The town of Tequila’s best-kept secret: the elusive Blue Falls

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March 22, 2019

The pool at the foot of the second waterfall at Blue Falls.

Besides being the home of Mexico’s most famous drink, the town of Tequila was added to the list of the country’s Pueblos Mágicos, or magical towns, in 2003.

Although Tequila’s streets are not exactly quaint, it is surrounded by extraordinary natural beauty. On one side of town you have the massive Volcán de Tequila rising to 2,920 meters (9,580 feet) above sea level, while directly on the other side of the city lie the sheer walls of a great canyon 600 meters deep.

While cold — if not icy — winds blow at the top of the volcano, exuberant tropical vegetation flourishes on the hot and humid floor of Barranca La Toma.

Many years ago I managed to climb to the top of the far wall of La Toma canyon. Dripping with sweat and covered with dust, I gazed across the lush valley filled with the kind of jungle you’d only expect on the shores of the Amazon, and there on the opposite side, directly below the town of Tequila, I could just barely make out a tall, wispy waterfall.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to be standing at the bottom of that!” I told my friends, and thus began my 20-year search for that distant, beckoning cascade.

The trail to the falls, through fields of blue agaves. — The trail to the falls through fields of blue agaves.

We soon learned that we what we were looking for was called Los Azules, the Blue Falls, but nobody seemed to know exactly how to get to them.

Fifteen years later, we got a clue. “You know that waterfall you’re always talking about — Los Azules? Well, I heard that the people down at Santo Toribio know how to reach it.”

I talked my wife into joining me and off we went down a very steep road to a tiny settlement at the bottom of Barranca La Toma, which boasts a grandiose church in the middle of the jungle. This is the shrine of Santo Toribio, a martyr killed in the Cristeros War.

After visiting the saint’s spartan lodgings, we mentioned Los Azules to some local children. Their eyes lit up. “We know the way — vámonos!” they said, practically dragging us on to a narrow path through an exotic landscape. Well, the path got steeper and steeper, the humidity got higher and higher, the mud got slipperier and slipperier and all of a sudden we were overlooking a chocolate-colored roaring river.

“Now what?” we asked our little guides.

“We have two choices,” they replied. “We can swim or we can try to cross the bridge.”

Canyoneer Luis Medina checks out the view atop fall No. 2.

Well, the “bridge” was a precariously balanced tree trunk spanning the river which, by the way, smelled anything but inviting. Admitting that our adventurous spirit was was not quite up to the standards of those little country kids, we gave up.

That 20-year search for an easy way to reach Los Azules ended quite by accident when I bumped into canyoneering guide Luis Medina.

“John, that waterfall you’ve been calling ‘elusive’ is only a half-hour walk from Tequila — and, guess what, it’s not one waterfall but three — and all of them very impressive. I’ll show you the trail this coming Friday.”

A few days later, Luis picked me up and off we drove to Tequila. We parked only one kilometer from the highway and began walking through gorgeous fields of blue-green agaves, along a road dotted with chunks of high-quality black obsidian.

At the end of the road we had been following we started down a narrow, steep trail surrounded by jungly growth. Suddenly we came to a clearing and there, far below us in all its splendor, lay the huge valley of La Toma, framed by high, red canyon walls.

“Welcome to the Machu Pichu of Tequila,” announced Luis.

[soliloquy id="74467"]

Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the kind of waterfall I would expect to find in the Garden of Eden. It was 40 meters tall, wide and wispy, with a sunlit blue-green pool at its foot that beckoned us to jump right in for a swim — which, of course, we wasted no time in doing. The water, by the way, comes from springs near the top of the canyon and is perfectly clean.

To our surprise, the pool temperature was neither hot nor cold, but pleasantly cool. As we swam and played in the water, dozens of blue and red dragonflies danced in the air above us, exactly like the birds and butterflies in a Walt Disney movie.

In fact, the whole scene was more like a dream than reality and to top it off, we had this paradise all to ourselves the whole time we were there, which was most of the day.

“Luis,” I said, “this is heaven! In the U.S.A. this would be a national park with no-swimming signs and hundreds of tourists filing by just to get a glimpse of paradise.”

“You know,” replied Luis, “that’s just what my clients tell me when I bring them here — these falls are even more enticing when you’re rappelling down them.”

Luis mentioned that the flow of water in Los Azules is more or less the same all year round and also during storms. This means you don’t have to worry about flash floods in this canyon, as you must in many others.

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I have been describing waterfall No. 2, which is very attractive and relatively easy to reach. There are, of course, a grand total of three, which explains why the name of the place is Los Azules and not El Azul.

