with which we are speaking have triple-digit growth [in online sales], which shows the interest in this way of shopping,” Blaise added.
Víctor Merina started selling flowers on the street when he was 8 years old. That was 50 years ago. Growing up working on the streets gives you the best education of all, he tells me, where you learn all things good and bad in a place where you are not forced to do anything.
One of those bad moments was when he was shot twice during a gunfight between police and thieves. Víctor has lived with one of those bullets lodged between his ribs for 25 years, as its proximity to his lungs and heart meant it was too dangerous to remove.
He has happy memories too. A smile creeps across his face when he recalls the sense of community, living with friends who also worked on the streets, sharing food and drinks when they could.
Now, Víctor spends all of his spare time with his family and romance is thriving in Victor’s home as he gives wife fresh flowers every week. But really, Víctor says, work is how he shows his family that he loves them. “Without work and the ability to support yourself, what is life worth?” he asks. “It’s the law of life: to work.”
Every day Víctor buys fresh roses from Jamaica Market, which he then sells where Monterrey meets Viaducto in Mexico City. So what’s the secret of keeping cut flowers alive? “Water. Change the water every day and they last longer.”
What he neglected to add was his own talent for choosing roses that will last. I have first-hand experience of Víctor’s beautiful roses; they last for weeks.
The United States ambassador to Mexico has asked U.S. tourists to go home and urged U.S. citizens in the country to “think long and hard” about whether they should return to the U.S. in response to the the growing coronavirus pandemic.
“During these times of uncertainty I want you to know that safety and security of U.S. citizens is our No. 1 priority, we have your back,” Christopher Landau said in a video posted to social media on Friday afternoon.
After noting that the United States government has issued a Level 4 “do not travel” advisory, Landau said: “If you’re a U.S. tourist in Mexico or anywhere, we encourage you to go home.”
“If you’re a U.S. resident here in Mexico, please think long and hard about your personal situation and whether or not you might need the kind of intensive care that’s available in the United States given your particular risk profile,” he added.
The ambassador also said that he would hold a webinar next Tuesday for U.S. citizens in Mexico to address questions about the coronavirus outbreak. He said on Twitter that he would provide details about the event soon.
Landau encouraged U.S. citizens to sign up for the Department of State’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP), explaining that registration allows the U.S. government “to keep track of you” and send direct alerts to those registered.
He added that U.S. citizens in Mexico can call the toll free number 800-681-9374 to access additional information.
British Ambassador to Mexico Corin Robertson also posted a video to social media this week, advising United Kingdom tourists in Mexico that the advice of the foreign secretary is for them to “return home immediately.”
She said on Tuesday that both Aeroméxico and British Airways were continuing to offer direct flights from Mexico City to the U.K. and that the latter airline also had flights from Cancún.
“British nationals that are permanent residents of Mexico are urged to follow the advice of the local authorities here,” Robertson said.
A health care worker at a hospital in Guanajuato with one of the makers' masks.
Mexico’s community of makers is banding together to support the medical response to the growing outbreak of Covid-19.
Using more than 300 3D printers, laser cutters and other tools, at least 250 groups of makers and innovators across the country are dedicating as much time as they can to the manufacture of protective face shields for doctors, nurses and other medical personnel who are currently treating people with coronavirus and are likely to see a much greater influx of patients as the outbreak of the disease worsens.
Groups have formed in Mexico City and states across the country, including Puebla, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Yucatán, Nuevo León and Guerrero, and hospitals in several states have already taken delivery of plastic face masks.
The makers’ work is especially important given that healthcare workers across Mexico protested this week to demand personal protective equipment such as face masks so that their safety is ensured while treating Covid-19 patients.
According to a report by the newspaper El Economista, the makers in Mexico became aware of the need to start making masks after chatting via the internet with their counterparts in countries such as Italy, Spain and the United States, where there have been massive outbreaks of Covid-19 and thousands of deaths.
Many of the designs being used in Mexico were shared by members of the makers’ communities in those countries.
One of the leaders of the efforts in Mexico is Abraham Trujillo, a mechatronics engineer in Acapulco, Guerrero, and head of the México Makers Covid-19 organization, which is coordinating the work of many of the makers’ groups across the country.
He told El Economista that almost 800 people are working with México Makers Covid-19 to produce face masks from sheets of acetate and other materials.
