Monday, May 5, 2025

As expats, we straddle 2 economies, but our hosts don’t

By
Sarah DeVries
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Foreigner in Mexico City
Foreigners on the streets of Mexico City.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the significant increase in both visitors and immigrants, mostly from north-er North America to Mexico, and it’s got me thinking about what it means to be a gracious newcomer.

I don’t really count as a newcomer myself. I came to live in Mexico back when nobody thought it was a good or safe idea, and when the perception was that most of the gringos in the country were rough-looking men with questionable criminal histories.

If you wanted to work, a job at an in-person school was your best bet, and you received pay that reflected the local economy. (I made a monthly salary of 7,000 pesos a month at my first full-time teaching job in Mexico — worth about US $700 today — with no benefits.) Getting official permission to work was difficult, and you were mostly paid in cash under the table. It wasn’t a great plan for wealth-building in one’s prime working years, and most people my age stayed away from Mexico, save for a vacation or two.

Since then, Mexico has caught on in a major way, in part because people, especially from the U.S. seem to have become particularly disillusioned with their own country: at this point, gangs of narcotraffickers with specific targets don’t seem like such a big deal compared to the prospect of young men walking into schools, grocery stores and movie theaters to mow the places down with easily-accessible combat weapons they acquired under the guise of “self-defense.” Add in our looney tunes politics of late, and it’s no wonder people are looking for something different.

After the experience of the pandemic paired with rising prices and an ever-shrinking financial safety net, many have found a solution: be a rich, relaxed person in Mexico rather than an economically struggling, stressed person in their own country.

Like most other migrants around the world, many of us here are economic immigrants. Unlike most, however, we’re not moving here for the chance to “make it” but for the advantage of being able to buy the things we need and live the life we want at a much lower price with our foreign money from remote jobs.

It’s like a permanent working vacation, and is often promoted as such: Our hosts are friendly, and for the most part, welcome us. Aside from a fairly awful tax situation, if you’re still working and are being honest about where you reside, there’s very little to complain about.

So the reasons for making the move are understandable. Why not try to live as well as possible?

The optics, however, are something I worry about.

After all, there are some major gaps between the way poor immigrants to the U.S. are treated and expect to live and how we immigrants from rich countries are treated and how we expect to live here.

There are also major differences in how much remote-working foreigners can earn in Mexico compared to native Mexicans with similar education, skills and experience. This difference seems to have the most potential to cause major resentment: foreign migrants are essentially working with two different economies — getting paid in an expensive one and spending in a cheap one.

If you’re Mexican, it must hurt to watch people game a system that you yourself cannot. And now that there are so many of us doing it, it’s not all that easy to ignore… especially when their presence affects what you yourself can afford and enjoy in your own community.

Even if the numbers and the articles about this great migration south weren’t around, I’d still be able to say with some degree of certainty that a lot of people not from here are showing up in Mexico. As the only person whose articles popped up for a while under an “expats Xalapa” search, I receive lots of messages from people interested in exploring my city as a potential place to live.

I’ll admit, I’m wary. Don’t get me wrong, I like people; my default setting is “I like you” even before I’ve met you. But I fear my city becoming, like other places in Mexico, a place that people actually from here will be able to enjoy less and less if they’re priced out by rich(er) foreigners arriving with dollars in hand, ready to pay well above market price for the choicest areas of the city. Limits on AirBnB and the like may help, but, let’s face it: being willing to pay large amounts of money for what you want simply has no competition in this world.

Honest question, non-rhetorical: Is there enough room for all of us to enjoy the good life here? Does our presence in such great numbers make life worse for others? I fear that we’ve seen this movie before, in suddenly popular states and cities north of the border. Perhaps some of us are even running from its effects. Is there a way to avoid or counteract such effects down here?

Because if it’s five or 10 families doing this, like it was for quite a while, okay; not the hugest deal. If it’s hundreds or thousands of families, that can have a real impact. How do we balance our individual needs and wants with what’s best for our new communities? How do we reconcile being both a single drop in the ocean but also part of a wave whose impact will definitely be felt?

Our individual intentions are good, but our collective effect is… mixed.

Most of us are immigrants for the same reason that others are immigrants: we want a better life for ourselves and our children. Sometimes, it’s just because we want adventure and because we can.

But, for goodness sake, please stop crowing so loudly about how “cheap” Mexico is… it’s only cheap to those earning out-of-Mexico wages, which is not the majority of people here. Learn about the local economy where you land, and don’t vastly overpay for goods and services. You may think you’re being extra generous, but the effect of too many people doing that is to price out everyone else, unwittingly turning many goods and services that most locals could access before into hard-to-have luxuries.

