Tourists from the United States make up about half of the foreign passengers in the air travel market in Mexico. (Unsplash)
Almost 119 million travelers traveled on international and national flights in Mexico in 2023 according to Tourism Minister Miguel Torruco Marqués.
The majority of passengers flew on five national and two international airlines, with the most foreign passengers traveling from the United States and Canada, a Tourism Ministry (Sectur) report shows.
Viva Aerobus was Mexico’s second largest carrier in terms of passenger numbers in 2023. (Mario Jasso/Cuartoscuro)
The four busiest Mexican airlines in the domestic market were Volaris (24.3 million passengers), Viva Aerobus (21.1 million), Aeroméxico (12.2 million) and Aeroméxico Connect (5.2 million).
Internationally, Aeroméxico and Volaris carried the largest number of passengers, with a total of 12.2 million — an increase of 17.9% compared to 2022 figures, and a massive 23.5% increase over the same period in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic decimated the industry.
American Airlines and United were the leading U.S. carriers in Mexico. Together, they transported a total of 12.9 million passengers, a 1% increase from 2022 and a 41.2% increase from the passenger figures of 2019.
North American passengers dominated the international market in Mexico with an 84.5% market share. Some 27.4 million passengers traveled with U.S. airlines to Mexico in 2023, while 15.3 million traveled on international routes operated by Mexican airlines, and 4.1 million passengers traveled on flights operated by Canadian airlines.
Increased airport capacity, including a new airports in Tulum, helped the country to record air travel figures, says Sectur. (Elizabeth Ruiz/Cuartoscuro)
As for European tourists, Torruco added that last year this market increased by 2.3% compared to 2022, with 4.63 million passengers. Meanwhile, the Central and South American markets increased 2.5% with 4.19 million. Both markets represent 7.6% market share.
The number of Asian tourists traveling to Mexico grew 20.4%compared to 2022, with 312,351 passengers.
Alfonso Gutíerrez is part of the San Francisco 49ers squad that has reached Super Bowl LVIII against the Kansas City Chiefs. (Alfonso Gutíerrez/Instagram)
You won’t hear Alfredo Gutiérrez’s name mentioned during the CBS telecast of Super Bowl LVIII on Feb. 11 — but Mexican fans will feel a sense of pride, anyway.
The 28-year-old Tijuana native is a member of the San Francisco 49ers, who will play the Kansas City Chiefs for the NFL title thanks to a come-from-behind 34-31 win Sunday over the Detroit Lions in the NFC Championship.
49ers #77 Gutíerrez is yet to play a match, but has been an important member of the 49ers practice squad for 3 seasons. (Alfredo Gutíerrez/Instagram)
The hulking 6-foot-9, 332-pound offensive lineman didn’t play in that game, nor will he play in the Super Bowl in Las Vegas, nor has he ever played in a regular-season NFL game.
But he’s on the 49ers’ roster as a member of the practice squad, meaning he’ll play an important role as the 49ers work on their game plan.
Gutiérrez was born in Tijuana, Baja California, on Dec. 29, 1995 and after playing youth football in Mexico, he attended Montgomery High School in San Diego, where he played football as a junior and senior.
After graduating, he wanted to play at a community college in Southern California, but an eligibility issue prompted his transfer to the Institute of Technology and Higher Studies in Monterrey, Nuevo León.
There, he played on scholarship for the Monterrey Tech Borregos (Rams) in the National Student Organization of American Football (ONEFA), one of two leagues in Mexico playing U.S.-style football.
The Borregos won one national championship with Gutiérrez, finishing with a 10-1 record in 2019.
In 2021, he entered the NFL’s International Player Pathway Program and impressed scouts so much that he was signed to a one-year contract for US $207,000 by the 49ers, who will be going for their sixth Super Bowl ring next week.
The 49ers have re-signed him twice since then, and now he is hoping to become the first athlete who played American football at a Mexican university to become a Super Bowl champion.
Gutíerrez also won a Mexican college national title with Borregos. (Alfonso Gutíerrez/Instagram)
Other Mexicans have played for Super Bowl winners — such as Torreón, Coahuila–born kicker Raul Allegre of the 1987 New York Giants — but they generally played college football in the United States.
Gutiérrez has never played a down for the 49ers in the regular season or playoffs, but after his preseason debut in 2022, he was presented a game ball from 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan.
After the NFC Championship ended on Sunday, he presented his 49ers jersey to his father during the post-game celebration at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
“We come from playing in the streets and now we are one step away from winning a Super Bowl,” the dad says in a video that captured the moment. “I feel like the proudest dad in Mexico.”
Also proud is the family of Isaac Alarcón, a 25-year-old Monterrey native who was signed by the 49ers this month. The 6-foot-7, 301-pound offensive lineman, who, like Gutiérrez, played for the Borregos, was signed to a reserve/future contract, meaning he can’t play or even practice with the team until next season. Alarcón has participated in four Dallas Cowboys’ training camps but has never played in a regular-season game.
