The late arrival takes her seat aboard delayed flight.
There were several complaints by passengers to Aeroméxico last night after their flight was delayed: the plane would have to wait for a senior government official.
Mexicali-bound Flight 198 was taxiing toward the runway when it suddenly turned around and returned to the ramp, according to reports by Twitter users who were aboard the aircraft.
They said the captain told passengers that the flight’s departure would be delayed for 38 minutes to await the arrival of a federal government official.
When she arrived, the passenger was identified by at least one passenger as Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Josefa González-Blanco Ortiz-Mena, who was accompanied by her son.
Passenger Jorge Rioja expressed his ire on Twitter, where he published a picture of the cabinet secretary boarding the plane.
“I’m headed to Mexicali. We’re just about to take off when the plane stops and the captain announces that we are heading back to pick up another passenger on ‘presidential orders.’ Is this for real?”
Another was more forceful. “This is arrogance, this is corruption, it’s an insult to . . . people who paid and arrived on time for their journey.”
“What social bias in the 4T!” wrote @GabrielRicoVal1. “What fifismo!” The 4T refers to the fourth transformation, President López Obrador’s term for the profound change he wishes to introduce. Fifismo means elitism and comes from another favorite expression of the president — fifí, used to describe people or organizations who are elitist or snobbish.
Another passenger, Alberto Díaz, expressed his disbelief at the situation.
“I am on Aeroméxico Flight AM198. The plane starts to move on to the runway for takeoff when suddenly the plane returns to the ramp. The captain announces, apologizing, that he has received orders to return because it is ‘imperative’ that we wait for a passenger belonging to the federal government.”
The airline responded to Díaz, apologizing for the delay and promising to resume the flight as quickly as possible.
In response, Alberto addressed a complaint directly to Secretary González-Blanco.
“This is also corruption, Josefa. As citizens, we should not have to wait just because you showed up late for the flight. If you miss it ‘take the next one like everyone else.’”
Off the record, members of her staff confirmed that González-Blanco did indeed board the Friday flight, which eventually departed at 10:08pm.
A library has been born in a mountain village in Oaxaca thanks to the efforts of a teaching student at the National Autonomous University of México who wanted to give something back to her community.
Adriana Kupijy Vargas Huitrón decided to use the skills she learned studying to open a library in the community of Tejas in the municipality of Santa María Tlahuiloltepec, the Mixe community where her father grew up.
She decided to make the effort after reflecting on what she was learning in her university studies.
“I was in crisis, and I was very frustrated,” she told UNAM Global. “I thought, why am I even studying, if I’m not creating anything for my community?”
So Vargas posted on Facebook requesting donations of books. Her initial goal was to collect 500, but she received over 4,000 donations, including encyclopedias, novels, textbooks and books of poetry.
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Vargas collected donations in Mexico City, while her sister did the same in Oaxaca city.
“At first we had problems finding a space but we resolved that with a community building,” Vargas said. “The community was very interested, they built the furniture, cleaned and sorted the books, and they keep the space clean.”
She hopes the library will become a space for the community to have events like classes, film projections and readings for children.
Vargas’ efforts have been noted by another community nearby. When citizens of Las Flores saw the Tejas library they decided they wanted one too.
Vargas credits her UNAM education for the motivation to create the library.
“I had access to UNAM, to all this knowledge, these readings, and above all, the libraries,” she said. “I didn’t want that to be just my privilege, I wanted it to be a right for many people.”
Fancy a tasty, healthy, high-protein, high-fiber snack that is environmentally-friendly and uniquely Mexican?
Lime and chili-flavored churritos made out of finely ground grasshoppers fit the bill.
Two Mexican entrepreneurs, Erika Gil Gutiérrez and Magali Díaz García, are the brains behind Winko, a company that has been selling the crunchy chapulín snacks for the past year.
They recounted the story of how their innovative product came about to the online magazine Tec Review.
“Mexico has a wide variety of edible insects, and they’re also part of our culture. We thought it was a good idea to experiment with them to see how we could offer a product that is healthy, of good quality, tasty and which nourishes . . . people and doesn’t just satisfy their craving . . .” Gil said.
Wichos are nutritious grasshopper snacks.
They ultimately decided to develop a product using chapulínes, small grasshoppers belonging to the Sphenarium genus that have been a popular snack in Mexico since pre-Hispanic times.
“Of all the insects we looked at, the grasshopper was the one with the greatest quantity of protein for the lowest cost,” Gil said.
“Besides, it’s the most popular insect that people eat and the one they’re most familiar with,” she added.
Sold under the brand name Wichos, the churritos also contain amaranth – a staple food of the Aztecs – sesame seeds and linseed. In addition to a high protein and fiber content, the snacks contain iron, magnesium and vitamins A, B and C.