So let’s remember our position of privilege and do our best to speak and walk humbly: we’re the ones coming here to live our best lives, not the ones suffering at Mexico’s southern border while waiting to be processed by immigration, or the ones doing the same jobs at Mexican companies for a fraction of the cost.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sdevrieswritingandtranslating.com

In Oaxaca city’s restaurant scene, look for substance over style

By
Leigh Thelmadatter
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Catedral de Oaxaca restaurant in Oaxaca city
Outdoor dining area at the Catedral de Oaxaca restaurant in Oaxaca city. Many of the city’s noted restaurants are located in old historic buildings to give an authentic atmosphere. (Photo: Catedral de Oaxaca/Facebook)

Twenty years have passed since I first visited the city of Oaxaca, and I’m struck by how much has and has not changed. Perhaps nothing indicates this more than the food scene.

Although it has been a major tourist attraction for over a half a century, Oaxaca city is often promoted as a quaint place, somewhat stuck in time. Colonial buildings serve as a backdrop for women in indigenous dress. A history of resistance to both colonial and modern authority has made it a magnet for foreigners looking for something missing in the “modern” world.

Oaxaca’s food reflects much of the state’s distinct regional identity. Although you can find the obligatory corn tortillas and beans along with cheese and other European contributions, its one-of-a-kind preparations and seasonings have made the state a destination for serious food lovers.

Mole sampler at La Coronita restaurant in Oaxaca city
The mole sampler at La Coronita. (Photo: La Coronita/Facebook)

Today, there are a large number of articles in English listing recommended places to eat when in the city, and to some extent, in the Central Valleys region around it. The recommendations are usually driven by the desire to experience “authentic” Oaxaca food, but in an environment that is comfortable for many tourists.

By “authentic,” the idea is to eat what Oaxacans have eaten for centuries, often meaning any of the state’s famous mole sauces, tlayudas, hot chocolate and mezcal, for starters.

But those classic and fantastic dishes were developed, and, until recently, almost exclusively prepared, in home kitchens and fondas (small family restaurants) that won’t have the visual touchstones that many foreigners look for in a “clean” or “safe” place to eat, never mind in an upscale dining experience.

Oaxaca has been a significant tourist destination for decades, so there have been hotel restaurants catering to them for some time, like La Coronita, which has been serving up very good moles since 1948.

But with Oaxaca now a foodie destination, the restaurant scene has expanded beyond this. They seem to be of two types: those run by traditional cooks who have learned to create a fine(r) dining experience and formally-trained chefs with a familial link to Oaxaca home cooking.

Two good examples of “non-chef” restaurants are Celia Florian’s Las Quince Letras and Jorge León’s Alfonsina. Both are run by people who learned to cook in their homes but went beyond that, learning either through experience or through work in high-end restaurants in Mexico and abroad. Las Quince Letras’ signature dish is the mole negro Florian grew up with.

Beatriz Vásquez Gómez who runs a food stand at the Ocotlan market in Oaxaca City
I normally shun restaurants with a “kitsch” aspect, expecting the food to be bad, but the Ocotlán market stand of Beatriz Vásquez Gómez is a worthwhile exception. She works her similarity to the artist Frida Kahlo for the tourists, but her food might be the best the market has to offer. (Photo: Alejandro Linares García)

But the connection to Oaxaca’s history and culture seems to be an absolute must for either type of establishment. For example, chef Rodolfo Castellanos is classically-trained and won the “Top Chef México” competition, but he still stresses his humble roots, even having his mother work in the kitchen of his restaurant Origen from time to time. Formal gastronomic training, when employed, is done so subtly, such as using techniques such as deglazing to optimize flavor rather than to change it.

Major innovations such as Tierra del Sol’s braised octopus in chicatana (flying ant) sauce is the exception not the rule, as fusion or innovation is still controversial in Oaxaca. Most of the “innovation” is in the dining room, related to surroundings and service.

Oaxaca city (and Mexican) traditional family restaurants do not stress either, but most catering to tourists look to create those visual touchstones that not only indicate “cleanliness” and “healthy” to foreigners, but also “authentic” in the sense that you are in Oaxaca and not some generic international restaurant.

On one end of this spectrum are Criollo and Casa Oaxaca, both high-end restaurants based in old colonial homes in the historic center, with highly-trained staff catering to every whim.

I asked some foreigners living in Oaxaca for advice on where they recommend, and many suggest El Tejadón, La Biznaga and Tr3s Bistro, as they have service and surroundings acceptable to most foreigners and have menu items that cater to vegetarians and others with special dietary needs.

The quest for authenticity also includes specialty restaurants: Flor de Maíz focuses on menu items featuring corn such as tetelas, tamales and pan de elote. La Atolería Masea specializes in atole, a hot corn beverage generally mixed with a wide variety of flavors. Ancestral Cocina focuses entirely on foods eaten before the arrival of the Spanish with no adaptations to modern palates. Criollito in the municipality of Tlacolula, about 30 km outside Oaxaca city, specializes in tortillas made with various heritage corns that come in a rainbow of colors.