The assassination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta in 1994 remains a defining event in Mexico's modern political history. (Pedro Valtierra/Cuartoscuro)
Almost 30 years after the assassination of Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta at a political rally in Tijuana, the case is back in the spotlight after the Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) revealed that it formally accused a former federal agent of firing one of two bullets that struck the 44-year-old politician on March 23, 1994.
The FGR alleges that Jorge Antonio Sánchez Ortega, formerly an agent of the now-defunct Center for Investigation and National Security (CISEN), was the “second shooter” in the assassination of Colosio, but the evidence it presented to a court earlier this month did not convince the presiding judge to issue a warrant for his arrest.
Sánchez Ortega at the time of his arrest in 1994. (FGR)
The only person ever convicted of the assassination — described by the El País newspaper as Mexico’s “Kennedy case” — is Mario Aburto Martínez, who in 1994 was a 23-year-old factory worker. Aburto — who will leave prison this year — confessed that he acted alone, but has said he was tortured into making the confession.
Millions of Mexicans doubt or outright reject that he was the mastermind of — or even committed — the crime. Most fingers instead point at the PRI: an inside job against a candidate who — in pledging “to lead a new stage of change” in a country where the same party had been in power for decades — was trying to shake things up a little too much and made some powerful enemies in the process.
Carlos Salinas de Gortari, president of Mexico when Colosio was killed, described accusations that he was involved in a plot to kill the PRI candidate as “completely false.”
The FGR also alleges that Genaro García Luna, a former CISEN official and federal security minister, was involved in a federal government cover-up. García Luna was convicted in the United States on drug trafficking charges last year and is awaiting trial.
The FGR’s case against Sánchez Ortega
The Federal Attorney General’s Office said in a statement on Monday that it presented evidence to a federal court judge three weeks ago that proved Sánchez’s “presence at the place of the homicide at the same time of the crime, when there was a difference of seconds between both shots.”
Colosio was shot in the head and the abdomen while at a rally in the poor Tijuana neighborhood of Lomas Taurinas. Sánchez had been assigned to provide security to the candidate, according to the FGR statement.
The FGR said that “all the evidence” it presented to the court, “and especially the blood tests,” prove that Colosio’s “blood type” was found on Sánchez’s clothes.
Colosio Murieta’s son, Luis Donaldo Colosio Riojas, has asked President López Obrador to ensure that justice is achieved for his father. (Luis Donaldo Colosio Riojas/Facebook)
The results of sodium rhodizonate tests — which detect lead, including vaporous lead in the form of smoke — show that the accused “fired a gun,” it said.
The FGR also said that “a large number of [witness] testimonies” place Sánchez at the scene of the crime, “from which he fled.”
The same testimonies “deny that he helped transport the victim” to hospital, it added.
In addition, “a good number of testimonies confirm [Sánchez’s] arrest while he was wearing clothes stained with the victim’s blood,” the FGR said.
“… It is also duly proven that the CISEN of the Interior Ministry sent the accused to the scene of the crime” and subsequently got him out of Tijuana “urgently and surreptitiously,” it said.
The FGR said that García Luna — a CISEN deputy director at the time of the assassination — was “directly linked” to “a clear criminal cover-up” and was the person who “rescued” Sánchez from Tijuana after he was held in custody for less than 24 hours.
The FGR hits back at AMLO’s least favorite newspaper
The Reforma newspaper reported Monday that Judge Jesús Alberto Chávez Hernández refused to issue a warrant for Sánchez’s arrest because he concluded that the “only piece of evidence” the FGR has to “confirm a concerted action” between Aburto and the former CISEN agent is the statement of “a woman who is not reliable because she changed her testimony 25 years later.”
Mario Aburto Martínez remains the only man ever convicted in connection to the killing of Colosio. (Ricardo Reyes/Cuartoscuro)
It said that Leticia Ortiz, a colleague of Aburto at a Tijuana plastic factory, told authorities in 1998 that a man visited Arburto at his workplace on three occasions shortly before Colosio was assassinated. She described the person to authorities to allow them to complete a facial composite, Reforma said.
The newspaper — which is frequently derided by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador as a mouthpiece of Mexico’s “conservative elite” — reported that Ortiz was summoned by prosecutors last year and was shown two photographs, one of which featured Sánchez. She “guaranteed without any doubt” that he was the man who visited Aburto in the factory “days before the assassination,” Reforma said.
In its statement on Monday, the FGR said that the witness to which “a newspaper” refers and whom the newspaper asserts provided “the only piece of evidence” for its case against Sánchez “was never at” the scene of the crime “and didn’t witness any of the events.”
Without mentioning it by name, the FGR accused Reforma of “hiding all the incriminatory evidence” in the court file on which its article is based.
Reforma did report that police arrested Sánchez minutes after the assassination and that “his white jacket was stained with blood.”
It also said that he tested positive when a sodium rhodizonate test was conducted.