“By portion, which is a 50-gram bag, the protein content is 10 grams. That’s quite high in comparison with other products on the market,” Díaz said.
She explained that Winko originally sourced its grasshoppers exclusively from Oaxaca but now also uses insects from Puebla, Tlaxcala and México state.
“When we started we used the Oaxaca chapulín, which is the best known. Afterwards . . . we realized that the insect also lives in the central part of Mexico. In the Valley of Texcoco there are a lot of chapulínes, that’s where there is currently the largest population . . .”
Díaz added that satisfying protein needs by eating grasshoppers is more environmentally-friendly than the consumption of farmed meat.
“The chapulín is very efficient in producing its protein . . . if we compare it to a cow or pig. Those animals need a lot of land, water and food to produce a kilogram of protein [and] they also emit a lot of greenhouse gases,” she said.
But that wasn’t the case on Thursday in Ixtlahuaca, México state, when a truck rolled over, spilling products made by Gamesa, Mexico’s largest maker of cookies.
About 80 residents of San Pedro de los Baños spontaneously organized themselves, some surrounding the truck to protect it while others collected the spilled merchandise and temporarily stored it in a nearby house.
Then they waited for the trucking company to send another truck to collect the merchandise. When it arrived, residents went back to work.
A Facebook video posted by Emmanuel Ines shows a human chain loading the boxes of products on to the second truck.
“There are a lot of videos where people loot trucks after accidents,” wrote Ines. “But this is a very different story, and it deserves to be recognized, and to serve as a teaching moment for everyone who sees it . . . Change starts within.”
Some of the math students who will travel to South Africa.
A film director and beer maker will help 12 young Mexican mathematicians fly to South Africa to participate in an international math contest after they issued a plea for support.
Film director Guillermo del Toro, whose film The Shape of Water won best picture at the 2018 Academy Awards, will pay for the students’ flights while Grupo Modelo has offered to pay for the team’s accommodation in South Africa.
The Mexico City Math Olympiad team will represent their country at the South Africa Mathematics Olympiad August 1-6 in Durban.
The team of elementary and middle school students had said they would be unable to send a full complement to South Africa because of cuts by the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt).
The council gave the team 1.6 million pesos (US $84,210) this year, 35% less than last year.
A round-trip ticket from Mexico to South Africa costs at least 41,000 pesos (US $2,157), or $25,884 for a team of 12.
The cuts to Conacyt are part of the austerity policies of the federal government.
Conacyt, which has been dogged by scandals of alleged embezzlement, misuse of funds and nepotism, was hit with a 12% budget cut this year. President López Obrador referred to the corruption scandals and the high salaries of Conacyt employees to justify the cuts.
“There are mafias everywhere, even in science,” he said.
But many in the scientific community are worried about the effects the cuts could have. Alonso Huerta, president of the National Network of Councils and State Science and Technology Organizations, criticized the president’s attitude towards science education.
“If we want to reach our economic growth goals, which are quite ambitious, we need to promote science and technology, and connect it with the productive sector,” he said.
Federico Gómez Children’s Hospital let 100 nurses go due to cutbacks.
The Secretariat of Finance (SHCP) has released more than 2 billion pesos in funding that was withheld from hospitals and national health institutes.
Public health executives met with lawmakers Thursday to demand that the government provide funds that had either been withheld or cut, warning that health institutes and two specialist hospitals in Mexico City were on the brink of insolvency and that their capacity to provide care was at risk.
Maricela Verdejo, director of administration at the National Institute of Rehabilitation, confirmed that 2.46 billion pesos (US $129.1 million) was released.
“Yes, the resources were frozen but today [Friday] 2.46 billion pesos that was withheld from the [health] institutes was released. It now appears in the Secretariat of Finance reports,” she said.
Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer said that after he saw a document submitted by the national health institutes – which detailed the problems the public health system faces due to federal budget cuts and the freezing of funds – he met with Finance Secretary Carlos Urzúa and the matter had been “fixed.”
He rejected that health funding had been cut or frozen, stating that some money earmarked for the sector was held up only because it was “necessary to evaluate” it.
Similarly, President López Obrador has maintained that no money has been cut from the health sector, stating yesterday that the accusations were “inventions.”
However, media reports and accounts from people who work in the health sector contradict his claim.
A report published Wednesday by the newspaper Milenio said that federal budget cuts are causing problems at hospitals in 24 states while the leader of a union that represents government workers said that there have been 10,000 dismissals in the public health sector since López Obrador took office.
On Tuesday, Germán Martínez cited budget and staffing cuts at the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), a large health care provider, as key reasons why he resigned from his position as agency chief.
Yesterday, the director of administration at the Federico Gómez Children’s Hospital of Mexico, Carlos Plascencia Pacheco, said the employment of 100 outsourced nurses was terminated in February because there was no federal money to pay them. The hospital has also faced shortages of anesthetics and nitric oxide due to budget cuts.