Tacos Dorados from Criollito restaurant near Oaxaca City
Tacos dorados at Criollito in Tlacolula (near Oaxaca city). This restaurant specializes in using corn varieties of an array of colors (Photo: Criollito/Facebook)

Not all foreigners are attracted to such places. Resident David Cruz, for example, recommends avoiding “…anything seen on Netflix, … YouTube, and name-brand blogs,” and instead going to any humble market. I tend to agree, especially if your goal is to experience the pasillos de humo, the aisles in Oaxaca city’s mercados, where meats like tasajo are grilled to order.

But if that feels too informal, there are places that look to recreate very humble eating experiences in a more comfortable environment. One of these is La Cocina de Humo, a city recreation of the “smoke kitchens” found in rural towns, where the cooking is done over wood fires.

Other casual places that were recommended to me by various foreign residents include Almú in the municipality of Ocotlan, in the Central Valleys; La Popular in Oaxaca city’s historic center; El Típico in the municipality of Jalatlaco; and Santa Marta buffet in the municipality of Etla.

Some foods, like tlayudas (Oaxaca’s “pizza”) is best had on the street and markets, but if that is not an option, Oaxaca city resident Alosja van Leeuwen recommends Tlayudas El Negro in the city’s Obrera neighborhood.

Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.

One Good Thing: a burrito to remember

By
Janet Blaser
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Burritos
A perfect burrito has some of everything in each bite.

What makes a great breakfast burrito?

Three things are crucial: the ingredients, how you fill it and the wrapping/rolling. Until a chef friend broke it down for me, though — with a live demonstration — I didn’t fully understand the subtle details involved in each of these steps.

The best burritos have six categories of ingredients; protein, carbs, something crunchy, something creamy, some cheese and element(s) of spiciness. Without any one of those, your burrito will fall a little flat.

Burrito folding
Proper burrito-folding technique is an acquired skill. Practice, practice, practice!

For a breakfast burrito, the main protein is usually scrambled eggs. Herein lies the first challenge: how to make them firm but not dry, soft but not wet?

I use a technique for soft scrambled eggs (sometimes called French scrambled eggs) where instead of “scrambling” the whisked eggs energetically in the pan, you gently fold them over themselves, almost like cooking an omelet without any filling.

I let them cook longer than I would for plain scrambled eggs, so they get a little dry and any trace of shine or moistness is gone, and then I slide them out of the pan. In my perfect world, a heated tortilla is ready and waiting, along with an array of other ingredients.

Other proteins, like bacon, chorizo or other types of sausage, leftover chicken, stir-fried tofu or tempeh, can all be part of a delicious breakfast burrito. Cook the meat first before you add it and be sure it’s cut or shredded into manageable (i.e., smaller than bite-size) pieces. You want whatever you use to merge into the larger sum of all the ingredients and not distract from the principle of some-of-everything-in-every-bite.

Next up are carbs. Yes, the flour tortilla is one, but you want something more, something filling and comforting in the way only carbs can be. Sautéed potatoes, beans or rice will do the trick. Just remember when cooking any of these — especially potatoes — that you don’t want to use much oil nor do you need potatoes to actually be crispy.

For the potatoes, cube and then rinse until the water runs clear. Allow them to air-dry or pat them dry. Next, parboil them until just fork-tender, and then sauté them in a nonstick skillet with a tiny bit of oil. Salt a little and set aside.

Any kind of beans — black, pinto, my favorite peruanas — are perfect in a breakfast burrito, whether whole (entero) or refried (refritos). Have them heated up and at the ready.

One of the things that makes breakfast burritos so wonderful is how they include so many delicious elements. You want something creamy and rich like sour cream, crema or guacamole; something crunchy (but not watery) like shredded iceberg lettuce or cabbage; and a meltable cheese, usually cheddar, asadero, Chihuahua or Jack.

To balance this, we need some spice. Choose your salsa: verde, ranchero, pico de gallo, whatever. Like it even hotter? Add some roasted poblano strips, chipotles in adobo sauce or marinated jalapenos.

Gather all these things — your mise en place, as the French say — and get ready to roll.

Now, for the all-important tortilla. You want a big, 10-inch or larger flour tortilla. Heat the tortilla a little first on both sides before filling just enough to make it supple and rollable. The toasting will also give it a bit more flavor.

A dry comal, cast-iron pan or nonstick skillet will work. This should be the last thing you do once all the fillings are ready.

When rolling your burrito, resist the urge to overstuff. (That’s a hard one, I know.) Spread layers of the fillings on top of each other in a line just off-center of the flat tortilla, closer to you, starting with the eggs. Your goal is to arrange all of your ingredients so you get a little of everything in each bite.

Put the cheese on top of the eggs so it has the chance to melt from the heat of both the eggs and the griddle once the burrito has been rolled. Layer on potatoes, beans, lettuce or cabbage, crema and a little salsa. Then, fold the sides of the tortilla in toward the center to close in all the gooey goodness — watch this video to see exactly how — and then roll up the whole thing as tightly as you can, continuing to tuck the side flaps in snugly as you roll.