The Federal Attorney General’s Office, known at the time as the PGR, didn’t proceed against Sánchez because he wasn’t in possession of a gun when he was arrested and the only firearm found by authorities at the scene of the assassination was that used by Aburto, Reforma said.
The newspaper also said that prosecutors are investigating Jorge Tello Peón, who was the director of the CISEN when Colosio was assassinated.
The FGR accuses the presiding judge of bias
The FGR said in its statement that Chávez “acted with clear bias, breaking the obligatory principles of evaluation and analysis of the large body of evidence” presented to him.
It asserted that the judge gave precedence to footage of Colosio being shot for the first time over the entire body of evidence it submitted. The second shot — allegedly fired by Sánchez — came from a “totally different angle” and for that reason is not seen in the video, the FGR said.
“And there is no video directed toward the area where … [the] second shooter was,” the FGR said, adding that the footage of the first gunshot “cannot favor, in any way, the person responsible for the second shot.”
Colosio Murieta (center), moments before his assassination while campaigning in Tijuana in 1994. (Screen capture)
Later in the statement, the Federal Attorney General’s Office said that the judge “went so far as to express personal views against the federal executive, which is completely unacceptable in proceedings of such importance.”
Chávez, demonstrated that “political crimes,” just like cases of embezzlement “linked to previous governments” are “legally obstructed” to “prevent” justice from being served, the FGR said.
The autonomous government agency said it would appeal the judge’s ruling, “despite all these obstacles” to justice.
Where is Sánchez now?
According to Laura Sánchez Ley, a journalist who has investigated the Colosio case for years and wrote a book about it, Sánchez Ortega, now aged in his early 60s, no longer lives in Mexico.
If a warrant is issued for his arrest, locating him won’t be easy because he left the country, she said in an interview with Radio Fórmula without mentioning where he went.
Sánchez is not the first person accused of being the second shooter in the assassination of Colosio.
Othón Cortés Vázquez, who worked for the PRI as a driver, faced the same accusation, but the case against him was dropped in 1996 due to a lack of evidence.
AMLO weighs in
At his morning press conference on Tuesday, President López Obrador highlighted that García Luna is accused of involvement in a government cover-up of the assassination of Colosio. He has previously claimed that the conviction of the former security minister on drug trafficking charges is proof that Mexico was a “narco-state” when Felipe Calderón was president between 2006 and 2012.
López Obrador said that it is up to the FGR and “the judicial power” to ensure justice is served in the Colosio case, but stressed that no crime should go unpunished, and especially not one of such significance as the assassination of a presidential candidate.
“This is a state matter,” he said before responding to a request from Colosio’s son, Monterrey Mayor Luis Donaldo Colosio Riojas, to pardon Aburto.
Colosio Murrieta remains a political titan in Mexico, despite his assassination almost 30 years ago. (Isaac Esquivel/Cuartoscuro)
“I want to reply that I can’t do it. I know that neither [Colosio Riojas] nor his family want to know anything about this [crime], which was terrible, but it is, I repeat, a state matter and as far as I’m concerned, I don’t want the investigation to stop,” he said.
“… I have no intention to use such a regrettable situation for political purposes, … but it is important that there is no impunity if it’s a crime that, according to the Attorney General’s Office, has some relation to a state institution,” López Obrador said.
Late last year, he described the assassination of Colosio – who denounced corruption within the PRI, and almost certainly would have won the 1994 election – as a “state crime,” without offering any evidence to back up his claim.
A conviction against Sánchez — if he is arrested and the FGR manages to successfully prosecute its case against him — would likely give the president sufficient proof to support his allegation, although a conviction of a more senior member of the Salinas government would put his accusation beyond doubt.
The FGR is “following a route in which it begins accusing lower level ex-officials” before “going up the hierarchical ladder to try to get to … the ex-president Carlos Salinas de Gortari,” he wrote.
Internet retail giant Amazon will offer biweekly payment options in Mexico for the first time, through a partnership with Mexican fintech firm Kueski.
The collaboration aims to offer users without a credit card the option to purchase items in up to twelve biweekly installments with “buy now, pay later options” and personal loans, the startup’s Chief Financial Officer Andrew Seiz told Bloomberg in an interview.
Kueski will now offer credit to the millions of Mexican consumers outside of the traditional banking system. (Omar Martínez/Cuartoscuro)
“It’s an exciting milestone, given Amazon is such a significant merchant in the context of Mexico,” Seiz said. “With this agreement, people who may not have been able to access financing before will be able to purchase products on Amazon.”
Shoppers will now be able to select options of between two and 12 payments on their Amazon purchases. The new payment method will be available for every product in the e-commerce platform except for gift cards, e-books, Kindle, Prime Video and Audible products.
Mexico has become a significant market for fintech startups, as much of the country continues to remain outside the traditional banking system, and the majority of transactions are carried out in cash.
“Our agreement with Amazon demonstrates Mexicans’ need for more flexible, secure, and inclusive payment alternatives. Kueski Pay allows merchants to create more innovative shopping experiences and help Mexican consumers,” Kueski Vice President Lisset May said.