The first fall is around 60 meters high but only operates right after a storm while the third is 70 meters tall and, like the second, runs all year round.

My Los Azules Falls trail aims to get you to the bottom of the second waterfall, but GPS coverage is poor in this part of La Toma canyon and you might end up at any one of the three falls. Don’t worry: each of them is an adventure!

If you’d like to have Los Azules all to yourself, visit this site on a workday, not on the weekend (especially Sunday), when a lot of people from Tequila hike down to take a dip. Whatever you do, don’t forget your swimsuit and a camera!

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.

Tourism council has requested 2 billion pesos for new marketing agency

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MND Staff

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March 21, 2019

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Tourism industry wonders how Mexico will participate in international travel shows.

The National Tourism Business Council (CNET) has asked the federal government for 2 billion pesos to help fund a new tourism marketing agency. But the government appears unlikely to provide the funds.

CNET vice-president Cristina Alcayaga said the request for funding was submitted to the secretariats of Tourism (Sectur) and Finance (SHCP) a few weeks ago.

The council proposed that the 2 billion pesos (US $106 million) come out of funds collected through the DNR tourist tax that foreigners pay when entering Mexico by air.

DNR tax revenue was previously used to fund the Tourism Promotion Council (CPTM) but the government has disbanded the marketing agency and both President López Obrador and Tourism Secretary Miguel Torruco have said that the tourist tax money will instead go to the Maya Train project.

The latter said during a visit to Cancún this week that the federal government won’t provide any funding for a new private sector-led marketing initiative and that in two weeks a new self-financing tourism promotion model will be presented.

Torruco added that during the governments of Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto, 37 billion pesos (just under US $2 billion at today’s exchange rate) were spent on tourism promotion through the CPTM.

The secretary contended that there should be an assessment to determine whether spending that amount of money was worth it considering that Mexico is in 15th place in terms of overall spending by international tourists and in 40th place for per-capita spending.

Mexico has also dropped from sixth to seventh place in international tourism rankings.

Some tourism experts have predicted that the government’s decision to disband the CPTM will benefit other holiday destinations in the region.

José Manuel Campos, president of the Confederation of Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism (Concanaco), said last week that a new privately funded tourism marketing agency will start operations later this year but even so Alcayaga said there is great concern about how Mexico will be able to participate in upcoming international tourism fairs.

She added that if the government provides 2 billion pesos, “we’ll be creative, contributing anything else [we need] to have our own promotional council . . .”

Source: El Economista (sp)

Military presents plan to manufacture replica of 50-caliber Barrett

By

MND Staff

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March 21, 2019

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Mexican special forces with Barrett M82s.

The Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) is planning to manufacture high-powered, .50-caliber rifles to increase the firepower of the armed forces in their fight against violent crime, and save money.

Barrett rifles such as the M82, a powerful military-grade weapon capable of penetrating bulletproof vests and most construction materials, are commonly seized from drug cartel members by the Mexican military.

Now, Sedena wants a Mexican replica of the weapons made by Barrett Firearms Manufacturing in the United States in order to match the narcos’ fire power.

The first step in the process is to design a prototype and to that end, Sedena has presented a request to the Secretariat of Finance for just under 24.2 million pesos (US $1.3 million) so it can carry out research and development and purchase equipment needed for the weapon’s manufacture.

The newspaper El Sol de México, which has seen the funding application, said that Sedena intends to use the money this year and next.

Barrett M82 that the military wants to copy.

Universities and other public institutions are expected to collaborate with the military on research and development.

Sedena asserted that the manufacture of the .50-caliber rifles would be particularly beneficial to members of the military deployed to the northern states of Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Tamaulipas, where there are high levels of cartel violence.

It also said it will be able to cut costs and achieve “technological independence” by making its own .50-caliber weapons.

According to the document seen by El Sol de México, the army is currently short of such rifles, and needs another 324. As a result, 81 military units are unable to adequately carry out their patrols, Sedena said.

If the military were to purchase the 324 rifles it needs from Barrett, the total cost would be just under 138.5 million pesos (US $7.3 million), or 427,376 pesos (US $22,600) each.

Sedena says it already has most of the machinery needed to produce a .50-caliber rifle at its arms factory and that once it has a prototype, it will be able to make a single firearm for 70,000 pesos (US $3,700).

Each telescopic sight, or scope, will cost an additional 45,000 pesos (US $2,400), Sedena said, bringing the total cost of each rifle to 115,000 pesos (US $6,100).

