Governor Vila: decision won't be made in Mexico City.
The government of Yucatán has elected to make its own choice regarding coronavirus restrictions, declaring that it will set the state’s color in the stoplight system designed by the federal government.
That color, effective Monday, will be orange.
The move will allow the reactivation of nonessential activities such as manufacturing, real estate services and professional services. Hotels and restaurants and retailers will be allowed to open, but with certain restrictions.
Like most of the rest of the country, Yucatán was painted red last week on the federal government’s stoplight map. But the state and many others disagreed.
“We have decided that decisions about Yucatán will not be made in Mexico City,” that Yucatán experts will make them instead, Governor Mauricio Vila said, announcing the initiation of “the first wave of the new economic reactivation.”
López Obrador, left, and Calderón: the latter had to face swine flu fallout. Will the same fate befall the current president?
The federal government could pay an electoral cost at the 2021 midterm elections if the perception that it has mismanaged the coronavirus crisis grows, some pollsters say.
Since the poll was conducted, Mexico’s Covid-19 death toll has almost doubled from 6,510 on May 21 to 12,545 yesterday.
In a virtual forum organized by El Financiero, the newspaper’s chief pollster Alejandro Moreno suggested that President López Obrador and his administration could suffer the same fate as ex-president Felipe Calderón and his government suffered at the 2009 midterm elections when the swine flu epidemic was in full swing.
“In 2008, in June as well, President Calderón had an approval rating of 64%, four points higher than López Obrador’s rating today. His National Action Party [PAN] had 38% effective voting intention at that time. Today [Lopez Obrador’s] Morena has 37%. Then the epidemic came in 2009, the economic crisis came and the PAN fell 10 points at the elections. Will the same thing happen [with Morena]? I don’t know. I’m just putting the data out there for reflection,” he said.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) attracted 37% of the vote at the midterm elections in 2009 compared to the PAN’s 28%. Three years later, the PRI’s Enrique Peña Nieto triumphed at the 2012 presidential election, winning 38% of votes to López Obrador’s 33%.
Morenos said that if dissatisfaction grows with the current government’s management of the health and economic crisis, “we can expect certain political costs both for the president and his party.”
The chief pollster of the media company Grupo Reforma said that polls show that more than 50% of Mexicans believe that the federal government hasn’t done enough to support vulnerable citizens and small businesses financially amid the economic crisis.
“If they’re already observing this lack of action on the part of the federal government, … sooner or later there will be a price to pay for this inaction,” Lorena Becerra said.
For his part, the director of polling firm Buendía y Laredo predicted that the coronavirus-induced economic crisis will have a significant impact on López Obrador’s approval rating.
As a result, there will be an opportunity for opposition parties to take advantage of his reduced popularity at the 2021 elections, Jorge Buendía said.
However, protest votes against the government for its management of the pandemic and associated economic crisis could be split between the PAN, the PRI and Citizens’ Movement party, he added.
“If that happens, … it won’t be so damaging for Morena … at the midterm elections,” Buendía said.
At almost 80 years old, Carlos “Tito Charly” Elizondo has gone from bagging groceries at a Monterrey supermarket to newfound fame as a YouTube cooking star and online salesman.
The spry senior offers up recipes for his more than 3,000 subscribers using ingredients such as cream cheese, chorizo, bacon and shrimp which he markets through his videos, taking orders via WhatsApp.
His most recent video, posted on June 1, shows viewers how to make snacks in celebration of beer’s return to store shelves, he says.
A father of three and grandfather of six, Elizondo lost his wife and then his daughters married and moved out. As he reached his early 70s he decided he needed to keep busy.
At the suggestion of a friend, he took a job as a grocery bagger at a nearby supermarket chain seven years ago where he worked a four-hour shift, but that ended due to the coronavirus pandemic. And once he hits 80 he will have to retire.
Receta de hoy "Botanas a la Tito Charly"
Tito Charly shares some recipes for snacks to go with beer.
So he decided it was time to start a new career online, which he has done with the assistance of family members. “My wife was a very good cook, my father-in-law as well. I learned more crazy ideas from them than I can think of,” Elizondo says of his culinary creations.
He sells the ingredients under his own brand, with his daughter filming the YouTube segments, helping him take and fill orders and aiding with technological challenges facing the octogenarian. Tito Charly products are sold in Monterrey, Saltillo, San Luis Potosí, Chihuahua, Torreón and Guanajuato. Orders are taken by WhatsApp at 811 102 6685.
