The United States returned a collection of over 3,500 pre-Hispanic copper coins to Mexican authorities in a ceremony in Miami on Monday.
The coins were used in what are now Michoacán and Guerrero between the years 1200 and 1500, according to Jessica Cascante, spokesperson for the Mexican Consulate in Miami.
A U.S. collector acquired them in Texas at a numismatic fair in the 1960s, she said, but at that time neither Mexico nor the United States was part of a UNESCO convention that guarantees the return of such heritage artifacts to their countries of origin.
Cascante said the fragile, tongue-shaped coins, which are currently covered in verdigris, will be sent to Mexico in January.
Agents of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) who headed the operation to recover the coins attended the presentation ceremony along with the Consul General of Mexico in Miami, Jonathan Chait.
The collection consists of over 3,500 coins.
Mexican authorities notified the FBI of the existence of the coins in 2013 when they were taken to Spain for an auction. Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) then began authenticating the coins in order to request their return.
As both countries were by then signatories to the UNESCO convention (Mexico in 1972 and the United States in 1983), the return process was completed six years later.
Cascante did not divulge the name of the collector who obtained the coins in the 1960s, but said that he did so before it constituted a crime and turned them in voluntarily.
“Now we’re just waiting for the physical material to arrive [in Mexico],” she said, adding that they are currently being packaged with the support of specialists from history museums in Florida.
The monolith Peña de Bernal, which forms a backdrop to the Magical Town of San Sebastián Bernal, would be included in the geopark.
The National Autonomous University (UNAM) is pushing for the creation of a third Mexican UNESCO global geopark in Querétaro.
The park would encompass the Peña de Bernal, one of the world’s largest monoliths, as well as the area known as the Sacred Triangle of Querétaro, which includes the Zamorano Volcano and the Frontón mountain.
Gerardo Aguirre Díaz, a researcher at UNAM’s Center of Geosciences and coordinator of the team promoting the creation of the new park, told the newspaper El Universal that a proposal has been submitted to UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and could be ratified in April or May next year.
The Querétaro reserve would become Mexico’s third global geopark after the Comarca Minera in Hidalgo and the Mixteca Alta in Oaxaca, which were designated by UNESCO in 2017.
The organization defines global geoparks as “single, unified geographical areas where sites and landscapes of international geological significance are managed with a holistic concept of protection, education and sustainable development.”
There are currently 147 UNESCO-recognized geoparks in 41 countries.
Aguirre said the designation of a geopark in Querétaro would recognize the traditions of the Otomí and Chichimeca peoples as well as the geological characteristics of the Peña de Bernal monolith and its biodiversity.
The 433-meter-high monolith, believed to have formed during the Jurassic period, is at the junction of three geologically important features of Mexican topography: the Sierra Madre Occidental, the Sierra Madre Oriental and the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt.
The rock has been on UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list since 2009.
Aguirre, who has been researching the geology of Queretaro for 30 years, said that one of UNAM’s aims in seeking the global geopark designation is for local residents to place greater value on the area in which they live and protect the environment.
He also said that a geopark classification would benefit residents economically, explaining that there will be opportunities for people to open new hotels and restaurants, work as guides and sell their arts and crafts.
“We hope that quality tourism, which promotes the protection of nature, will gradually increase and replace mass tourism that damages the environment,” Aguirre said.
A Veracruz producer with vanilla plants. rita sánchez
It’s a good and bad time to be a vanilla grower in Veracruz.
Mexican vanilla is currently selling for about 10,000 pesos (US $530) a kilo due to rising demand and poor weather in other countries – mainly Madagascar – that produce the world’s second most expensive spice after saffron.
However, for vanilla growers in Papantla – a city that has been known as “the vanilla capital” and which once upon a time was dubbed “the city that perfumes the world” – the potential reward doesn’t come without considerable risk that the lucrative crop will be targeted by thieves.
Óscar Ramírez, founder of a local vanilla growers’ association, took a reporter from the United States’ National Public Radio up a steep mountain path in Papantla to an isolated location where the crop is grown and dried.
“It’s hidden, it’s in the middle of nowhere, we have to have [the crop] here” to avoid theft, he said. The 29-year-old said he doesn’t know a single vanilla grower who hasn’t been a victim of crime.
Vanilla pods drying in the sun.
Organized crime groups, many of which have diversified into the trafficking of things like stolen fuel and avocados, particularly target vanilla pods that have already been cut from the vine and are drying in the open.