Next, you want to heat the whole thing on a lightly oiled griddle, turning slowly to make a crispy brown crust all the way around.

The final, and maybe most important, step is to wrap the burrito in foil. In the words of my chef friend: “Wrapping in foil does more than contain the burrito, it also helps equalize the heat and softens the tortilla a little bit.”

Then either cut in half, at an angle with a sharp knife, or serve whole, letting each person unwrap their burrito as they go.

“Burrito” literally means “little donkey: but what that has to do with this culinary item is a tale with many endings. The first mention of burritos as we know them was in the “Dictionary of Mexicanisms” from 1895, which claims they were first seen in the states of Guerrero and Guanajuato.

Guinness World Record holder for largest tortilla in Mexico
The Guinness record holder for the world’s largest tortilla — for making the World’s Largest Burrito — weighed 2 tons and took 10 hours to fill!

The stuffed, rolled tortilla supposedly resembled bedrolls packed on the backs of donkeys. Another story attributes the burrito’s invention to a Chihuahua man named Juan Méndez, who rolled supplies for his food cart in large flour tortillas to keep them warm.

Whatever the case — although mothers all over Mexico would logically have wrapped ingredients in tortillas for quick, easy eating — burritos didn’t appear in the United States until the 1930s. Breakfast versions didn’t really appear until the ‘70s.

In 2010, the current Guinness record holder for the World’s Largest Burrito — at 5,799 kg (12,785 lbs) was created in La Paz, Baja California, by members of CANIRAC, Mexico’s national chamber of restaurants.

About 3,000 volunteers from 54 restaurants worked to create the monstrous burrito, made from a single gigantic tortilla that weighed more than 2 tons and needed a customized machine to roll out. It took almost 10 hours to cover the 2.4 km. of tortilla with a simple traditional filling of the region (fish, onion, refried beans and chiles).

FYI, National Burrito Day is celebrated each year on the first Thursday of April. Mark your calendar for April 6 and start practicing your perfect burrito now.

Janet Blaser is the author of the best-selling book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, featured on CNBC and MarketWatch. She has lived in Mexico since 2006. You can find her on Facebook.

Sinaloa airports, buses and roads mostly open after day of violence

By
MND Staff
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Roadways in Culiacan were left with so much debris from the violence that law enforcement called upon public works departments to help clear roads. (Photo: Secretaría de Seguridad Pública y Tránsito Municipal de Culiacán, Sinaloa)

The Culiacán International Airport in Sinaloa had reopened as of 10 a.m. on Friday, according to media reports, a day after an outbreak of widespread violence was sparked by the arrest of Ovidio “El Ratón” Guzmán.

Two other sizable airports in Sinaloa — in Mazatlán and Los Mochis — also reopened on Friday, as did the airport in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, which is 150 kilometers (93 miles) north of the Sinaloa-Sonora state line.

“We suggest you contact your airline for any questions regarding your flight,” Grupo Aeroportuario Centro Norte, which operates the airports in Culiacán and Mazatlán.

After a day of violence, Culiacán was left with burned-out vehicles throughout key roadways thanks to fiery criminal blockades. (Cuartoscuro)

The Mazatlán and Los Mochis airports reported early Friday afternoon that they were fully operating, one day after thousands of passengers were stranded because of the closures.

Aeroméxico, meanwhile, announced on Twitter early Friday afternoon that “as of Jan. 7 [Saturday] all our flights to/from Cd. Obregón, Culiacán, Los Mochis and Mazatlán will operate as normal. You can check the status of your flight at viaja.am/3DXy22A.” 

Mexico’s Federal Civil Aviation Agency (AFAC) reported on Thursday that the aforementioned airports had been temporarily closed to the general public for security reasons. At the Culiacán airport, for example, the fuselage of a plane bound for Mexico City was hit by gunfire on the runway before taking off (no passengers or employees were injured).

Meanwhile, on a portion of Federal Highway 15 not far from the airport in Ciudad Obregón, two semi-trailers on Thursday were set on fire, which reportedly not only prevented travelers from reaching the airport but also caused the evacuation of passengers already there.

In its coverage early Thursday afternoon, the newspaper Milenio noted that “all the burned vehicles (a total of 250, according to authorities) have already been removed from the roads in the north of the state.”

It also reported that the northern zone of Sinaloa was free of blockades, according to authorities, and that the checkpoints set up by the National Guard and local authorities in that region along Federal Highway 15 had been removed.

On the highway between Culiacán and Mazatlán, blockades kept trucks and buses stranded for hours. Citizens brought food and hot drinks to the highway to stuck drivers. 

 

Federal Highway 15 runs from Guadalajara to the U.S. border and passes, south to north, through Tepic, Nayarit; Mazatlán, Culiacán and Los Mochis, Sinaloa; and Ciudad Obregón, Sonora.