Trujillo said that approximately 700 masks were made with 3D printers this week, 300 of which have already been delivered to hospitals. He explained that the majority of people participating in the mask-making efforts do not usually work in manufacturing jobs.
Trujillo added that México Makers Covid-19 coordinators in states across the country are contacting local hospitals to find out if they need additional masks for their staff. He also said that the office supplies store Lumen has agreed to donate sheets of acetate so that the different groups can make more masks.
The group is also seeking donations from the public of acetate sheets, elastic bands, laser cutters and 3D printers. The group can be contacted via email at [email protected].
Clemente, right, delivers masks to a hospital in Morelia, Michoacán.
In Guanajuato, two young entrepreneurs who operate an on-demand 3D printing business in the city of León have also turned their focus to producing protective face shields. Omar Ramos and María de la Barrera came up with their own mask design by combining different characteristics of protective shields made by makers in both Italy and Spain.
They have already made several dozen masks that they have distributed to hospitals in León and other Guanajuato cities. Ramos and de la Barrera’s business, impresion3d.mx (Spanish only), is also seeking donations to support their mask-making efforts.
Two other members of the makers’ community supporting the response to Covid-19 are Diego Villegas Orozco and Moisés Clemente Guzmán.
Villegas, a dental surgeon, is acting as a coordinator for mask-making groups in Mexico City and has already delivered a batch of 30-40 masks to six hospitals including La Raza National Medical Center, whose workers have protested a lack of protective equipment twice in the past week.
He told El Economista that just three people had joined the efforts to make plastic face shields by last Sunday but that number grew to 88 during the week. Villegas said that the makers in the capital have the capacity to produce triple the number of masks they made this week (220 approximately) provided they have sufficient materials.
For his part, Clemente, a 3D printing hobbyist, is making face masks in Morelia, Michoacán, where he works for a digital education platform. He has already donated his creations to hospitals in his home state as well as Jalisco, San Luis Potosí and Querétaro.
Clemente said that each mask he makes costs 50 pesos (US $2) to produce, adding that he hoped that other people with access to 3D printers and knowledge about how to use them would also join the mask-making initiative.
Another Mexican supporting the efforts, albeit from afar, is Marco Antonio Castro Cosío, who lives in one of the global hotspots of Covid-19 – New York City.
From the Big Apple, the Jalisco native is helping to establish relationships between hospitals in his home state and makers currently producing face masks. The digital innovation researcher said that his aim is to ensure that Mexican medical personnel have sufficient protective equipment to treat an expected influx of Covid-19 patients.
“It appears that the tsunami will reach us [Mexico] later so we have to prepare. Here in New York, a lot of the makers who want to help can’t find materials anymore because we’re at home [in quarantine] now and the majority of stores are not open,” Castro said.
He added that it makes him “very happy” to see so many people contributing to the efforts to respond to Covid-19 in Mexico, where there were 717 confirmed cases of the disease as of Friday and 12 coronavirus-related deaths.
The president urges citizens to stay home in video released Friday.
President López Obrador has urged Mexicans to stay at home as much as possible to help limit the spread of Covid-19 as the number of confirmed cases rose more than 20% on Friday from 585 to 717.
In a video message posted to social media, López Obrador said that if people follow the instruction to stay at home, they will help to contain the coronavirus outbreak and as a result the healthcare system won’t be overwhelmed and there will be fewer deaths.
“We have to be in our homes, we have to maintain a healthy distance [from each other]. … We can go out for essential reasons but we shouldn’t go out to the street without there being something truly necessary that compels us to go out,” he said.
“The best thing is to stay at home. … Let’s maintain this retreat that will help us a lot,” López Obrador added.
Speaking from a hotel in Tijuana, Baja California, on Friday night, the president explained that government workers who are not directly engaged in providing essential services have already been given permission to stay at home. He called on businesses in the private sector to allow their employees to work from home if possible.
“If we don’t retreat to our homes, [Covid-19] cases will shoot up and the hospitals will be inundated even though we’re prepared to receive thousands,” López Obrador said.
He also called on Mexicans to not seek medical care for Covid-19 if they don’t have the telltale symptoms of the virus.
“If there is no fever, no dry cough, no extreme discomfort in the body … and no difficulty in breathing, we don’t have problems – let’s not go to the doctor or to the hospital, let’s try to stay at home. … If we have these symptoms, let’s go to the nearest doctor for an analysis but only, I repeat, if there is fever, a dry cough, difficulty in breathing,” López Obrador said.