The risk of theft, and other factors including climate change and the loss of tropical forests, have led to a 90% reduction in vanilla production in the hills of Papantla over the past 50 years.
Ramírez told NPR that he was concerned that Mexican vanilla could soon become extinct, explaining that young farmers prefer to grow crops that are faster and less risky.
Héctor Canales Villa, an orange grower and friend of Ramírez, explained that he can harvest more than once a year whereas a vanilla orchid blossoms just one day a year. In addition, vanilla has to be hand pollinated because bee populations have long been in decline in the area, pods take nine months to fully mature and drying them can take up to two more months.
Adolfo San Martín García, a 62-year-old Totonacan man, recalled that vanilla used to be dried in the central square of Papantla, located about 240 kilometers north of the port city of Veracruz.
“It was a joy to see it,” he told NPR, explaining that he used to help his grandfather with his crop as a boy in the late 1960s.
However, San Martín said that he gave up growing vanilla as a teenager because it was such hard work. Wearing traditional indigenous costume, he now makes a living performing for tourists who visit the pretty town that is also well known for its version of an ancient Mesoamerican pole-flying ceremony.
Vanilla, one of 16 Mexican products that enjoy denomination of origin protection, was used by the Totonacans in pre-Hispanic times to pay tribute to the Aztecs, who used it to flavor their hot chocolate.
In the early 16th century, the Aztecs — or Mexicas as they were known at the time — even served the drink to Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, who after conquering the ancient city of Tenochtitlán took a range of native products back to Spain including the vanilla plant.
Thirteen new hotels with a combined total of more than 5,000 rooms will open in Cancún and the Riviera Maya in 2020.
The 174-room Canopy by Hilton is set to be the first new hotel to begin operations in the new year. Located in Cancún’s hotel zone, the Canopy is expected to welcome its first guests in February.
Hot on its heels will be the 1,200-room, all-inclusive Planet Hollywood resort at Playa Mujeres, which is scheduled to open its beachfront doors in March.
Other hotels scheduled to open in the Cancún area next year are the family-friendly, 416-room Dreams Vista Cancún Resort & Spa, a 120-room Misión Exprés in the resort city’s downtown, a 126-room NH hotel at the airport and a 675-room Majestic Elegance resort at Playa Mujeres.
Another seven hotels are expected to open next year in the Riviera Maya, a 120-kilometer-long stretch of Caribbean coastline in northern Quintana Roo.
They are the 1,044-room Senator hotel in Puerto Morelos, the 156-room Saint Regis Kanai at Punta Bete Xcalacoco (just north of Playa del Carmen), the 180-room W Kania Retreat also in Punta Bete, the 276-room Nickelodeon resort at Punta Brava (just south of Puerto Morelos), Grupo Xcaret’s luxury 63-room La Casa de la Playa (The Beach House) near Playa del Carmen, the 20-room boutique Awakening hotel at San Manuel and the 850-room Barceló Riviera Maya resort.
The 13 new properties boast a combined total of 5,300 rooms. On top of that figure, thousands more rooms will be added to Quintana Roo’s accommodation stock in the near future. According to the state Tourism Secretariat, applications to build projects with more than 16,000 rooms were filed in 2019.
Governor Carlos Joaquín said this month that the number of rooms available in Quintana Roo grew by 4.2% this year to 107,210. However, visitor numbers failed to match that growth, increasing by only 1.8%.
The uneven growth caused both hotel occupancy levels and rates to fall in the Caribbean coast state this year.
Paul DesLauriers plays at Blues on the Beach next month.
Award-winning Canadian blues guitarist Paul DesLauriers is set to headline the Blues on the Beach music festival in Huatulco, Oaxaca, on January 18.
DesLauriers will be joined by American blues and soul singer Annika Chambers and Canadian blues harmonica player Guy Bélanger.
The festival has attracted visitors and locals alike since 2012, supporting a local nonprofit organization with the proceeds.
The Paul DesLauriers Band is known as one of Canada’s most renowned blues groups, according to information provided by the festival. It took home the entertainer of the year and electric act of the year awards at the Maple Blues Awards in both 2016 and 2017. DesLauriers and his fellow musicians have also won various individual Maple Blues Awards.
The band also took second place at the 32nd International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2016. The band’s most recent album, Bounce, was released in June 2019.