However, the SHCP has told authorities at that hospital that it is committed to restoring its full budget, while Alfonso Ramírez Cuellar, president of the budget committee in the lower house of Congress and a lawmaker for the ruling Morena party, said the government is committed to adequately funding the entire public health system.
“[Funding] will be guaranteed. There is an absolute conviction and a decision to absolutely guarantee all health services . . .” he said.
López Obrador yesterday offered a similar pledge.
“Let it be absolutely clear: for the health and the education of the people, there is no limit in terms of budget.”
Three of the kidnapping suspects arrested in Mexico City.
Five federal investigators were arrested in Mexico City yesterday on suspicion of kidnapping and extortion.
The members of the federal Criminal Investigation Agency were themselves assigned to investigating kidnappings.
The arrests followed an investigation that began after a kidnapping in the borough of Miguel Hidalgo in January. Early inquiries indicated that the perpetrators were with the federal prosecutor’s office.
It is the second time this month that evidence of corruption has surfaced in the Attorney General’s Office (FGR).
Police arrested two kidnapping suspects on May 15, one of whom was employed by the FGR.
Business owners in the historic center of Guadalajara have urged municipal authorities to draw up a plan to rehabilitate and repopulate the city’s downtown as part of a strategy to combat insecurity.
The historic center branch of the National Chamber of Commerce (Canaco) argues that the cornerstone of the plan should be the construction of high-rise housing on lots occupied by abandoned non-heritage buildings.
“Families should come and live here to start to create a social fabric,” said Alejandro Salas, the outgoing president of the downtown Canaco branch. “A master plan is needed just for this issue.”
According to the Guadalajara government, there are 624 abandoned or under-utilized dwellings in the center of the municipality as well as 268 vacant lots within the vicinity of Line 3 of the light rail that could be used for high-density housing developments.
In addition to insecurity, Salas said that homelessness and cleanliness of the streets were other issues that need to be addressed in the downtown area of the Jalisco capital.
At an event yesterday to swear in Salas’ successor, the president of the citywide chapter of Canaco issued a plea to local authorities to crack down on the rising number of street vendors in the historic center of the city using the strategy adopted by former mayor turned state Governor Enrique Alfaro.
“The increase of the informal economy concerns us, Mayor Ismael del Toro already knows that and it’s important to get down to work in that respect,” Xavier Orendáin said.
“Nowadays, street vendors have a strategy of setting up in the afternoon and in a lot of cases they bring problems of insecurity, piracy and other serious impacts to the community,” he added.
The new chief of Canaco in the historic center, Víctor Zetter, said there was a painful urban image of abandonment and danger in a lot of the streets” of Guadalajara’s downtown.
He added that residential and commercial areas of the city’s center that were once alive are now dead because “thousands of businesses, offices and residents falsely believed that leaving was progress.”
In response to the issues raised, Mayor del Toro said “our policy for the [historic] center has three pillars: zero tolerance for corruption, enforcing order and compliance with regulations – the [last] two allow us to have a safe city.”
He also said that his government was committed to rehabilitating the historic center following the loss of 2,500 jobs and a negative economic impact on business owners to the tune of an estimated 600 million pesos (US $31.5 million) during the construction of Line 3 of the light rail system.
Colli Club members doing the seven cascades of Micos. Luis Rojas
Guadalajara has several very well organized clubs specializing in outdoor activities like hiking, camping and mountain-climbing. They offer excursions every weekend of the year and their members get to see natural marvels that most tourist guidebooks never mention (except my book, Outdoors in Western Mexico, of course!)
Some of these groups have been around for a long time, so today’s members benefit from discoveries of little-known sites made by other members decades ago.
Grupo Montañista Colli is a non-profit club dedicated to promoting love and respect for nature under the guidance of dedicated and experienced personnel since 1962.
One of many nice things about its leaders and members is that they welcome newcomers, even old gringos like me so, thanks to Grupo Colli, I was able to visit the gloriously beautiful rivers and waterfalls of La Huasteca Potosina, about which I had previously known nothing.
If you find all of this interesting, you might want to look up “grupos de montañismo/senderismo/excursionismo” in your area.
Bathers find a spot for themselves in Río El Salto.
La Huasteca is one of Mexico’s most beautiful regions, and includes parts of seven states. It is so called because it was formerly the stomping grounds of the Huastec Indians — before they were sold into slavery by the infamous Spaniard Nuño de Guzmán. La Huasteca is one of Mexico’s most bio-diverse regions, dominated by tropical rainforest and housing more than 2,000 species of plants.
The small area I would be visiting, La Huasteca Potosina, lies within the state of San Luis Potosí and is filled with picture-postcard waterfalls in rivers that flow eastward from the mountains of the Sierra Madre Oriental. I was told I should not miss the glorious waterfalls of Micos and the stupendous Cascada de Tamul, 105 meters high.