He concluded his message expressing confidence that the economy will recover quickly once Mexico gets through the worst of the pandemic, asserting “we’ve always succeeded in the face of adversity.”
The president’s appeal for people to stay at home came five days after he urged Mexicans not to stop going out and supporting businesses such as restaurants and cheap diners.
“Don’t stop going out, we’re still in the first stage [of the coronavirus outbreak]. I’ll tell you when not to go out,” he said in a video message last Sunday.
Borja: Mexico’s younger population is an advantage.
Two days later, however, federal health authorities announced that Mexico had entered a phase of local transmission of Covid-19 and Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said Thursday that phase 3 of the coronavirus outbreak, in which community transmission of the disease is widespread and cases number in their thousands, is inevitable.
Prior to López Obrador’s video address, the Health Ministry announced 132 new confirmed cases of Covid-19, the largest single-day increase since the disease was first detected in Mexico at the end of February.
Of the 717 confirmed cases, 54 are considered community transmission cases while the remainder are linked to overseas travel or direct contact with someone who recently returned to Mexico from abroad.
Mexico City continues to have the highest number of cases followed by Jalisco, México state, Nuevo León and Puebla.
The government’s director of epidemiological information, Christian Arturo Zaragoza Jiménez, told a press conference that there are also 2,475 suspected Covid-19 cases and that 3,542 people had tested negative for the disease.
He said that 11% of the 717 people confirmed to have coronavirus are in the hospital while the other 89% are recovering at home. Among those hospitalized, 63% are in stable condition, 30% are in serious condition and 7% – five patients – are intubated, Zaragoza said.
The official announced that the Covid-19 death toll had increased to 12, explaining that 83% of those who have died – 10 patients – were men and the other 17%, or two, were women. Zaragoza said that the most common pre-existing health conditions in those who have died are obesity, hypertension, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
At the same press conference, Dr. Víctor Hugo Borja, a medical director at the Mexican Social Security Institute, said that one advantage Mexico has in confronting the coronavirus pandemic is that it has a younger population than Italy and Spain, where almost 15,000 Covid-19 patients have died.
However, he added that “the disadvantage is the number of residents per home is higher here,” explaining that many Mexicans live with their extended families.
“That’s why the most important thing is to continue with social distancing,” Borja said.
He said that the coronavirus outbreak will affect Mexico’s large urban areas first before spreading to less populated areas, adding “it’s not expected” that the whole country will be affected by the disease at the same time.
The two officials said that the measures the government takes in response to the pandemic will be dictated by how it develops.
A social distancing initiative officially started on March 23 and is scheduled to run through April 19 but once Mexico enters phase 3 of the outbreak, stricter measures such as obligatory quarantine, a “health curfew” and restrictions on the departure and arrival of flights at Mexico’s airports, are likely to be enforced.
Protesters set fire to several vehicles belonging to the National Guard and Conagua.
The National Water Commission (Conagua) announced on Thursday that it would not divert additional water from a dam in Chihuahua to settle a 220-million-cubic-meter “water debt” with the United States after protests against the diversion turned violent.
Conagua said in a Twitter post Thursday afternoon that it had taken the decision to stop the additional water diversion from the La Boquilla dam due to farmers’ rejection of the move, whose aim was to comply with the 1944 bilateral water treaty between Mexico and the United States.
Chihuahua farmers have long argued that the massive water diversion planned by Conagua would leave them with insufficient water.
On Wednesday night, Conagua doubled the quantity of water being diverted from La Boquilla, located on the Conchos River about 200 kilometers south of Chihuahua city, from 55 cubic meters per second to 110 cubic meters per second.
The water commission’s plan was to divert the additional water to the Rio Grande on the Mexico-United States border for use by the latter country.
The move to increase the water flow out of La Boquilla triggered an aggressive response by farmers on Thursday morning. They set four National Guard vehicles on fire and also torched two Conagua vehicles in Delicias, a city 100 kilometers north of the dam.
The farmers also set up a blockade on federal highway 45 between Delicias and Lázaro Cárdenas, the newspaper Milenio reported. Two members of the National Guard and one farmer were injured in a violent clash there.
A video report by the newspaper El Universal shows disgruntled farmers throwing stones at police and attacking them with large sticks in a separate clash outside the La Boquilla dam.
Farmers have staged several protests against the diversion of water from La Boquilla, and stormed the fenced-off dam precinct on February 4, staging a sit-in until they were removed by the National Guard the next day.