The portion of Highway 15 that runs from Culiacán south to Mazatlán and beyond, however, was still “closed due to security issues,” according to the Twitter account of Autopista  Mazatlán-Culiacán. 

“We await further information from the National Guard,” the account said early this afternoon. As of 8:00 p.m. Central Time, there had been no updates.

Bus service from Autotransportes Unidos de Sinaloa, one of the main bus companies in that region, more commonly known as AUS, returned Friday morning with runs to Culiacán and Escuinapa. The latter city is south of Mazatlán and just north of the Sinaloa-Nayarit border.

Jesús Martínez López, head of operations and services for AUS Central in Mazatlán, said the route to Escuinapa was being run “with great difficulty” because of some lingering roadblocks in the southern part of Sinaloa. He said buses “are getting off the highway” and taking a detour.


The situation earlier today on the federal highway in Escuinapa. It is now open, according to media reports.

 

However, El Rosario is a bit north of Escuinapa, and reaching that municipality from Mazatlán “was no problem,” Martínez López added.

He said a bad stretch of highway was the portion of Highway 15 that goes north from Culiacán to Guasave, then to Los Mochis, then to Ahome.

He said he was waiting for the authorities to tell him when bus service could be resumed between those areas, and he urged people to be patient when it comes to traveling to and from Culiacán; the top concern, he said, must be the safety of passengers, employees and buses.

A traveler named Cris stranded at a Mazatlán bus station took to Twitter on Friday afternoon to complain that “the drivers do not tell us anything, we have been standing here since yesterday, other [bus] lines are already moving to Culiacán and we have nothing, not even the ticket office is open, terrible service.”

The newspaper Noroeste reported Friday afternoon that there were around 500 passengers stranded in the facilities of the Culiacán bus station due to the blockade of booths and roads causing transport lines to suspend operations. One local news outlet said there was bus service from Culiacán to at least a half dozen destinations, “but there is no estimated time to open service in its entirety.”

Meanwhile, the newspaper Debate wrote on Friday afternoon, “More than 30 hours after the ‘Culiacanazo 2.0’ began … with the arrest of Ovidio ‘El Ratón’ Guzmán, the population of Sinaloa is still afraid of taking to the streets.”

With reports from Milenio, Debate, Noroeste and Reforma

Boat tour offers whale watching with true experts: marine biologists

By
John Pint
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Up close and personal with a humpback whale in the Bay of Banderas, Nayarit. (Photo: Explora Vallarta)

Where is the best place to watch whales raising their babies? For years, I had heard it was Cabo San Lucas in Baja California, but when I put my question to friends in Guadalajara, they were unanimous:

“Puerto Vallarta is the place to go!” they replied, “and right now (January and February) is just the right time to see whales.”

So it was that I discovered Explora Vallarta, a touring company run by marine biologists. They transported my friends and me from Puerto Vallarta to the port at Punta Mita in the Bay of Banderas, where we ended up having a medium-sized boat just for ourselves, plus the pleasant company of three enthusiastic young biologists whose very lives revolve around whales. 

Every winter, humpback whales come from the California coast to Mexico’s Bay of Banderas to raise their young in a safe environment. (Photo: Explora Vallarta)

We left the dock surrounded by brown pelicans…

“How’s the sea today?” I asked.

“Smooth,” they answered.

Well, we were soon being thrown starboard, windward, leeward and every-other-ward known to navigators of the deep as our little boat flew through the air, smacking the brine over and over. Lucky us that it was a smooth sea that day!

After half an hour, we spotted another boat, this one full of 20 lifejacket-clad tourists like us. We turned to our guide, marine biologist Jorge Morales. 

“Jorge, that boat doesn’t seem to be jumping up and down like ours.”

“No,” he replied, “but that boat has almost no maneuverability. You’ll see who gets closest to the most whales.”

And so it was. Every time a head, tail or waterspout appeared, there we were, with Jorge and his wife Fabiola, explaining everything both in Spanish and English:

“Look — there’s a female humpback with her week-old baby! That baby drinks 250 liters of milk every day, and its mother eats nothing the entire time she’s in this bay because the krill she feeds on aren’t found here. She completely subsists on the energy stored in her blubber.”

“So why do they come to Banderas Bay if there’s no food here?” we asked.

“The water here is warm and calm, and there are almost no predators. You see, the baby has to come up for air every five minutes, and during this time, the mother has to teach it everything it needs to know.”

Occasionally we’d see a huge shape rise into the air and plunge straight down, slapping the water with its powerful tail. 

Fabiola Flores, right, of Explora Vallarta, guides visitors on a tour of whales and seabirds. (Photo: Explora Vallarta)

“That’s the male,” they told us. “He accompanies the mother and helps raise the baby, even though it’s not his. He also does his best to mate with the mother.”

Our guides were a nonstop source of fascinating information, and the time seemed to fly. Suddenly our biologists told us, “That’s it for today.” 