Shoppers can pay for their goods in up to 12 installments. (Amazon México/X)
Kueski has been in operation for 12 years and launched its BNPL area Kueski Pay three years ago. In that time, it has grown to employ 620 employees, and has approved almost 15 million loans.
In December 2021, the fintech announced it had raised US $202 million in a Series C funding round led by StepStone Group Inc and Victory Park Capital.
“The outlook in Mexico is very robust, from a macroeconomic perspective and consumer demand for our product.” Seiz said. “So, in the near to medium term we believe Mexico offers a pretty significant opportunity for us and we will as a result continue to focus on Mexico for now.”
While Kueski Pay is now available on Amazon Mexico, the company says it is in a preliminary phase before being rolled out to all users in April.
At least 20 people died when the bus they were on collided with a tractor-trailer early Tuesday morning. (Juan Navarro/X)
At least 20 people died and another 16 or so were injured early Tuesday morning when the bus they were on collided with a tractor-trailer.
The fatal accident occurred at around 4:30 a.m. on Highway 15D about halfway between Mazatlán and Culiacán in the state of Sinaloa, near the small community of Boscoso in the municipality of Elota. The collision involved a double-decker bus owned by the company Norte de Sinaloa that was traveling from Guadalajara, Jalisco to Los Mochis, Sinaloa. Both vehicles were burned beyond repair.
Most of the dead were on a bus travelling to the seaside town of Los Mochis. (@theinformantofc/X)
Some preliminary reports put the number of dead at 22, but the story was still developing on Tuesday. As of 12 p.m., it was still uncertain how many people were traveling on the bus, although one outlet stated that there had been at least 37 passengers aboard7. As of noon Wednesday, the names of the deceased had yet to be released and the section of highway near kilometer 104 where the crash occurred remained closed in both directions.
Preliminary witness accounts varied. One version reported in several publications asserts the tractor-trailer had overturned on the highway and that the bus could not avoid colliding with it, causing both vehicles to burst into flames. Another states that the fire initially broke out in the trailer and spread to the bus.
The National Guard and other security and civil protection agencies were immediately called to the scene, and the members of the state Attorney General’s Office (FGR) began investigating.
Personnel from Sinaloa’s Civil Protection agency released a partial list of survivors. A 7-month-old girl and four adults were listed among five people who did not require medical care, while the list of people taken to hospitals included 15 people ages 25 to 57 and a 14-year-old boy who had burns.
Local authorities have opened an investigation into the circumstances of the crash. (Omar Niño/X)
“I express my deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the people who died in the unfortunate accident,” Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya wrote on his X account. “All institutions, of the state and the federation, are currently focused on caring for the injured. Later we will give complete and reliable information about the facts.”
In other posts, users noted that the road conditions in that area are not good. “That road is rubbish,” Marco Guillén wrote on X. “There are so many accidents because it is unusable and the government does not hold the concessionaires accountable.”
According to Infobae, the 181.5-km Mazatlán-Culiacán toll highway is concessioned to IDEAL, an infrastructure group owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú. In 2009, he won a bid to operate the highway for 30 years.
“There is enormous negligence on the part of many, and among all of them is the lack of attention from the highway administration,” one Sinaloan wrote on social media.
Will President López Obrador continue to wield political power after he leaves office? (Cuartoscuro)
The survival of Mexico as we know it is at stake in this election, with two radically different options.
On one hand, the traditional parties (PAN, PRI, PRD) aim to preserve the 1917 Constitution and the spirit of the democratic transition (1977-1996) to protect their legacy. On the other hand, Morena and its allies (PT, PVEM) propose a new political order still without a defined outline but with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and his group at the center.
How different Morena’s new order will look depends on the electoral support they get. In the more extreme scenario, it could lead the country down the path of a constitutional convention, establishing the foundation for a stable competitive authoritarian regime, in which “formal democratic institutions are widely viewed as the principal means of obtaining and exercising political authority. However, incumbents violate those rules so often and to such an extent that the regime fails to meet conventional minimum standards for democracy.”
Almost six years ago, I voiced concerns regarding the future of Mexico’s electoral institutional framework, anticipating potential efforts by AMLO to erode the autonomy of the National Electoral Institute (INE).
I explicitly stated, “Now that AMLO has fulfilled his long-held ambition of becoming president, the real question is what will happen to the current electoral institutional framework?” and emphasized that “he might attempt to undermine the autonomy of the INE, openly or behind the scenes, to tilt the electoral field in favor of his party.”
Unfortunately, these fears materialized in April 2022 when AMLO officially introduced a bill to replace the INE with a new institution under his orbit of influence. This could have enormous repercussions: the autonomy of the INE constitutes the cornerstone of Mexican democracy.