Tito Charly posts a new cooking class each Sunday and says he hopes to reach 10,000 followers soon. “I have always been positive. I like to look ahead,” the newly-minted YouTube star says. “There are no impossibilities, there is always a way.”
Thursday's protest at the US Embassy in Mexico City.
About 300 people participated in a peaceful protest against police violence and racism in the United States Thursday night at a candlelight vigil in front of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.
Dressed in black, wearing masks and holding candles, the assembled crowd of mostly young people paid tribute to George Floyd, the African-American man who was killed on May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, allegedly by a police officer.
U.S. citizens, Mexicans and other foreigners expressed their solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and added their voices to protests that have occurred in all 50 U.S. states and in major cities around the world.
“We are here to remember the black lives that have been killed by the police in the United States where racism is an integral part of its systems and institutions,” said one of those attending the vigil.
“Your fight is my fight #BlackLivesMatter,” “Racism kills. I can’t breathe” and “Justice for George Floyd” read some of the signs hoisted by the crowd.
Participants constructed an altar decorated with candles honoring Floyd on one of the concrete benches outside the embassy. Using chalk they drew a portrait of Floyd and affixed a banner to the bench reading, “I can’t breathe,” Floyd’s last words as he lay in the street dying.
“I am fed up, and we are fed up with 500 years of oppression, violence and invisibility against us, we are fed up with the systematic murders of people,” said Ebony Bailey, an African American filmmaker from California who is studying in Mexico.
The issue of racial equality in Mexico also came up. At least one protester carried a sign reading “Justice for Giovanni” in reference to Giovanni López, who died after being arrested by police in Jalisco on May 4, apparently for not wearing a face mask.
“Just like our oppressions, our struggles are also linked. The anti-racist struggle in the United States is the same as that of Mexico and other parts of the world, the struggle of indigenous peoples is the same as that of blacks,” Bailey added.
Near the end of the vigil, the crowd took a knee in remembrance of Floyd for eight minutes and 46 seconds, the length of time a Minneapolis police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck until he was dead, despite the man’s protests that he could not breathe. They also read aloud the names of scores of black American victims of police brutality
The vigil occurred the same day as an emotional memorial service was held for Floyd in Minneapolis while the United States reels from a wave of violent protests and civil unrest.
A red light means restrictive measures remain in place.
Governors have not yet reached an agreement with federal authorities about the criteria for making changes to the stoplight colors allocated to each state to determine which coronavirus restrictions can be lifted.
Every state except Zacatecas was allocated a “red light” on the stoplight system last Friday. As a result, few if any changes were made to the restrictions implemented during the national social distancing initiative, although the construction, mining and automotive sectors were given the green light to resume their activities because they are now classified as essential.
The federal government was scheduled to update the stoplight map on Friday with the corresponding restrictions to take effect in each state starting Monday.
The government has said that four factors are taken into account to determine the risk level and corresponding stoplight color for each state: case number trends (whether new infections are increasing, decreasing or stable), hospital admission trends for coronavirus patients, hospital occupancy levels and positivity rates (the percentage of people tested who are confirmed to have Covid-19).
According to a report today by the newspaper La Jornada, some governors believe that their states should not have been allocated a red light.
The stoplight system: in simple terms, red indicates stay at home, orange to use face masks and green back to (the new) normal.
Given that the coronavirus pandemic has not affected Mexico uniformly, it does appear odd that the risk of infection was deemed to be at the maximum level in 31 of the 32 federal entities.
Colima, for example, currently has just 43 active Covid-19 cases but shares the “red light” rating with Mexico City, the country’s coronavirus epicenter, which has almost 4,000 active cases. Only 8% of hospital beds with ventilators are currently occupied in Guanajuato but it has the same maximum level risk rating as Baja California, where 66% of such beds are in use.
Despite the discrepancies, a group of governors is in favor of each state’s stoplight risk rating remaining unchanged for next week, La Jornada said. If they get their way, the vast majority of Mexico will continue to be a sea of red on the stoplight map, with Zacatecas appearing as a conspicuous island of orange.
Other governors argue that the infection risk in their states is below the maximum level and therefore restrictions on economic and everyday activities should be eased.