Chihuahua Governor Javier Corral, who announced last month that his government would support the farmers in their fight for water, said in a video posted to Twitter on Friday that he was happy with Conagua’s decision to stop the additional diversion of water from La Boquilla.
He called the decision to open additional sluices at the dam “erratic” and “foolish.”
In a statement released before Conagua’s decision to back down on its diversion plan, the Chihuahua government said the decision to divert additional water from La Boquilla violated agreements the two parties had reached.
Corral said that he wasn’t informed of the decision, as Conagua claimed, and called for the water commission to close the sluices it opened on Wednesday night.
Last minute instructions are given to visitors at the turtle camp in Puerto Vallarta.
The Río Ameca is 230 kilometers long and serves as the border between the Mexican states of Nayarít and Jalisco. It enters the Pacific Ocean at a place called Boca de Tomates, “The Mouth of the River, Where the Tomatillos Grow.” The tomatillo, by the way, is a green-purple member of the tomato family and important for making green salsa in Mexico.
Through the mouths of rivers, all sorts of organic materials flow into the ocean, including bits of debris like bark or branches to which a tiny baby sea turtle could attach itself to take advantage of a long, free ride, hopefully unnoticed by predators.
So it is that sea turtles discovered Boca de Tomates long before human beings did, turning it into such a popular spot for laying their eggs that tiny Boca de Tomates beach — only 2.5 kilometers long — is by far the year-round most popular spot on Mexico’s Pacific Coast for mama turtles to lay their eggs.
“All the nearby turtle-release programs are shut down right now,” volunteer Carlos Hernández told me, “but last night three mothers appeared on our beach to lay their eggs, and every evening people show up here to help us give baby turtles a safe run across the beach for their first plunge into the ocean.”
To better understand this turtle conservation program, I asked permission to spend a night at Campamento Boca de Tomates, which is located precisely at the very southwest tip of the Puerto Vallarta Airport.
Olive ridley turtles on a beach in Costa Rica. Kent Gilbert
That might sound like quite a busy place, but as my friends and I trudged through the loose sand, carrying our camping gear, it felt like we were marching into the middle of nowhere. “We have no electricity or running water,” said Carlitos, as everyone calls him, “but we do have crocodiles, because between us and the airport there’s a mangrove estuary.”
Once we had set up our tents and cooled off in the water, I asked Carlos to tell me a little about Campamento Boca de Tomates.
“This project,” he said, “was started 30 years ago by the University of Guadalajara. Around 2015 it became a member of Mexico’s Turtle Network (Red Tortuguera) and later of Grupo Tortuguero de las Californias.
“This facility of ours is now run by the municipality of Puerto Vallarta and it is, first of all, a school, dedicated to the protection and conservation of sea turtles. Here we receive groups of children from elementary, secondary and prep schools and we also go out to those schools to give courses for raising environmental awareness.
“We know that when these kids grow up, they will often visit the beach at night and we want to influence the sort of reaction they’re going to have when they discover turtles on the shore. For example, most people don’t realize that sea turtles — like many other creatures — rely on moonlight for orientation. So, if a mother turtle comes out of the water to lay her eggs and somebody starts taking flash photos, that mother will not only be frightened, but will also be totally disoriented. Perhaps she will go back into the water and later make another try, but if she gets frightened again, she’ll simply abort and release her eggs into the water where they’ll all die.
“We want to influence future generations of people who live here on the coast, so they won’t make that sort of mistake, or, to give another example, so they won’t throw a plastic bag into the water, because they will know that, to a turtle, the bag looks just like a medusa, one of the sea turtle’s favorite prey.”
Baby turtles are designed to look like like stones from a distance.
Carlitos pointed out to me that sea turtles are keystone animals like otters and wolves. “If the turtle is not there to keep the medusa under control, the medusa proliferates like crazy and kills absolutely everything living on the coral reef. Another important thing that sea turtles do is to control the growth of seagrasses. If these proliferate, they consume all the oxygen in the water and everything dies.”
Another interesting thing that Carlitos mentioned is that all turtles started out as land animals 20 million years ago, “so sea turtles have to leave the ocean, make their nest on land and give birth on land — it’s their curse, you could say, because on land they find their worst predator: us!”