The area is also famous for its sinkholes and caves, including El Sótano de las Golondrinas, a pit down which enthusiasts rappel 333 meters, in a single jump, to reach the bottom.
To travel to San Luis Potosí, Grupo Colli arranged for us to board their bus at night. During the eight-hour trip I slept like a baby thanks to a sleeping pill and woke up refreshed the next morning in front of the Hotel-Spa Taninul, located 10 kilometers southeast of Ciudad Valles.
A few hours later, we were driving toward the famed waterfalls of Micos — driving, I say, not speeding, as these buses are, fortunately, unable to exceed 95 kilometers per hour.
Micos means spider monkeys, which were once abundant in the region but these days it really means breathtakingly beautiful cascades and pools of turquoise-blue water, as clear as crystal and “room temperature:” just perfect for swimming.
The proper way to enjoy the crystal-clear, warm water of El Salto River at Micos.
On arrival, we split into two groups: those who would don life jackets and leap or slide down seven falls over a one-kilometer stretch of Río el Salto, and those who preferred a leisurely swim in the “flatter” part of the river downstream — replete with exquisite mini-falls.
What was it like for the cascading group? My friend Luis recalls: “I stood atop the tallest fall, nine meters high and looked down at the tiny pool far below me. One of my two ever-conflicting personalities said, ‘Híjole, this is lunacy!’ and tried to pull back. But my dark side shouted, ‘Go for it!’ and pushed me right over the edge with no further ado. What an adrenalin rush!”
Group No. 2’s heartbeats were also accelerated a bit because they had to descend some 600 stairs to reach the river, after which it was pure relaxation, lolling in any one of hundreds of frothing natural Jacuzzis while balancing a frosty can of Modelo on your belly — ah, what a life!
Later, back at the Taninul Hotel, we could hike, explore a cave, fly through the air on zip lines or steam ourselves in a temazcal and finally soak in a pool of sulfur-rich hot-spring water. Enough said?
The next day, we were on the bus at 6:00am and drove to the Tampaon River where we climbed into long wooden boats called pangas, which we then rowed upstream until we came to rapids, at which point we hiked along the shore while our guides pulled the boats past the flying foam.
This picturesque river, whose waters once again are room temperature, is bordered on both sides by high cliffs and spectacular, white, limestone spires, among which, I was told, one can sometimes spot spider monkeys, onzas (perhaps cougars), badgers and even jaguars!
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Paddling again, we slowly approached majestic Tamul Falls, 105 meters (344 feet) high and of such beauty that we all concurred it was well worth all the rowing and sweating. On the way back, we stopped at a flooded cave to swim or float in its (to our surprise) ice-cold water.
The day was topped off by a meal featuring one of the most delicious dishes I’ve ever eaten anywhere in the world. It’s a specialty of San Luis Potosí called zacahuil. The ingredients are chicken, cracked-corn meal and yummy spices, all wrapped in banana leaves and baked for eight to 10 hours. Amazingly, even the chicken bones melt in your mouth while still remaining crispy!
I was surprised to discover that zacahuil is translated as “tamal” or even “corn pudding.” In my opinion it is unlike any tamal I’ve ever seen and didn’t make me think of pudding at all. No, I suggest it ought to be reverently referred to as zacahuil and only as zacahuil.
Apparently the true meaning of the word is bocado grande which means “big mouthful” and it is traditionally prepared for the Day of the Dead by dozens of people working together. The ingredients may weigh as much as 50 kilos. They are wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in a canoe-shaped metal container over hot coals. The proper way to eat zacahuil is with a spoon, from a bowl placed on a banana-leaf place mat.
If you are looking for adventure and want to know the real Mexico, I suggest you contact a hiking/camping club near you and join them for an experience you will surely never forget.
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.
Environmental concerns and accusations of governmental irregularities have plagued an ambitious development project in León, Guanajuato, but authorities have declared that nothing is amiss.
Mexico Retail Properties is building a sprawling residential and commercial development in northern León in an area adjacent to the Cárcamos park. It has been dubbed “the most avant-garde project in the Bajío region.”
The first stage represents an investment of 2 billion pesos (US $105 million), and includes a 14-floor office building, a 183-apartment tower, cinemas and other entertainment venues, a shopping mall and several restaurants.
Topping off the project, called City Center, are two hotels — one a five-star property with 300 rooms and the other a 120-room facility aimed at business travelers.
Environmentalists have protested the project and denounced a number of irregularities in the permits issued by the municipal government.
An organization called Salvemos el Humedal de Los Cárcamos (Save the Cárcamos wetlands) has documented what its members described as ecocide and accused municipal and state officials of indifference.
Municipal environmental official Jorge Cabrera González has countered by declaring that the City Center project is legal and “the project is a go.”