The governor of Quintana Roo, where the tourism sector is preparing to reopen on Monday, said that reactivating the state’s economy won’t imply “dropping its guard” in the fight against coronavirus.
The first stoplight map, issued last week: a sea of red.
Four states where the red light is certain to remain in place next week are México state, Morelos, Puebla and Hidalgo.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said that authorities in those states have agreed to share the same risk rating as the capital because of their interconnectedness in terms of the movement of people and goods.
She said Friday that a red light will apply in Mexico City all of next week because hospital occupancy levels are still above 65%. More than 3,400 coronavirus patients are in general care beds in the capital and just over 1,000 are in intensive care on respirators.
Querétaro and Tlaxcala were also invited to be part of the central states to be allocated a sole color but their governors declined.
“We will continue … attending to the reality of our state during the evolution of the Covid-19 crisis,” said Querétaro Governor Francisco Domínguez.
His counterpart in Tlaxacala, Marco Antonio Mena Rodríguez, rejected the single stoplight proposal, asserting that each state in central Mexico is going through a different phase of the pandemic and that the capacity of the healthcare system in each one is not the same.
Erick Serralde and his son work their land in Xochimilco.
Walking into the chinampería, San Gregorio Atlapulco’s ancient agricultural area, is like walking into another world.
One minute you’re in the city with its traffic and noise — San Gregorio is part of Xochimilco, a borough of Mexico City — and then, crossing its main street, you walk a short distance and you’re in the middle of farmland. Rows of lettuce, radishes, spinach, cilantro, parsley and other vegetables and herbs seem to stretch on forever.
The chinampería consists of rectangular man-made islands, called chinampas, built in the shallow lakes of the Mexico basin. The area is often referred to as Mexico’s floating gardens but the chinampas don’t float, they’re firmly anchored to the lake’s bottom. They’re constructed by first sinking branches from the huejote tree (a species of willow that’s considered sacred) into the lake bottom, forming rectangles that are typically 10 x 100 feet, which are then filled in with mud and vegetation.
There’s archaeological evidence that the earliest chinampas were built between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago. The ones that are still farmed in San Gregorio are probably between 1,200 and 2,000 years old and were built by the Xochimilcas (who are also known as the Aztecs).
Canals between the chinampas allow for easy access by canoes and in Xochimilco, colorful boats known as trajineras take tourists for rides. “People know Xochimilco and the trajineras,” said Paola Casas González, one of a handful of women working in the chinampería, “but they don’t know this pueblo or these chinampas that produce tonnes of food for the country. There are people living in the city who only know the trajineras.”
Margarita Vega: ‘Before the virus we sold almost everything. Now we sell almost nothing.’
Chinamperos, as people who farm the chinampería are called, use farming techniques that are as old as the chinampas themselves.
Martín Venagas Paéz stands in his canoe, using a long pole with a net at the end which he uses to dredge up mud from the bottom of a canal, dumping it into the boat’s bottom. He hauls the mud in buckets to a shallow rectangle that’s been dug in the ground and pours it in. The mud is allowed to dry for a day or two and then cut into tiny squares called chapines, into which seeds will be placed. Once the seeds sprout and the plants are big enough, they’ll be transferred to a chinampa. The land here is so fertile that it’s possible to have four or even five harvests a year.
The land that Juan Serralde and his brother Erick farm has been in their family for generations. “My great-grandfather, grandfather, and father all planted this land,” Juan said. They, like all chinamperos, work six or sometimes seven days a week. “We work every day, every day,” said Venagas Paéz, whose land is a short distance from Serralde’s. “Here there is no rest. I work, eight, 10, 12 hours a day.” He figures he earns about 150 pesos (about US $6) a day.
Given the difficult work and minimal earnings, it comes as no surprise that few young people want to work in the chinampería. Daniel López, like the Serraldes, works land his great-grandfather once did but is unsure if it will stay in his family. “Life here is hard,” he said. “My son does not want to work as a chinampero; he is studying computer technology. I will pass the land to my daughters and if they do not want it, they will sell it.”
Although the chinampería is still amazingly productive, chinamperos and their supporters are very concerned about its continued survival. Several issues are threatening it; first among them is Mexico City’s chaotic and unchecked growth.
According to Miguel Ángel Elizado, an attorney who has represented chinamperos for 18 years, the chinampería originally covered around 8,900 hectares. “Now there are only about 3,000 hectares,” he said. One day I drove with him through Xochimilco and he pointed out many streets that had once been canals.