From Houston, Texas, Annika Chambers honed her vocal cords singing gospel music in church, but her talent brought her notice during her military service. After a performance singing the national anthem, she went on tour in Kosovo and Iraq to boost morale among her fellow soldiers.
Chambers returned to Houston after two tours of duty and formed her own band, the Houston All-Stars. They were nominated for best new artist album at the Blues Music Awards (BMA) in 2015, and in 2019 she was awarded the BMA for soul blues female artist.
Guy Bélanger’s touring career spans over four decades. Inspired by blues harmonica greats such as Muddy Waters, Koko Taylor, James Cotton and Big Mama Thornton, he toured Europe and North America extensively before releasing his first studio album in 2008.
His latest, Eldorado, was released in October 2019. Bélanger’s awards include two Maple Blues Awards and 14 Lys Blues Awards.
The entertainers are the only people involved in the festival who receive payment. The rest of the proceeds will go to Un Nuevo Amanecer (A New Dawn), which works with local children who suffer from various disabilities, helping them to live as independently as possible.
The festival will be held at the Sea Soul Huatulco Beach Club on Huatulco’s Chahue Bay. Tickets cost 400 pesos (US $21) and are for sale at Resort Real Estate Services, Giordana’s Trattoria, Café Juanita, Restaurante Viena and Aventura Mundo.
'Please don't leave:' residents attempt to prevent security forces from leaving danger area.
More than a year after they were forced to abandon their communities due to cartel violence, displaced residents of the Guerrero municipality of Leonardo Bravo sought assistance from federal and state security forces on Sunday so that they could return home.
After becoming aware that the National Guard, the army and state police had launched an operation in response to violent incursions into El Carrizal and El Naranjo over the weekend, residents traveled to the latter community to ask personally that security forces remain in Leonardo Bravo to protect citizens and repel armed groups that operate in and around Filo de Caballos, a town notorious for violence and the cultivation of opium poppies.
Accompanied by representatives of the Morelos y Pavón Human Rights Center, the residents set up a blockade to try to prevent the security forces’ departure.
According to a report by the newspaper Milenio, the federal and state security personnel argued that they couldn’t stay because they didn’t have orders to do so from their superiors.
After several minutes of heated discussion, the security forces persuaded the residents to lift their blockade so that they could leave.
Human rights center director Manuel Olivares Hernández said human rights representatives and residents followed the security forces “because we also had to leave the area for security reasons.”
The residents issued a plea to the federal government for the National Guard to return to their towns and take over security duties from community police.
They described their situation as desperate, explaining that they fear further attacks on their towns by criminal groups. Residents said that the body of an unidentified male youth was found in El Naranjo after an attack on the town Saturday morning.
Several criminal groups operate in Leonardo Bravo and the surrounding region including Los Rojos and Los Ardillos, which have engaged in a bloody turf war in recent years.
On the cusp of New Year’s Eve, this column had to be about mezcal.
Often described as tequila’s smoky-tasting cousin, mezcal’s flavor is actually much more complex and often surprising. Like wine, the specific type of agave, where the plants are grown, how they’re harvested, fermented and processed, all these factors result in completely different flavor components.
Mezcal labels are detailed, and at the very least should carry the variety or varieties of agave used, the state or region where it was grown and the name of the mezcalero who made it. The best will come from Oaxaca, known as the home of mezcal.
While mezcal can be made from over 30 different types of agave, the Mexican government has decreed it must originate in the states of Durango, Guerrero, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Puebla, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas or Zacatecas. Much like champagne, pizza and Parmigiano-Reggiano, these government-regulated denomination of origin ensures the integrity of the product.
What’s unfortunate, though, is that smaller mezcaleros, especially in Oaxaca, find themselves in a situation like small growers everywhere: they can’t afford the 40,000-50,000-peso cost for certification, registration, inspections and taxes necessary for licensing, and end up struggling to make a living by selling the artisanal mezcal that may have been made in their family or village for generations.
Harvesting agave for mezcal production.
“It’s hard to find beautifully handmade spirits,” says Lou Bank, co-founder of SACRED, a not-for-profit organization that uses education, advocacy and fundraising to increase awareness about mezcal and those who make it. “There’s care and intention to them. There’s a heartbeat to it that isn’t in spirits that are industrially made.”
There are an increasing number of grassroots groups and cooperatives dedicated to marketing real mezcal. Before you buy, do your homework!