Making 324 M82 replicas would cost 37.26 million pesos (just under US $2 million), a 73% savings on the purchase price.

Source: El Sol de México (sp)

Government ordered to release Maya Train, Dos Bocas refinery studies

By

César Hernández

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March 21, 2019

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Citizens’ requests for studies of the impact of two major infrastructure projects were turned down on the grounds that they do not exist.

But the National Transparency Institute (INAI) isn’t so sure: it has ordered the federal government to release studies pertaining the social, financial and environmental impact of the Maya Train and the Dos Bocas refinery.

The order came after two citizens filed separate requests for the studies only to be told by the federal departments responsible — Energy and Communications and Transportation (Sener and SCT) — that there were no such studies.

But INAI found that not all Sener agencies had been queried, including one dedicated to conducting social impact studies and another one in charge of promoting research and studies in the petroleum industry.

A separate request to the SCT for information regarding the costs, benefits and planning of the Maya Train met with a similar response: no related documents had been found.

But the INAI found that the SCT had neglected to look for documents in the office of Secretary Javier Jiménez Espriú or in departmental offices in Tabasco, Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo, which given the nature of the project could have relevant information.

“An informed and aware citizenship that watches over the impact of such public works projects in the communities and regions of the country is a citizenship capable of collaborating with authorities in attaining the expected social benefits,” said the Transparency Institute.

Earlier this month, President López Obrador declared that all information pertaining to the Dos Bocas refinery would be made public, and that no information would be confidential during his administration.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Teachers’ union shuts down lower house of Congress for second day

By

César Hernández

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March 21, 2019

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Teachers at their campsite in Mexico City.

The lower house of Congress remained closed for the second day in a row due to a protest by the dissident CNTE teachers’ union outside the legislative palace in Mexico City.

The teachers continue to protest against the previous federal government’s educational reforms, which President López Obrador has promised will be repealed.

The teachers are opposed in particular to the yearly performance evaluations — on which their employment status depends — and demand that graduates from teacher training colleges be hired immediately without evaluation. The union also wants to be the sole judge of teacher promotions.

In response to the protest, Congress president Porfirio Muñoz Ledo cancelled yesterday’s and today’s legislative sessions.

This morning, the president asked the CNTE to be open to debate in order for both parties to reach a deal.

“I want to tell those protesting . . . that we’re open to negotiation,” he said, explaining that Interior Secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero and Public Education Secretary Esteban Moctezuma Barragán “have been instructed to lead the negotiations.”

“Teachers should now form their own commissions and start negotiating,” said López Obrador.

Both cabinet members were ready to sit down with CNTE representatives at 10:00am, but the meeting didn’t begin until a couple of hours later.

Negotiations were continuing this afternoon and while a deal is far from done, at least one group of teachers is preparing to leave the protest and return home.

Mao Alonso López, spokesman for the union’s Oaxaca local, Section 22, told reporters that the original plan was to protest for 48 hours outside the lower house of Congress.

The protest camp will be lifted today, he said, regardless of the results of the negotiations, although any future protests in the country’s capital will depend in the outcome, he warned.

López Obrardor said earlier that “it should be made clear that we’ve always fulfilled and will continue to fulfill our commitments.”

“I always said that I disagreed with the so-called educational reform and defended the teachers when [the past administration] wanted to defend the reform,” he said.

Source: El Financiero (sp), El Sol de México (sp), El Universal (sp)

Nearly 5,000 cases of electricity theft in Oaxaca market a ‘time bomb’

By

MND Staff

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March 21, 2019

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The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) has detected 4,800 separate cases of power theft at the largest public market in Oaxaca.

The illegal connections at the Central de Abasto market in Oaxaca city cost the public utility around 5 million pesos (US $265,000) a month, the CFE said.

It also warned of the possibility of explosions as a result of “serious overload risks” at the hidden connection points, representing a potential danger to the public.

Heliodoro Díaz Escárraga, chief of the Oaxaca Civil Protection services, also said there was a high risk of a fatal explosion or fire at the market, which is the workplace for 16,000 vendors and patronized by 20,000 shoppers on a daily basis.

He said authorities are currently planning an operation to disconnect all the illegal hook-ups, which are known colloquially in Mexico as diablitos (little devils). Rewiring the whole market will cost 70 million pesos (US $3.7 million), Díaz estimated.

“. . . The [power] supply has to be returned to normal and everyone has to be obliged to pay for the use of energy . . . We have to avoid a tragedy because the way that all the cables and diablitos are [at the moment], it’s a time bomb,” he said.