Martín Venagas dredges mud for planting.
As Mexico City has continued to expand, taking land that had once been used to grow food, it has also taken much of the chinampería’s water to slake its residents’ thirst. Although water has been extracted from the chinampería for literally centuries, a canal built in 1905 to carry water from springs and rivers that fed the chinampería into the city center had a devastating effect, one that continues to this day.
“There is little water now,” said Erick Serralde. “In the past, the water was clean; we could swim, fish. This was 30 years ago. Now, the water is about 1.5 meters deep. Before it was five or six meters.” He pointed to a nearby canal. “This is a dead canal. Thirty years ago, it was young. We could use canals to deliver our produce. Now, we have to carry it on our backs to the loading dock.”
Although it’s illegal to build houses in the chinampería, people still do it. This mostly goes unpunished and has resulted in another problem: huge amounts of agua negra, untreated wastewater, being dumped into canals. The smell rising from them is almost overwhelming.
And if those problems weren’t enough to threaten the chinampería’s survival, chinamperos are now threatened by the coronavirus.
Many sell their produce in the Central de Abasto, a huge market in Mexico City that’s become a hot bed for the virus. A number of San Gregorio’s chinamperos and other people working in the market have been infected with Covid-19. When I asked Erick Serralde if he knew exactly how many in San Gregorio were sick, all he could say was “Many.”
The virus has also taken an economic toll on chinamperos.
Chinampera Carmen Cruz sells her produce at the market in San Gregorio.
Margarita Vega Honorato has been working in the chinampería all her life. She pointed to a chinampa filled with row after row of lettuce that was going to seed and would have to be plowed under soon. Most of her produce was sold to restaurants in Mexico City, which have been closed for weeks.
“Before [the virus] we sold everything,” she said. “Now, we sell almost nothing.” She walks a short distance and points to another parcel of land. “We planted all this yesterday. We will see if we can sell that but, really, who knows?”
Leonel Rufino Vega, her husband, stepped forward and asked angrily, “Who will buy it? Who will buy it now?”
San Gregorio’s market is still open and although there are fewer people, stalls are still crammed with produce that was recently harvested in the chinampería. “This pueblo is dedicated to this, to selling vegetables,” said Carmen Cruz Sánchez, a chinampera. “This is how we live. Who knows how long we will survive?”
She said that she’s selling about half what she used to. “My family is surviving by buying only the basics,” she continued, “beans, rice, eggs, rarely meat.”
Mexico is now deep into phase three of the pandemic. Cases and deaths continue to rise. There’s no indication that it will end soon and it’s not clear what the government will do. “If they prohibit everything, we will still have vegetables here, we will have rice,” said Coat Rufino, Margarita’s son. “I do not know if we can sell what we have but we will keep working.”
Joseph Sorrentino is a frequent contributor to Mexico News Daily and lives in San Gregorio.
A protest in Guadalajara, Jalisco, over the alleged murder of a man by municipal police after he was arrested for not wearing a face mask turned violent on Thursday, as protesters vandalized the state government building, clashed with police and set one officer on fire.
About 1,000 people took to the streets of the Jalisco capital to denounce the death of Giovanni López Ramírez, a 30-year-old construction worker who was arrested in the municipality of Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos on May 4 for not wearing a face mask amid the coronavirus pandemic.
López was allegedly beaten and tortured by municipal police. He died in hospital on May 5 from a traumatic brain injury, according to his death certificate.
The protesters gathered in Guadalajara’s Revolution Park on Thursday afternoon after the demonstration was promoted on social media. Among those to promote it was Oscar-winning film director Guillermo del Toro.
From there they marched to the state government palace in the historic center of the capital while holding up placards condemning López’s death and chanting slogans such as “Giovanni didn’t die, Giovanni was killed.”
Vehicles burn during Thursday’s violent demonstration in the Jalisco capital.
Some defaced the facade of the government palace with graffiti messages that demanded justice for López, described police officers as “pigs” and called for the resignation of Governor Enrique Alfaro.
Two police cars parked near the palace were spray-painted before they were set on fire.
A large group of protesters then turned their attention to breaking into the government palace, first attempting to kick down a door before using broken street signs and other objects to force their way in.
After gaining access to the building, they vandalized its interior, smashing office windows and destroying furniture, the newspaper Milenio reported.