So how is mezcal different from tequila? Tequila is a type of mezcal, but mezcal is not usually tequila. Both are made from the cooked, fermented piñas, or hearts, of the agave plant, but that’s where the similarity ends.
For mezcal, the piñas are smoked and baked in large underground pits lined with brick or rock, turning the starch into sugar, and then fermented with wild yeast; tequila is made from one specific type of agave, steamed in ovens and processed differently.
Another thing people wonder is why mezcal (and better tequilas) are so expensive. Some small growers produce only a limited number of liters per year, like certain wines. And the plant itself takes a minimum of four years to mature (most take a decade) and be ready to be made into mezcal. The older the plant, the more complex the flavors and aromas will be; distillers like to say that “mezcal tastes like time.”
While mezcal aficionados advise sipping slowly to fully enjoy the natural complexities of the beverage, it’s also a versatile base for a multitude of cocktails. The easiest is to mix just about any mezcal with grapefruit soda orplain seltzer, preferably one with a high mineral and/or salt content, like Topo Chico.
Watermelon Sugar, made with an un-aged mezcal.
Watermelon Sugar
Joven mezcals are young mezcals – clear or very lightly colored – that haven’t been aged.
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. superfine sugar
¼ tsp. cayenne
Two 1-inch cubes watermelon
¾ oz. simple syrup
¾ oz. fresh lime juice
½ oz. joven mezcal
1½ oz. blanco tequila
On a small plate, mix salt, sugar and cayenne and use to rim a medium cocktail glass. In a cocktail shaker, crush watermelon with a muddler or long-handled spoon. Half fill the shaker with ice and vigorously shake the watermelon, syrup, lime juice, mezcal and tequila. Strain into glass and serve. –The New York Times
La Canadiense
The rich smoky flavors of the whisky and mezcal pack a double delicious whammy that’s complemented perfectly by the maple syrup.
2 oz.Canadian whiskey
1 oz. joven mezcal
½ oz. maple syrup
Dash apple bitters
Dash old-fashioned bitters
Orange peel from 1/2 orange
In a small pitcher, stir together whiskey, mezcal, maple syrup and bitters. Add peel and muddle. Pour over rocks in a double old-fashioned glass. –The New York Times
Orange Maria
Look for an espadin mezcal with honeyed, smoky flavors to make this fresh take on a hangover cure.
2 oz. mezcal
Fresh carrot juice
Ginger beer
Fresh orange juice
Fill a Collins glass with ice and add the mezcal. Fill the glass about 3/4 of the way with carrot juice. Top with ginger beer, a splash of orange juice and stir to combine. Garnish with a crispy pork rind, lime peel or ginger twist. –Imbibe Magazine
Spicy Paloma
Exactly what it says it is, with a yummy mix of hot and sweet flavors.
1-3 thin slices jalapeño pepper
1½ ounces of mezcal
2 ounces of fresh grapefruit juice
½ ounce of agave or simple syrup
Dash of Angostura bitters, if available
Club soda
In the bottom of a cocktail shaker, muddle jalapeño. Add mezcal, grapefruit juice, and agave or simple syrup. Add bitters if desired and lots of ice. Shake together and double-strain into a tall glass over fresh ice. Add 2 oz. of club soda. Garnish with a jalapeño ring. –Food & Wine magazine
They Didn’t Burn Rome in a Day
A little more complicated to make but well worth the effort. If you must substitute canned pineapple, be sure it’s unsweetened.
Purée pineapple in a food processor or blender. Force purée through a fine strainer. You should have a half-cup of juice. Place in a large cocktail shaker with honey and all but a couple of pinches of the peppercorns. Add mezcal, bitters and lime juice. Add ice, shake and strain over ice into double rocks glasses. Dust with reserved pink peppercorns. Makes 2 cocktails. –The New York Times
Janet Blaser of Mazatlán, Sinaloa, has been a writer, editor and storyteller her entire life, and feels fortunate to write about great food, amazing places, fascinating people and unique events. Her work has appeared in numerous travel and expat publications as well as newspapers and magazines. Her first book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, is available on Amazon. Contact Janet or read her blog at whyweleftamerica.com.
Two armed and masked thieves stole historical objects from the Fort of Guadalupe Museum in Puebla city on Friday night after tying up a security guard.
The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said in a statement that the thieves got away with 36 historic coins and medals, three sabers, a digital video recorder and the monitor of the museum’s video surveillance system.