The official explained that 200 illegal connections in the historic center of Oaxaca that were used both by bricks-and-mortar establishments and street vendors’ stalls have already been disconnected.

Those diablitos were costing the CFE around 1.5 million pesos (US $79,500) a month.

Esther Merino, a member of a Oaxaca city business association, said that street vendors are the main electricity thieves and that the crime has increased since the new municipal government took office at the start of this year.

The CFE announced last month that electricity theft cost the company 30 billion pesos (US $1.6 billion) last year.

Director Manuel Bartlett Díaz explained that large and small business, hotels and industry were all guilty of stealing power, declaring that “this is a situation we must now fight against.”

Source: El Financiero (sp), Milenio (sp)

Walmart avoids a strike with 5.5% wage increase

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Madison Koen

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March 21, 2019

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An agreement reached last week between Walmart México and its employees was subsequently ratified, avoiding a strike by more than 8,000 employees in 132 stores.

The Revolutionary Confederation of Laborers and Farmworkers (CROC) had threatened a massive strike that was to begin yesterday if demands for a 20% salary increase and a 4% productivity bonus were not met.

Among workers’ complaints were Walmart’s failure to respect the right to an eight-hour working day, not paying overtime in accordance with the law, discrimination against pregnant women, unfair dismissals and not enrolling workers in medical insurance or retirement schemes.

But Walmart reached an agreement with CROC that offered workers an average annual pay increase of 5.5% and a productivity bonus linked to company sales. Cashiers and other low-ranking employees at Walmart earn on average between 140 and 150 pesos (US $7 to $7.50) per day.

Walmart spokeswoman Gabriela Buenrostro said that 92% of employees received a productivity bonus based on sales results in 2018.

“We are committed to continue generating savings to be able to reinvest in salaries and other strategic measures.”

Tec de Monterrey business school director Fernando Tapia said the salary increase will not strain the company’s finances — it recorded a 108% increase in sales in 2018. He added that the salary increase only barely outpaced the annual inflation rate.

Tapia said that if the strike had taken place, the company would have likely suffered a blow to its reputation among investors due to an immediate dip in sales.

Source: Reporte Índigo (sp)

In one Mexico City borough, water thieves and leaks contribute to shortages

By

MND Staff

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March 21, 2019

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Water trucks are taking up the slack caused by theft and leaky water lines.

Thieves don’t just target petroleum pipelines but those carrying water as well.

Water shortages in the Mexico City borough of Tlalpan are partially the result of illegal taps on pipes, according to Mayor Patricia Aceves.

She said that since she took office at the start of October, her government has received several reports from citizens about the crime.

However, the main cause of the shortages is the aging network of water lines in the borough, which is leaking in several sections.

“The problem isn’t that there is no water but rather that it’s leaking,” Aceves said.

Sacmex, the Mexico City water department, has been notified about the theft and leakage issues but neither it nor the police has done anything about them, the mayor said, adding that “I imagine they’ll carry out an operation at some point.”

Aceves explained that thieves have targeted water lines in San Pedro Mártir and San Andrés Totoltepec as well as other neighborhoods located at higher altitudes near the Cumbres del Ajusco National Park.

Residents in more than 100 neighborhoods in Tlalpan have been affected by water shortages, forcing them to rely on deliveries from trucks, which in theory could be selling stolen water.

Three other boroughs in Mexico City – Benito Juárez, Coyoacán and Xochimilco – have also suffered water shortages over the past month.

Coyoacán Mayor Manuel Negrete said that his government is constantly asking the National Water Commission (Conagua) to increase water pressure in the system.

In Xochimilco, Mayor José Carlos Acosta explained that the water pumps aren’t working effectively and as a consequences homes have experienced distribution delays.

More than 30 trucks are currently supplying water to seven neighborhoods in the southern borough.

Mexico City’s main water system was closed for maintenance work for 156 hours late last year, leaving millions of people in the capital and the surrounding metropolitan area in México state without water.

New Conagua chief Blanca Jiménez Cisneros said in January that the work could have been carried out without turning off the Cutzamala system.

This year, Sacmex is planning to carry out repair work on 125 kilometers of the Mexico City water line network.

Source: El Sol de México (sp)

Is Mexico happier under AMLO? World Happiness Report suggests it might be

By

Madison Koen

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March 21, 2019

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Life satisfaction shows a steady upward trend, with spikes attributed to three significant events. World Happiness report 2019

Has Mexico been swept into a new era of prosperity and happiness by AMLO? The country climbed one position from 24^th to 23^rd in the United Nations’ World Happiness Report for 2019 and by the report’s own estimation, the slight improvement might have something to do with its new government.