After leaving the palace, they clashed with police in the street, and several demonstrators and officers sustained injuries. Some police officers kicked and threw punches at both protesters and journalists, Milenio said, noting that they also used tear gas to try to disperse the crowd.
As sirens wailed, one protester approached a state police officer who had arrived at the scene on a motorcycle, poured a flammable liquid on his back and set him on fire. A video posted online by the news outlet ZonaDocs showed the officer falling off his stationary motorcycle with his back aflame.
He rolled around on the street attempting to extinguish the flames before they were eventually put out with a bottle of water. The officer was taken to a hospital where he was treated for burns to his neck but was not in a serious condition.
Governor Alfaro said on Twitter that 27 protesters were arrested, including six minors.
He claimed that the protest was orchestrated from the “basements of power” in Mexico City, asserting that President López Obrador had sent people to infiltrate it and cause trouble.
“Behind everything that is happening in this case in Jalisco are interests [in] … Mexico City. What they’re seeking is to damage Jalisco,” Alfaro said in a video message posted to social media.
He defended the conduct of the police although video footage showed some acting aggressively without provocation. Alfaro said they had acted according to the circumstances and “didn’t commit any act of violence against the protesters.”
The actions of the latter, however, posed a risk to the lives of “working people” doing their jobs inside the government palace, Alfaro said.
A police officer was set on fire during the protest on Thursday.
The governor denied that López was arrested for not wearing a face mask but gave no further details. Jalisco Attorney General Gerardo Octavio Solís said he was arrested for “aggressive behavior” but the man’s family denies the claim.
Video footage posted online this week showed López being forced into a police car by municipal officers wielding assault rifles. At the same time, citizens argued with the police about their excessive use of force and the rule requiring the use of face masks.
López was allegedly beaten at a local police station before he was taken to the hospital where he died.
Alfaro said earlier on Thursday that the man’s death was an “atrocity” and pledged that his government will apply the “full weight of the law” to whoever is responsible.
In a Twitter message on Friday morning, the governor said that the “first arrests” had been made in the case and that the state government would take control of the Ixtlahuacán municipal police.
He told a press conference later this morning that a police commissioner, a middle-ranking commander and a police officer had been arrested in connection with the case.
Meanwhile, Ixtlahuacán Mayor Eduardo Cervantes Aguilar is under investigation for obstructing the investigation into the alleged murder. Giovanni López’s brother claimed that through a third party the mayor offered his family 200,000 pesos (US $9,125) not to publish the video he recorded of the police aggression, which has circulated widely on social media and news websites.
He also said that Cervantes threatened to kill members of his family should the video come to light. The mayor has rejected the claims.
Alfaro had stressed that state police or authorities had no involvement in López’s death but the federal Interior Ministry (Segob) said in a statement that the tough measures the Jalisco government put in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus, including arresting people for breaking curfews, was a factor.
“This event came in the context of the restrictive measures implemented by the governor of Jalisco to fight the pandemic, which included the use of law enforcement forces, and which led to abuses by authorities,” Segob said.
The Mexico office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) condemned the death.
“The allegations that the arrest of Mr. López Ramírez occurred in the context of the implementation of health emergency measures due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the obligatory use of face masks in Jalisco is a cause of concern for the OHCHR,” it said.
Flooding caused by Cristóbal in southeastern Mexico this week.
Cristóbal is a tropical storm once more after it was downgraded Thursday to a tropical depression.
The United States National Hurricane Center (NHC) said at 1:00 p.m. CDT on Friday that the storm had strengthened, triggering a tropical storm warning for the Yucatán peninsula between Punta Herrero and Río Lagartos.
It was located about 60 kilometers southeast of Mérida, Yucatán, and was moving north at 19 kph.
The storm inflicted extensive damage and relentless rains across seven states in southeastern Mexico, where thousands took refuge in shelters due to the devastation.
By Friday morning it was located south of Campeche and maximum sustained winds had dropped to 55 kph.
Yucatán Governor Vila wades through Celestún floodwaters Friday morning.
The storm affected 75 municipalities in seven states in the southeast, particularly on the Yucatán peninsula which has seen at least 65 centimeters of rain since the storm began.
The NHC said Campeche, Quintana Roo, Yucatán, Chiapas, Tabasco and Oaxaca are expected to see more heavy rains — between 10 and 15 centimeters — through Saturday.