INAH personnel were informed of the theft by the security guard who managed to free himself after the thieves had fled.
Accompanied by state and municipal police, they carried out an inspection of the museum in the early hours of Saturday morning to determine the extent of the theft. A criminal complaint was subsequently filed with the federal Attorney General’s Office, INAH said.
The institute said it would seek greater support from municipal and state authorities in order to bolster security at all museums and cultural precincts in Puebla.
The Fort of Guadalupe Museum houses items of historical importance from the Battle of Puebla, a clash between the Mexican army and invading French forces on May 5, 1862. The fort itself was successfully defended by the Mexican soldiers who, led by General Ignacio Zaragoza, won a famous victory over the better-equipped French army.
The fort museum, located in a cultural precinct five kilometers northeast of downtown Puebla, will remain closed until further notice, INAH said.
Former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán may be out of the picture but his tunnel-building legacy lives on.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reports that tunnels are still commonly used for drug smuggling in the primary border towns in which the cartel operates, such as Tijuana, Mexicali and Nogales.
The most recent tunnel discovery was made by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) on December 19. It crossed the border from Nogales, Sonora, into Río Rico, Arizona.
The U.S. government named it Tunnel 125, the number being the running count of functioning tunnels discovered since 1990. Another 119 unfinished tunnels have also been discovered since then.
In the three years since El Chapo’s arrest, U.S. border forces have found 35 passageways, primarily in Baja California and Sonora, the route the Sinaloa Cartel has used since the 1990s.
All the tunnels discovered in Mexicali, Tijuana and Tecate had lighting, ventilation, electric elevators and steel rails for the carts used to move drugs.
Discovered in April 2016, the longest tunnel seized so far ran 800 meters from Tijuana to San Diego, according to California officials.
Nogales is considered the cradle of drug tunnels, as U.S. border forces discover an average of one per month there, either in use or under construction.
On August 23, 2018, a tunnel task force operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) discovered a tunnel running from a fast food restaurant in Arizona to a house in San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora. The owner of the property was arrested for possession of US $1 million worth of methamphetamines, cocaine, heroin and fentanyl.
U.S. Army engineers will design technology to detect tunnels this coming year and the U.S. Congress has approved the $2 million the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requested for the project.
In a speech to the U.S. Senate in April, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent Timothy J. Tubbs said the corrupting ability of the cartels is extensive and has its tentacles in both countries.
He said the primary drug-running organizations are the of Sinaloa, Jalisco New Generation and Zetas cartels, whose sourcing operations extend as far as Asia.
Tubbs said that DHS deployed 1,700 special agents and 180 intelligence research specialists on the U.S.-Mexico border in response to the smuggling.
In 2018 HSI investigations led to 4,562 criminal arrests, 3,523 indictments, 3,173 convictions and 153 administrative immigration arrests.
Tubbs praised the collaborative relationship between the two countries in its ability to take down targets such as “El Chapo” Guzmán.
“Mexico has proven to be an outstanding partner in the fight against [transnational criminal organizations], taking down the cartels’ top leadership and helping in efforts to dismantle these organizations,” he said.
Tunnel master Guzmán, whose most famous project was the 1.5-kilometer tunnel that led him to freedom from the Altiplano penitentiary in México state in 2015, is serving a life sentence after being convicted in July on drug, murder and money laundering charges.
Six people were killed and five were wounded in an attack at a gas station in Uriangato, Guanajuato, early Saturday morning.
The attack was carried out by gunmen in several vehicles around 3:00am near the municipal fairgrounds.
Emergency personnel arrived on the scene soon after the attack to find five dead and three wounded.
But soon after it was reported that three other men who had been hurt in the attack had arrived at a local hospital on their own. One of them died while receiving medical attention.
Municipal police had received a report of shots being fired near the Burladero Bar, local authorities said. Upon arriving, officers found five people dead.
They said the state sent 60 police officers to the area to reinforce local security forces.
“After the terrible events in Uriangato, at the instructions of Governor [Sinhue] we have sent 60 officers and we are in close coordination with the [Attorney General’s Office] to shine a light on the events,” a state official said.
The attack occurred just hours after the local fair ended with a concert by the musical duo Río Roma, which had had its musical equipment stolen at gunpoint the night before. The equipment was found in Salamanca just hours after being stolen.