It is essential to recall that Mexico’s democratic transition spans almost two decades and is characterized by a continuous cycle of “constant iterations of electoral fraud, opposition protest, and electoral reform.” Throughout this extended process, the primary contention between the hegemonic PRI and the opposition parties revolved around the autonomy of the electoral authorities concerning the executive branch, gradually granted through meaningful political and electoral reforms in the years 1977, 1986, 1989–1990, 1993, 1994, and 1996.
It took nearly two decades, spanning from 1977 to 1996, to build the democratic scaffold that underpins our democracy. This scaffold presided over four presidential elections, including Morena’s triumph in 2018, and was skillfully leveraged by AMLO to ascend to the presidency. However, its significance appears inconsequential to him. Over the past five years, we have observed a series of initiatives from his government aimed at vilifying and sidelining the INE, which serves as the guarantor of free and fair elections in Mexico. In essence, these actions threaten the foundations of democratic rule.
What I failed to foresee was the audacity displayed by AMLO. Much like many others, I was deceived by his softened image during the electoral season. I had anticipated that the endeavor to control the INE would involve negotiations in Congress and efforts to win over the left-leaning factions of the PRI. In 2018, I remarked: “Morena controls the Congress, and President AMLO will have no trouble unifying around him the parties on the left along with left-leaning sectors of the PRI. A coalition of that breadth amounts to two-thirds of Congress, the necessary threshold to appoint INE board members.”
However, the PRI eventually realized that supporting this option was, in essence, political suicide. Consequently, they chose to form an alliance with the PAN and the PRD, not merely to secure electoral victories but out of a pure survival instinct.
My initial naivety was swiftly dispelled, though, as I recognized that AMLO is in fact hoping to exercise power and exert influence even while he isn’t president. The evidence of 2023 is unmistakable: he is strategically positioning his allies to maintain control and decision-making authority over Morena after he exits the presidency. This became glaringly evident a few weeks ago when his favorites and close associates were chosen as the gubernatorial candidates in key states of Mexico. The clarity of this intention was particularly striking when his favorite candidate to represent Morena in the mayoral election in Mexico City was nominated, differing from the individual favored by his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum. The message resounded clearly to all who cared to listen: this is my party, and I am its leader.
The last president who pursued a similar path was Carlos Salinas (1988-1994), and his plan tragically unraveled when his political protégé and hand-picked successor, Luis Donaldo Colosio, was assassinated in Tijuana. In the 1930s, former president Plutarco Elías Calles (1924-1928) also exercised control over three presidents, between 1928 and 1934. This historical period is known as the “Maximato,” named after Calles’s moniker as el “Jefe Máximo.” Unfortunately for Calles, it didn’t end well. In 1934, Lázaro Cárdenas assumed the presidency, leading to conflicts between them. Eventually, Cárdenas forcibly sent Calles on a one-way plane trip to San Diego, California, in exile. The lesson here is clear: never underestimate the capacity of politicians to turn against those who supported them.
Uncertainties loom on the horizon for Mexico’s future. Personally, I believe that the upcoming election will be a closely contested one. Regardless of the outcome, it serves as a stark reminder that in politics, nothing is set in stone. The continuation of the democratic regime painstakingly built at the close of the twentieth century by a generation of Mexicans is not guaranteed. In fact, today, it’s not even assured that the Mexican state will survive in the manner we’ve known it for the first two decades of the 21st century.
Throughout Mexico’s tumultuous history, political upheavals have often left behind a trail of destruction. As we approach the precipice, we cannot dismiss the possibility of a resurgence in political violence to a magnitude not witnessed in over a century. The stakes are high, making this election of unparalleled importance, even extending beyond Mexico’s borders to impact the United States.
Alejandro García Magos is Lecturer of Political Science at the University of Toronto where he obtained his PhD. He received an MA in Political Science from the University of Calgary, and a BA in Economics from the Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City. His research interests are in democracy and authoritarianism, with a regional focus on the Spanish-speaking world.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mexico News Daily, its owner or its employees.
The overloaded tourist boat was traveling between Isla Mujeres and Puerto Juárez. (Elizabeth Ruiz/Cuartoscuro)
At least four people, including one minor, have died in an accident on an overloaded tourist boat traveling between Isla Mujeres and Puerto Juárez, Cancún.
The accident occurred on Monday night, when the catamaran Diosa del Mar was returning to Puerto Juárez after an afternoon trip to the Perla Negra restaurant bar on Isla Mujeres.
Local authorities’ delay in responding to the Diosa del Mar’s distress signal meant that tourism service providers were the first to reach the vessel. (Cuartoscuro.com)
According to local authorities who spoke to the newspaper El Universal, the 26-foot boat had capacity for 16 people but was carrying 19, including 14 adult tourists, one baby, two minors, the captain and a crew member.
The boat embarked on the return journey from Isla Mujeres at around 6:30 p.m., despite rough weather. Local meteorological reports recorded winds up to 50 kilometers per hour and waves up to 3 meters high.
The cause of the accident is still unconfirmed, but the boat is believed to have been capsized by a wave from a passing ship. It sent out a distress signal to local port and naval authorities, but their delayed response meant that tourism service providers from Isla Mujeres were the first to reach the stricken vessel.