Thousands of soldiers and National Guard members have been dispatched to affected areas and those still in the storm’s path. Thousands have been or are being evacuated to shelters.
In Campeche, the governor is asking the federal government to declare a state of emergency after numerous highways and homes were flooded. More than 800 people are in shelters and damage to the hard-hit municipalities of Carmen, Escárcega, Candelaria, Champotón and Palizada is expected to be extensive.
One person was killed by a falling tree in Chiapas, where the communities of Chicoasén, Bochil, Copainalá, Tecpatán, Ixtapa and Unión Juárez have all seen landslides and wash-outs due to the storm.
In southern Quintana Roo, the Mexican military is using two helicopters to airlift an estimated 450 people out of danger zones.
Yucatán, which is under an orange alert in some coastal regions and will continue to be battered by high winds and heavy downpours today, some residents have refused to leave their homes for shelters, despite the risk of flooding, as they are afraid of looting.
Today Governor Mauricio Vila Dosal toured the shantytown of Celestún, also known as “Cartolandia” (Cardboardland), and went door-to-door pleading with residents to gather their belongings and move to shelters for their safety. Authorities were doing the same in the nearby port city of Sisal as they attempted to evacuate some 2,000 people in the area and bus them to five shelters in Mérida.
Cristóbal is expected to make landfall in the United States on Sunday, and flood watches are already in place in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
The storm formed on June 2 from the remnants of Pacific Tropical Storm Amanda, which battered Central America leaving at least 22 dead in El Salvador and Guatemala, and was the earliest named storm in the Atlantic ever recorded. The previous record was set in 2016 when Tropical Storm Colin formed on June 5.
“El Puente de Dios is a natural wonder you have to see. It’s a kind of tunnel with two huge arches, through which a river flows … It’s truly a marvel, but, unfortunately, getting there is one big chinga.”
This is what people in the know told me — some years ago — about one of western Mexico’s most unusual natural attractions. Such words might have discouraged the boldest of adventurers, but not my friend Chale, even though he was well over 70 years old at the time.
“I found the place on the topo map,” he told me. “It’s about 125 kilometers straight south of Lake Chapala, really in the middle of nowhere. Let’s go find it.”
Now if you look at a map of Jalisco, all you’ll see on its southernmost border is a big empty space, but Chale assured me there’s a little town there with the nearly unpronounceable name of Ahuijullo (ah-wee-HOO-yo). “That’s where we’re going,” said Chale, “and we’d better bring along enough food to last us five days, just in case.”
Unforeseen circumstances resulted in the postponement of our trip, but this did not stop Chale from driving 606 kilometers (round trip) of curvy roads “just for a preliminary look.” He came back with good news: “They’ve opened an iron mine near Ahuijullo and built a big wide road to it. We can easily get there from Michoacán.”
A river of cold, clean water flows from one of the dramatic arches of God’s Bridge.
So, off I went the following week with Chale and another willing hiker nicknamed Sobina. Sure enough, we found a graded road, wider than any autopista, leading from Tepalcátepec, Michoacán, to Ahuijullo, Jalisco. The only problem was that we had to share this road with 92 huge trucks which, in those days, were carrying iron ore 24-7 from the Piedra Imán Mine: trucks which raised enough dust to choke all of us to death if we hadn’t had air conditioning.
Our car was white when we left Tepalcátepec and brown by the time we reached the home of one Hernán Lomelí, whom Chale had contracted as a guide.
“You need a place to camp?” said Hernán. “You can share my pasture with the cows.” And so we did, only to discover at 3:00 a.m. that we were also sharing it with several thousand local roosters which seemed dead set on getting us up before dawn.
The next day we asked how long it would take us to walk to the Puente de Dios. “About two hours,” everybody told us, “está retirado [It’s pretty far away].” Well now I know that in rural Mexico the word retirado means “double whatever walking time they tell you.”
Our hike took us up and down golden hills and all along a bubbling stream which comes straight out of God’s Bridge and which we must have crossed 500 times, hopping from boulder to boulder. Along the way we saw a big black snake almost two meters long, papelillo trees with paper-like bark, ceibas covered with fluffy cotton balls and bonete trees full of fruits shaped like bombs, while overhead flew a flock of long-tailed magpies, which followed us for at least an hour, cavorting like lunatics.