“We don’t allow boats to hang around the same whales for more than half an hour,” we were told.

Jorge had taken photos of every whale tail we’d seen and immediately filled out a register. Each tail is unique, they told us, and a computer will analyze the pictures, identify the individual whale and add this information to a large database kept in common by all the biologists in the Puerto Vallarta area. 

After our excursion, I asked Jorge to tell me a little about his whale watching service.

“Fabiola and I founded Explora Vallarta in 2009,” he told me. “Both of us are biologists, and thanks to this career choice, we are forever exploring unique natural environments.”

Explora Vallarta is run by the Morales family: Fabiola, Regina and Jorge. Their motto is “Passion and Respect for Nature.”

“So, when we were students, we said, ‘Why don’t we help tourists learn about all this natural beauty, but in a responsible way?'” 

The result was Explora Vallarta, a family business that benefits tourists while supporting marine biology.

“During our excursions,” said Jorge, “we collect data and take photos for identifying the whales, so we carry out very useful research while our guests are having fun.”

I learned that this family of biologists also has a very successful dolphin-watching tour, for which people come back year after year.

“We take them to visit a pod of dolphins that lives here in this bay all year round,” Jorge said. “We know where they live, but it has happened that we didn’t find them — only twice, actually, in 13 years. When we locate them, we don’t go close to them, but on most occasions, the dolphins decide to come close to us.”

They’re used to keeping quiet, he said, and to running their boat very slowly. 

A pod of dolphins located near Punta de Mita in Nayarit. (Photo: Explora Vallarta)

“Typically, it’s the dolphins that notice we are in the area and who come over to us,” Jorge said. “Sometimes they come really close, and on two occasions I have been able to reach out and touch them. In fact, sometimes they start playing in the wake our boat leaves behind, going in and out of the waves.”

Because the family has had years of experience with these particular dolphins, they can tell visitors whether they are hunting or playing or competing with one another, or perhaps teaching a youngster how to swim faster.

“We’ve identified many members of this pod,” Jorge said, “and we’ve even given them names.”

With the funds they receive from visitors, Explora Vallarta holds environmental education workshops in local schools, especially public schools, where they feel they can really impact the local communities. 

“We work with kids from kindergarten to prep school, and we also hold sessions at ferias (fairs). We organize games for both adults and children, games that teach them something new,” he said.

The whale and dolphin tours also help support an organization called RABEN, the Mexican Whale Disentanglement Network, of which Jorge is a member.

A whale rescue in the Bay of Banderas by members of RABEN, the Mexican Whale Disentanglement Network. (Photo: RABEN)

“All too often,” he told me, “whales from the California coast arrive here in Mexico tangled in fishing nets. We’ve learned how to free them without danger either to them or to us.”

“RABEN started right here in the Bay of Banderas,” he added proudly, “and now we have 180 members all over Mexico.”

Want to see whales and dolphins and at the same time help marine biologists? See Explora Vallarta’s webpage. It’s in Spanish and English.

The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, since 1985. His most recent book is Outdoors in Western Mexico, Volume Three. More of his writing can be found on his blog

Judge halts extradition to US as the legal fight over Guzmán’s fate begins

By
MND Staff
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Law enforcement transferred the arrested cartel leader to Altiplano maximum security prison on Thursday (Cuartoscuro)

On Friday morning, a federal judge in Mexico City granted a stay halting any extradition proceedings against Ovidio Guzmán, the son of U.S. prisoner Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was arrested Thursday in the municipality of Culiacán, Sinaloa. Guzmán is accused of being a main producer and distributor of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl, and the leader of Los Chapitos, a splinter group of the Sinaloa Cartel. 

At a hearing held in Altiplano prison in México state on Friday afternoon, Guzmán was officially remanded to pretrial detention and the judge granted the U.S. 60 days to file documentation on charges he will face if extradited. 

In a press conference on Thursday, Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard said that U.S. authorities had not communicated with the Mexican government in the hours after the arrest, but he noted that “we have to comply with the formalities that the law imposes on us. In addition, [the detainee] has a process here in Mexico.”

Members of the Mexican cabinet at a Jan.6 press conference, from left to right: Adan Augusto López (Interior Minister), Rosa Icela Rodríguez (Security Minister), Luis Crescencio Sandoval (Defense Minister), Marcelo Ebrard (Foreign Minister) and José Rafael Ojeda Durán (Navy Minister). (Photo: Marcelo Ebrard Twitter)

Ebrard also denied speculation that the arrest was related to the impending visit of President Joe Biden to Mexico.

The U.S. chief executive is due to arrive in Mexico City on Sunday afternoon — a day earlier than originally scheduled — in advance of a Monday meeting with Mexican President López Obrador and Tuesday’s North American Leaders’ Summit that will involve Biden, AMLO and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“It has nothing to do with it,” Ebrard replied when asked whether the arrest of Guzmán (aka “El Ratón”) was a “gift” for the White House in advance of the first visit by a U.S. president to Mexico in nearly 10 years. “There is no relationship between the police operation and the summit.”