As of Monday night, authorities had confirmed four people dead, including two women and a 10-year-old boy. Search operations continued for five passengers still missing at sea.
Several rescued passengers were transferred to hospital on Isla Mujeres, including some with serious injuries, at least one requiring life support and others suffering nervous breakdowns.
The remaining passengers were returned to Isla Mujeres. The captain, identified as Ramón C. M., was arrested for questioning on his role in the incident.
Authorities highlighted that the Perla Negra restaurant operates irregularly as a passenger dock and therefore lacks official personnel to check that vessels do not exceed capacity, passengers wear life jackets and captain and crew are fit to sail.
Officials from the Integral Port Administration of Quintana Roo (Apiqroo) also failed to prevent the boat departing from Puerto Juárez, despite it being over capacity. Local authorities have previously complained to the Apiqroo Operating Committee about a lack of maritime patrols to monitor boating operations.
In addition, the Port Captains of both Puerto Juárez and Isla Mujeres are being questioned for their failure to respond to the boat’s original distress calls, with some demanding that they be fired from their posts.
Eyes created for artist Lena Bartula’s current project, YO TE VEO
Lena Bartula, “La Huipilista,” an American textile artist living in San Miguel de Allende whose work is rooted in social consciousness and environmental awareness, is currently inviting anyone concerned about the plight of victims of the war in Gaza to participate in her latest project, YO TE VEO (I SEE YOU). Using crowd-sourced squares of fabric, each with an open eye stitched onto it by a volunteer, Bartula will craft a huge huipil, a traditional tunic worn by Indigenous women in Mexico and Central America.
YO TE VEO: Finding a way to bear witness and contribute
“YO TE VEO,” Bartula explained, “is a call to witness those who otherwise may be unseen or forgotten. I created this collaborative textile art project when I felt despair and hopelessness creep in over the tragic situation unfolding now in Gaza.
Lena Bartula and a volunteer sewing YO TE VEO squares. (Lena Bartula)
Bartula invites volunteers to join her at her studio and other locations in San Miguel de Allende and also encourages volunteers around the world to form their own stitching groups and mail the squares they create to her for inclusion in the project. Interested readers may contact her at [email protected] to request either “starter kits” of fabric squares precut to the correct dimensions or to learn the specifications to cut their own fabrics. Stitching groups have already formed in Mexico City, Mazatlán, Michoacán, and as far afield as Seattle and Ontario.
All YO TE VEO squares must be received by March 15, 2024, to be sewn into the oversize huipil, which will be displayed at the Museo de Arte Popular in the center of Mexico City from May 29 to Aug. 4 as part of a retrospective solo show entitled Hilo Corriendo or A Running Thread.
The role of the huipil
A traditional huipil is embroidered with geometric figures that reveal aspects of the wearer’s life, but only to the initiated — the Spanish conquerors could not read it. They didn’t know the story underneath the story.
Bartula explained why she chose the huipil as the underlying form for her artwork. “A huipil is known to be a messenger, a garment that carries information from the weaver to the wearer and to the world at large. With this project, YO TE VEO, our message to those persons suffering from genocide, political upheaval, displacement due to violence, climate change, et cetera, is that we see them. We witness what is happening. When feeling helpless to change their situations, we often despair and grow weary. Through this project, we commit in solidarity and humanity, to stand as witnesses, by embroidering an open eye that conveys the message I SEE YOU. YO TE VEO. Further, we ask for donations to be sent to an NGO to assist with addressing the medical emergencies that we are seeing now in Palestine.”
Sacrificio by Lena Bartula, created for an exhibition in San Miguel de Allende entitled Los Rostros de los Migrantes. (Lena Bartula)
Maité Jiménez, a textile designer who hosts sewing circles at Radio Nopal in San Miguel de Allende, was also motivated by this collaborative art project’s emphasis on acknowledging displacement and migration and giving disheartened observers a way to contribute.
Bartula strongly prefers that people work in groups, with friends or family members, because she believes that there is a healing quality in people sitting in community and together creating something beautiful for a cause.
Participants in the YO TE VEO project are encouraged to make a donation to an NGO that is providing emergency medical services and food in Gaza. For more information about the organization or to make a donation, visithttps://matwcheckout.org/.
From painter to textile artist, from Santa Fe to San Miguel de Allende
In 1993, Barula first traveled to Mexico and Central America with a group of American radical feminist nuns who were working in war-torn Central American countries. The nuns created an organization called GATE: Global Awareness Through Experience. “They left their Dominican convent and said, ‘We’re going to do the work.’ They were such revolutionaries, and I was awed by them and their work. I also fell in love with Mexico during that time,” she said.
Two years later, while still living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Bartula was invited to the Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara (Guadalajara International Book Fair) to present art commemorating the Royal Road that led from Mexico City to Santa Fe during colonial times. “I was a radical back then, so I painted a huge image of Indigenous people revolting against the priests and setting the churches on fire.”