Unlike us, our guide and his buddy were riding on horseback. Eventually they must have gotten tired of waiting for us at every crossing of the river, for suddenly they vanished. “They may be lost,” pronounced Chale, utterly calm, “but we are not. As long as we follow the river, we’ll reach the Puente de Dios.”
High walls and flowstone formations inside El Puente de Dios.
After a total of four hours of walking, we found our guides heating tortillas in front of the huge arch of a cave entrance. Sobina threw himself on the ground and declared he was never moving again. Chale and I, however, had just enough energy left to enter the cave, which has two spectacular arches a few hundred meters apart.
The river runs right through the cave and its high, cathedral-like roof — which sports a third impressive “skylight” entrance — is dripping with stalactites, curtains and flowstone.
Several beautifully decorated natural balconies were visible and our guides assured us it was possible to reach these lofty places because local people had already climbed up there in hopes of finding a wonderful treasure which supposedly had been hidden here … and in just about every other cave we’ve ever heard of in Mexico.
Unfortunately, visitors have succeeded in removing many of the stalactites by shooting them to smithereens, but in spite of this, the Puente de Dios is still an awesome sight and also of historic interest because a local bishop is said to have lived in it during the time of the Cristeros and the ghost of a famous brigand is supposed to haunt the place to this very day.
No doubt both of them enjoyed drinking the cold, unpolluted, river water as much as we did. Our canteens, in fact, had run dry long before we reached the cave and if that river water had not been safe to drink, we would certainly have known it. Local people, by the way, are proud of this place and organize a pilgrimage to the cave every May 1 and I bet even the abuelitas (grandmothers) get there faster than we did.
Well, the hike to God’s Bridge was one of the toughest of my life so I never included it among the sites listed in my Outdoors in Western Mexico books. Recently, however, I was alerted to the fact that adventurous souls in the town of Tecalitlán, Jalisco (a two-hour drive whether from Guadalajara or Ajijic), have been organizing visits to God’s Bridge utilizing all-terrain vehicles which get you there via dusty brechas (dirt roads) overhanging steep precipices.
[soliloquy id="113030"]
“You actually hiked all day long to visit El Puente de Dios?” exclaimed Ismael Orta of Tecalitlán Turismo. “Well, now it’s a walk of 20 minutes, maximum.”
So, if you love racing up and down steep slopes in a motorcycle or ATV, call Ismael and he can arrange the adventure of a lifetime for you, culminating in a stroll through God’s Bridge — if you survive the off-road journey, of course (just kidding). In case you are the owner of your own four-wheel-drive vehicle, you could choose whether to meet Ismael and friends at Tecalitlán (100 kilometers from the bridge) or perhaps at pretty little Ahuijullo, 14 kilometers from the Puente de Dios. Just ask Google Maps to take you there.
Maybe if you spend the night in Ahuijullo, you will even figure out how to pronounce it.
• For more information, call Ismael Orta at 331 436 2441. (Yes, you can use Whatsapp.)
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.
A pyramid at Cobá, which is expected to benefit from the addition of a Maya Train station at El Tintal.
A new station on the government’s US $8-billion Maya Train railway project has been added at El Tintal, Quintana Roo, which will allow tourists access to Isla Holbox, a small, car-free island with pristine beaches and a laid-back lifestyle.
The planned El Tintal station is also near the Cobá archaeological zone, home to ancient Mayan ruins dating back to 600-900 A.D., and government officials say a light rail connection could be added between the two.
Both Agepro, Quintana Roo’s foreign investment promotion agency, and the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur) have assessed the project and determined that the terminal’s location will help generate economic development by bringing both tourists and cargo from Cancún to the region.
El Tintal, located in the municipality of Lázaro Cárdenas, has a population of around 1,000 and is 78 kilometers by road from the port of Chiquilá, from which ferries to Isla Holbox depart.
President López Obrador inaugurated the train project and construction of a section of railway between Yucatán and Quintana Roo on June 1 at a ceremony in Lázaro Cárdenas, hailing the project as historic and momentous for southeastern Mexico.
Quintana Roo Governor Carlos Joaquín called the Maya Train, which has drawn fire from environmentalists and indigenous collectives, “a new paradigm of economic integration, regional development and social equity.”
Quintana Roo is now the state with the most Maya Train stations, with a total of eight planned stops in Cancún, Puerto Morelos, Playa del Carmen, Tulum, Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Bacalar, Chetumal and El Tintal.