“The truth is,” he continued, “this operation was kept extremely confidential by the authorities in charge of doing it, and there was no intermediation or political consultation in the [Mexican] Cabinet.”

Ebrard confirmed that since September 2019 there has been a U.S. extradition request for Ovidio Guzmán, but he insisted the order for this week’s arrest came from Mexico City and not from Washington, D.C.

“There is no participation, to my knowledge, of any foreign agent in our territory,” Ebrard said when queried by reporters at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) headquarters.

Ovidio Guzmán being transferred following his capture on Jan. 5 (Cuartoscuro)

The maximum-security Altiplano, where Ovidio Guzman remains in custody, is the same institution from which “El Chapo” escaped in 2015 by means of a 1.5-km tunnel, equipped with lighting, ventilation, rails and a motorcycle. 

According to the newspaper El País, “The only known case against [Ovidio Guzmán] is in a court in Washington, D.C. and focuses on charges of drug trafficking, although the authorities affirm that Ovidio Guzmán is also behind several murders.”

The four-page U.S. arrest warrant includes charges that Ovidio Guzmán, 32, trafficked “a ton of marijuana,” “at least five kilograms of cocaine” and “at least 500 grams of methamphetamine,” El País reported, citing the district attorney for the District of Columbia.

The paper said his criminal history dates back to 2008, when he was barely 18 years old, and that “U.S. authorities have revealed that they have more information about [Ovidio] Guzmán’s power than has been made public in court.”

El País wrote that after the 2008 death of Édgar Guzmán López, the brother of “El Chapo,” Ovidio Guzmán and his brother, Joaquín, “inherited a large part of the profits from drug trafficking and began to invest large amounts of cash to buy marijuana in Mexico and cocaine in Colombia,” citing a U.S. government profile.

“They also began buying large quantities of ephedrine from Argentina and managed to smuggle the product into Mexico to dabble in methamphetamine production,” the profile adds, according to El País.

“The State Department claims that the Guzmán brothers supervised 11 clandestine laboratories in Sinaloa, with a production capacity of up to almost 2,500 kilos per month,” El País wrote, again citing the report. “Other sources indicate that Ovidio Guzmán has ordered the murder of informants, a drug trafficker and a famous [but unnamed] Mexican singer who refused to sing at his wedding.”

Ovidio Guzmán was arrested in Culiacán in October 2019, but the blockades, shootings and riots that followed (known as the  “Culiacanazo”) led López Obrador to give the order to release him, a controversial move that has shadowed his presidency. Citing the “massive leak” in September of  confidential documents from the Mexican army by the hacker collective Guacamaya (a scandal known as the “Sedena Leaks”), El País reported that the United States had asked Mexico to increase the number of annual extraditions to 60 as part of bilateral security agreements.

Ovidio Guzmán joins a list of alleged, high-profile, Mexican drug traffickers that the U.S. is pursuing, a list that includes Rafael Caro Quintero, who was arrested in July in the Sinaloa mountains.

However, Caro Quintero, the founder of the now-defunct Guadalajara Cartel, still hasn’t been extradited to the U.S. because his lawyers have managed to delay the process. Caro Quintero was convicted in Mexico of murdering U.S. DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in 1985 but was released on a technicality after serving 28 years of his 40-year sentence.

Though the Mexican Foreign Minister is assuring that the timing of Ovidio Guzmán’s arrest on the eve of Biden’s visit was a coincidence, there have been other similar situations that might raise eyebrows.

In 2020, former PRI governor César Duarte was arrested for corruption in Miami on the day López Obrador met with Donald Trump in Washington. In 2017, “El Chapo” was extradited to the United States about a month after Trump’s inauguration, “in what was read in Mexico as an attempt to appease the Republican politician’s anti-Mexican discourse,” El País wrote.

With reports from El País, La Jornada and Milenio

Peso starts the year with continued appreciation against the dollar

By
MND Staff
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Pesos and dollar bills mixed together.
The peso was considered one of the best-performing global currencies in 2022 and has also strengthened rapidly so far this year against the US dollar. Depositphotos

The peso will close the week with gains against the dollar in a setting of “general optimism among investors”, as reported by Reuters. The spot rate on Friday morning was 19.20 and closed at 19.15 pesos to the dollar. The bank exchange rate stands at 19.73 per dollar, according to Citibanamex.

Based on reports published by Banco Base, the peso began Friday’s session with an appreciation of 0.28% (5.5 cents) compared to close of trading on Thursday.

This marks five consecutive days of appreciation, accumulating 1.8% gain in that period.

The gain of the peso occurs even as the dollar strengthens. The dollar index, which measures the greenback’s performance against six currencies (including the Euro, Pound, Yen, Canadian Dollar, Swedish Korner, and Swiss Franc), rose 0.3% to 105.45, after briefly hitting a four-week high at 105.52. 