Inspired by these experiences, Bartula moved to Mexico from Santa Fe in 2004, living for several years in Mineral de Pozos, Guanajuato, before settling in San Miguel de Allende.
Dark Goddess, Black Madonna. (Lena Bartula)
Her transition from painting to textile art has a practical backstory. After suffering the expense of shipping her paintings to France for an exhibition, when she received her next international invitation, to exhibit her work in Milan, Bartula consciously chose to work with fabric, so that her work could be folded into a suitcase. For years, she had been collecting traditional huipiles for their beauty and originality but hadn’t thought of making her own textile art until then.
Her first garment was inspired by Santa Lucía, who, according to legend, dug out her own eyes to keep herself from being married off to a man she didn’t love. For Bartula, this led to fifteen years of work to tell the stories of the many powerful women who need to be talked about, those who had to stand up for their rights but whom history has often forgotten, such as Mexico’s own Sor Juana and Hypatia, the noted philosopher of Alexandria who was killed by “mad monks” before they burned the Library of Alexandria. Bartula’s works about women are chronicled in a 2018 book entitled “Whispers in the Thread/Susurros en el Hilo: Celebrating 15 years of contemporary art huipils by Lena Bartula.”
Since 2018, pandemic isolation and migration have been dominant themes in Bartula’s work.
She also notes that 99% of the materials she uses are recycled or found objects. “I am both a recycling artist who loves textiles and a textile artist who loves to recycle. There’s no separation for me between my art and the world, or the world and my heart. When I see something happening in the world, it comes into me and then it comes out again as art. That way it doesn’t have to stay inside me, in my psyche. I work with it, and then it moves out into a bigger world so that other people can either feel it — or not. That is their choice, but at least I’ve done the work and offered it to the world.”
To learn more about Lena Bartula’s art and to participate in the YO TE VEO project, visitwww.lenabartula.com or contact her at [email protected].
Based in San Miguel de Allende, Ann Marie Jackson is a writer and NGO leader who previously worked for the U.S. Department of State. Her award-winning novel “The Broken Hummingbird,” which is set in San Miguel de Allende, came out in October 2023. Ann Marie can be reached through her website, annmariejacksonauthor.com.
There is a great variety of chili peppers used to prepare Mexican dishes. (Shutterstock)
Mexican cuisine is renowned for the lively and often spicy flavors that characterize traditional dishes like enchiladas, refried beans, pozole, guacamole and more.
Achieving these authentic flavors largely depends on having the right ingredients. But with so many types of chili pepper, spices and herbs, it can get overwhelming to even start thinking about cooking Mexican food at home.
Cilantro is the best accompaniment for tacos and other Mexican dishes. (Unsplash)
Fear not, because we’ve prepared a guide to help you stock your kitchen with the ingredients you’re most likely to use in your everyday life in Mexico – or anywhere you want to cook authentic Mexican food.
From fresh and dried herbs to dried chilis, canned goods and native spices like achiote or epazote, this guide breaks down the most popular foods you’ll need in your pantry so you can easily identify them at the supermarket and use them at home.
The ingredients are categorized into herbs, spices, canned goods and dried chilis, to make your grocery shopping a bit easier.
Let’s dive right in!
1. Herbs
As with any cuisine, herbs or hierbas de olor are an important part of Mexican cooking. These aromatic herbs are used in fresh and dried forms and are vital in almost every savory dish.
The basic herbs you need for a complete Mexican pantry include:
Cilantro: Cilantro is a ubiquitous herb in Mexican cuisine, employed in dishes like guacamole, broths, salsas, pico de gallo and more.
This herb is used in its fresh form and is available in every supermarket or tiendita de la esquina (corner store).
Parsley (perejil): Like cilantro, parsley is widely used in Mexican households to aromatize broths, stews, salads and even aguas frescas. Always use it fresh.
Bay leaves (hojas de laurel): These herbs are mostly sold in sealed plastic bags in dry form. We use it to aromatize broths and stews like pozole, or salsas like mole, the famous savory chocolate-chili sauce.
Mexican oregano: Mexican oreganois different from Mediterranean oregano in that it is brighter with floral and citrus notes rather than sweet and a bit bitter.
As one of the most common herbs in Mexico, we use oregano to aromatize everything from enfrijoladas — tortillas covered in refried beans — to chicken broth, marinades, braised meats and more.
Epazote: This aromatic herb has no translation in English and has been used since pre-Hispanic times. While it is not typically found in many dishes, it is essential to aromatize esquites — boiled and sauteed corn in a cup — and caldo de frijoles, or black bean soup.
2. Spices
Cinnamon (canela): Cinnamon is very popular in Mexican cuisine. In fact, it is so popular that many would think it is a Mexican ingredient — except it’s from Sri Lanka (former Ceylon). The spice made its way to Mexican cuisine during colonization, and it has remained a staple to both sweet and savory dishes since.
In Mexico we use Ceylon cinnamon, which is mellower and more subtle than the cassia type used in the United States.