In nesting season (July to December), Carlitos and his companions patrol the beach at Boca de Tomates all night long, looking for signs that turtle eggs have been deposited. “When we see scrape marks indicating that a mother has dragged herself across the sand and laid her eggs, we look for the nest by poking the sand with a stick until we come to a really soft spot. Then we collect the eggs and take them to a fenced-in area where we recreate the nest: narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, and we note the date we found it along with the probable hatching date.”
I was surprised to learn that exiting the nest is the only group activity that sea turtles participate in during their entire lives. “They’re normally solitary animals,” says Carlitos, “but when the first eggs in the nest hatch, those babies don’t try to reach the surface. They just sit and wait until the rest of their siblings hatch and then the whole lot of them (as many as 100) simultaneously make their way upwards and out at the same time. We help the process by removing the few at the very bottom of the nest who didn’t manage to find their way out, and we make sure there are no predators around at the moment they cross the beach, heading for the water.”
This crossing of the sand, I learned, is a crucially important step in the life of a sea turtle. As it crawls along, it memorizes the sound that the waves make in that particular spot. It seems that that sound is just a little different every few meters, and it is this acoustic fingerprint that will tell it, many years later, that this is indeed the beach where it was hatched and this is the very spot where it first entered the ocean.
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Every evening of the year — except during the months of April and May — the volunteers at Campamento Tortuguero welcome visitors who would like to participate in a turtle release. Exactly 30 minutes before sunset (solar time, not “Mexican time”), a biologist gives a talk in both English and Spanish and the visitors then line up parallel to the shore, several meters from the water line, where each receives a baby olive ridley sea turtle. Just as the sun sets, all of these are released at once, a memorable moment for both visitors and turtles alike.
If you’d like to participate, check with a Puerto Vallarta hotel or ask Google Maps to take you to “Paseo Bocanegra Marina Vallarta,” near the airport. Drive all the way to the seashore, at the end of the road. Then park and walk northwest (right) along the beach 650 meters.
If you have questions, whether in English or Spanish, see their Facebook page “Saving Sea Turtles in Puerto Vallarta Campamento Tortuguero Boca de Tomates” or Whatsapp 322 263 0249. Due to Covid-19, public gatherings at the Campamento have been temporarily suspended.
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.
Roudayna at Iztaccihuatl. Marcos Ferro/Red Bull Content Pool
Mexican runner Alex “Chikorita” Roudayna has become the first woman in the world to climb three volcanoes in less than 24 hours.
Accompanied by a documentary team and support crew from her sponsor Red Bull, the Mexico City native summitted the 5,636-meter Pico de Orizaba, 5,230-meter Iztaccíhuatl and 4,680-meter Nevado de Toluca volcanoes in just over 22 hours.
Red Bull released the video of Roudayna’s achievement, which she completed on December 5, 2019, as part of its Three Peaks Challenge series on Thursday.
The feat even included a 2 ½-hour delay in the grindingly slow Mexico City traffic between the second and third peaks.
Roudayna, 30, suffers from Asperger syndrome. She said that the condition, which makes it difficult for her to understand the reasons behind things happening around her, adds another challenge to the endeavor.
“Chikorita:” three volcanoes in a day.Marcos Ferro/Red Bull Content Pool
“One thing I learned these days in the mountains is that I’m capable of doing things I never thought before, to feel comfortable with people around me,” she said.
“People have to live it to understand it. I’m thankful for everyone behind this because I’ve seen each one of them give the best of themselves, truly give their body and soul. Personally, they’ve changed my life.”
The day of the challenge began at 4:00 a.m. at the foot of the Pico de Orizaba volcano in complete darkness and 19 C-degree weather. The five-hour hike was followed by a five-hour drive to Iztaccíhuatl.
After the second peak, it was another five-hour drive through the sprawling metropolis of Mexico City to the Nevado de Toluca.
“There is no way to get to Mount Nevado de Toluca without going through Mexico City’s traffic,” Roudayna said, lamenting that she and her team “could use this time on the mountain.”
Still, the team made it to the mountain in time for her to begin climbing at 10:45 p.m. She completed her descent and the challenge at 2:00 a.m.
Champion of the 2016 and 2017 Spartan obstacle races in Mexico, Roudayna fully immerses herself physically and mentally in her sport, saying that it “stops her from thinking” for the eight to 10 hours a day she trains.
“To get out there and get our butts kicked, to make something cool but also to make that energy vibrate and make someone get up and say, ‘You know what? I wanna be more than I thought I was, to break my limitations.’ I believe that’s the point of all this.”