The index measures happiness on a scale of one to 10 based on six key variables: gross domestic product per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity and freedom from corruption.

Satisfaction among Mexicans declined by half a point between 2013 and 2017, but it came back in 2018. During that period, the country’s ranking plunged from 16^th to 25^th.

The report highlighted that satisfaction is highest in Mexico in terms of personal relationships and lowest in terms of security. In a section dedicated to “happiness and government,” the report’s authors explained that the uptick in overall happiness and satisfaction in Mexico this year may be a result of the promised change in government culture by President López Obrador.

“Despite the achievements of the [incumbent] administration in traditionally relevant fields, such as economic activity and employment, mirrored by sustained satisfaction with those domains of life, the public seemed to feel angry and fed up with political leaders, who were perceived as being unable to solve growing inequalities, corruption, violence and insecurity. When the election went the way these voters wished, then this arguably led to an increase in their life satisfaction.”

The study found that overall life satisfaction steadily increased between 2013 and 2018, with a spike upwards when free long-distance calls were introduced, a downward spike when gas prices went up and another upward movement following the election of López Obrador.

The report measures happiness in a total of 156 countries. Finland once again received the distinction of being the world’s happiest nation followed by its traditional competitors Denmark, Norway and Iceland. South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Afghanistan came at the bottom of the list as the least happiest.

Mexico ranked as Latin America’s second happiest country after first-place Costa Rica.

Mexico News Daily

At 4,826 in first two months, homicide numbers continue to break records

By

MND Staff

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March 21, 2019

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The combined number of homicide cases in January and February made the first two months of 2019 the most violent first bimester of any year on record, official statistics show.

A total of 4,826 intentional homicide cases were reported in the two-month period, according to the National Public Security System (SNSP), an increase of 14% compared to January and February of last year when there were 4,234 cases.

Compared to the first two months of earlier years of the previous government’s six-year term, the increase is even greater: the number of homicides in January and February of 2019 is almost 30% higher than the same period of 2017, 65% higher than 2016 and 89% above the 2015 figure.

Last month, 2,374 cases were reported, a decline of just over 3% compared to the 2,452 cases recorded in the first month of the year, which was the most violent January on record.

However, the daily murder rate increased in February to just under 85 from 79 the month before.

Colima remained the most violent state in Mexico last month in per capita terms, recording 6.7 homicides per 100,000 residents.

Guanajuato, where security forces carried out an operation against the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel this month, was the second most violent, recording a per-capita homicide rate of 5.7.

With 5.3 homicides per 100,000 residents, Baja California was the third most violent state followed by Morelos, Chihuahua, Guerrero, Quintana Roo, Jalisco, Michoacán, Tabasco and Zacatecas.

The least violent state was Yucatán with just 0.2 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants followed by Baja California Sur, Campeche, Coahuila, Hidalgo, Aguascalientes, Tlaxcala, Querétaro, Durango and Nayarit, all of which recorded per-capita murder rates below one per 100,000.

In addition to homicide, the rates for a range of other crimes increased in the first two months of 2019 compared to the same period last year.

The number of femicides – women and girls killed on account of their gender – increased by 12% to 147 cases reported in January and February, kidnappings were up 80% to 270 cases and extortion rose by 58% to 1,414 cases.

The number of reported sexual abuse cases increased by 50% to 3,483 and probes into retail drug trafficking offenses went up by 15% to 11,114.

Statistics also show that in each of the three full months since President López Obrador took office – December, January and February – there have been higher numbers of intentional homicides, femicides and kidnappings than in November, the last month of Enrique Peña Nieto’s presidency.

Cases of extortion declined in December compared to November but in the past two months the incidence of the crime was higher than in the last month of the previous government.

Vehicle theft declined slightly in December compared to November before exceeding the rate recorded in Peña Nieto’s last month in office in January. Figures for the crime in February, however, were 13.5% lower than in November.

The stubbornly high rates of homicides, femicides and kidnappings underscore the monumental security challenge faced by López Obrador, who has pledged to “pacify” the country, and his fledgling administration.

The centerpiece of the government’s strategy to combat the high levels of crime is the creation of a national guard, which has now been approved by both houses of Congress and legislatures of all 32 states.

The new security force is expected to be made up initially of around 80,000 members but Public Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo has said that he hopes its size will swell to 150,000 by the end of the year as a result of intense recruitment.

Source: Milenio (sp) El Financiero (sp)