You’ll find this spice ground into mole sauces, used as a flavor base in desserts like rice pudding and added to traditional beverages like horchata and hot chocolate.
Achiote: Achiote is the superstar spice responsible for the vibrant red color of cochinita pibil — a slow-roasted pork dish from the Yucatán peninsula — and the popular taco al pastor.
While it is linked to Mexico, the spice is widely used in other parts of South America, the Caribbean and the Philippines. Globally, it is known as annatto. In Mexico, achiote is sold as a thick paste in any supermarket.
3. Canned goods
Chiles chipotle en adobo: No Mexican pantry is complete without at least a can of chipotle chilis in adobo sauce
Chipotle chilis are actually jalapeño peppers that have been dried, smoked and covered in a sauce made of tangy tomatoes and spices.
This single ingredient serves as the flavor base for many dishes that include marinades, soups like fideo soup with chipotle, dips,enchiladas, chilaquiles, stews and even tacos.
Pickled jalapeño: The jalapeño chili is a fundamental ingredient in Mexican cuisine that adds mild spiciness and flavor to various dishes and snack foods.
This ingredient is commonly used in sandwiches, potato salads and even American foods such as burgers, hot dogs and nachos — although it is important to note that nachos are not a traditional Mexican dish.
4. Dried chilis
There are so many varieties of chilis that they each deserve their own article, but for now, we’ve selected the most common ones and provided a brief explanation of each.
Chile guajillo: Also called chile marisol or chile colorado, the mildly spicy guajillo is the flavor base of enchiladas and chilaquiles. It also adds flavor and color to red pozole and serves as a garnish for the famous tortilla soup and fideos secos.
Chile de árbol: Don’t be fooled by its small size — this is one spicy chili.
It is often used along with the chile guajillo to add spiciness to recipes like enchiladas or chilaquiles and serves as the flavor and heat base of salsa macha, a very spicy sauce used to garnish almost every Mexican dish.
Start with half a chile de árbol if you want to start incorporating this ingredient into your Mexican meals.
Chile ancho: The ancho chile pepper is the dried version of the poblano pepper. It adds mild heat, sweetness and smokiness to many Mexican dishes like sauces for braised chicken or meat.
Along with the guajillo chile, ancho chilis are a staple ingredient of pipián, a sauce made of mild chilis and peanuts to accompany braised chicken.
Pro tip: remember to remove the seeds and veins of the dried chilis before you start cooking with them, as these are what give chilis their heat.
¡Buen provecho!
Gabriela Solís is a Mexican lawyer based in Dubai turned full-time writer. She covers business, culture, lifestyle and travel for Mexico News Daily. You can follow her life in Dubai in her blog Dunas y Palmeras
Two and a half years after it collapsed and killed 26 people, Mexico City's elevated metro line 12 has fully reopened. (Graciela López Herrera/Cuartoscuro)
The elevated section of Line 12 of the Mexico City metro reopens on Tuesday almost three years after part of it collapsed in an accident that claimed the lives of 26 passengers.
The reopening of the elevated section comes one year after the underground section of the line — the metro system’s newest — resumed operations.
The collapsed section of Line 12 after the accident on May 3, 2021. (Archive)
Built during the 2006-12 mayorship of former Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard, Line 12 — also known as the golden line for its assigned shade in Mexico City’s color-coded metro — runs between Mixcoac in the capital’s southwest and Tláhuac in the southeast.
Line 12 was plagued by problems after it opened in 2012, but none as serious as the collapse of an elevated section between the Olivos and Tezonco stations at 10:22 p.m. on May 3, 2021. In addition to the 26 deaths, around 100 passengers were injured in the accident, in which two train cars plunged onto a busy road in the Tláhuac borough of Mexico City.
Mayor Martí Batres announced the reopening on Saturday, explaining that the final preparations for the resumption of services along the entirety of Line 12 took place this month. He said that the project to reinforce the elevated section was completed on Dec. 31.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced in June 2021 that billionaire businessman Carlos Slim — whose company Carso Infrastructure and Construction (CICSA) was involved in the construction of Line 12 — would cover the costs of the repairs.
A New York Times investigation published a month after the accident also found serious flaws in the construction of the collapsed overpass. It said: “Steel studs that were vital to the strength of the overpass — linchpins of the entire structure — appear to have failed because of bad welds, critical mistakes that likely caused the crash.”
Ten former Mexico City officials, including the director of the Line 12 construction project, face charges including homicide in connection with the overpass collapse that caused the accident. Most of the passengers injured in the crash and the families of those who died accepted compensation payments from the city government and CICSA.
There was some speculation that the disaster would have an adverse effect on the presidential ambitions of Ebrard and Sheinbaum given that the former was mayor of Mexico City when the Line 12 was built and the latter was mayor when the accident occurred.
However, Ebrard and Sheinbaum finished second and first, respectively, in Morena’s candidate selection process, and Sheinbaum is widely projected to win the June 2 presidential election and become Mexico’s first female president.