The index is on track to post a weekly gain of almost 1.9%, the biggest since September.

The U.S. government reported on Friday that there was strong job growth in December and unemployment fell to 3.5%. 

“The solid job creation in the United States is good news for the consumption and demand of Mexican exports,” Banco Base said in a note sent to clients.

The Bank of México (Banxico) indicated that interest rates will likely be raised again in February, but at a slower pace, following a governors’ meeting on Thursday. In December, the central bank hiked interest rates to a record 10.5%.

The peso was considered one of the best-performing global currencies of 2022.

“The factors that have driven the appreciation of the peso against the dollar in 2022 have not deteriorated,” said Janneth Quiroz, an analyst at Monex, as quoted in El Economista newspaper. The peso closed 2022 at 19.50 to the dollar with an annual appreciation of 4.87%.

With reports from El Financiero, Milenio, Forbes and El Economista

Housing sale prices in Mexico City spike up to 10% in 2022

By
MND Staff
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Mexico City's Doctores neighborhood
Rising home sale prices appear to be promoting increased buyer interest, especially in the public housing sector, in the centrally located Doctores neighborhood, which is slowly undergoing gentrification but still has a questionable reputation for safety. (Photo: Vivanuncios)

During 2022, housing sales prices in Mexico City surged between 9% and 10% compared to the previous year, the real estate online site Propiedades.com reported. 

The firm’s real estate analyst Leonardo González said that 2022 was marked by uncertainty due to the high interest rates that in turn led to high mortgage costs. 

The average price per square meter in the capital for buyers was 31,914 pesos for a house (US $1,652) and 46,033 pesos (US $2,383) for apartments — a jump in prices that was expected by Propiedades.com but nevertheless slowed down property purchases by Mexico City’s residents. 

The neighborhoods with the greater demand during 2022 were Roma Norte and Roma Sur, both of which have gained notoriety in Mexico and in the world media as a place where older properties are being bought up by developers with deep pockets to convert into rental property for digital nomads and other foreign temporary renters. 

Roma Norte neighborhood of Mexico City
Residential touches like this farmers’ market in the Plaza Río de Janeiro make the Roma Norte neighborhood popular with home buyers who can still afford it. Others, however, are looking further to the city’s outskirts. (Photo: Carl Campbell/Unsplash)

The factors that drove regular homebuyers’ interest in the neighborhoods included their quality of life and the offered services, González said. 

In the public housing sector, the Doctores neighborhood is showing a high performance, along with the neighborhoods of Del Valle, Nápoles, Extremadura and the residential Insurgentes corridor.

Heading south of Mexico City, the neighborhoods of San Jerónimo, Pedregal, Ajusco and Tlalpan show relevant growth and a consolidation process. González explained that this is part of a real estate cycle driven by new projects and increased demand.

Location was not as much a factor in 2022 as in previous years: although Mexico City is an attractive place to live, González said, it faces a continual challenge: to meet the needs of its population who are looking for housing options in other cities near the capital, like Querétaro, Puebla, and Toluca. 

“This is not a new phenomenon. For the past four decades, we’ve observed that houses outside the metropolitan area of the Valley of Mexico have ceased to be exclusively destined for holiday purposes…” González said. 

San Jeronimo neighborhood of Mexico City
Picturesque San Jerónimo, a historic village that was absorbed into the Magdalena Contreras borough, is far from the capital center but is showing growth.

More than 1 million properties located in the center of the country and close to Mexico City are currently listed on Propiedades.com, showing a continuous trend of people looking to move out of the city. 

The home office trend that arose in response to the pandemic also caused contraction in corporate corridors like Polanco, a historically sought-after neighborhood. Without the need to live close to their workplaces, the number of people looking for residential spaces in the neighborhood has dropped.  

In October 2022, Propiedades.com reported that the price for a apartment in Polanco contracted 12.4% in the first months of 2022.

In the middle-range housing sector, 2022 recorded a boom in new mortgages. However, the low-income segment contracted, creating a shortage of housing units that mainly affected the population with the highest housing backlog.

With reports from Forbes México and Propiedades.com 

Fallout from Ovidio Guzmán’s arrest in Sinaloa leaves 29 dead

By
Cat Rainsford
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Immediately after the arrest, presumed cartel members launched a series of armed attacks around Culiacán, and major travel routes around the state were blocked with burning vehicles.
Immediately after the arrest, presumed cartel members launched a series of armed attacks around Culiacán, and major travel routes around the state were blocked with burning vehicles. (Alma Fonseca / Cuartoscuro.com)

A day of violent chaos following the arrest of cartel leader Ovidio “El Ratón” Guzmán in Culiacán, Sinaloa, left 29 people dead: 10 soldiers and 19 alleged criminals, according to the Defense Ministry.

The violence broke out after Mexican security forces captured Guzmán — son of jailed capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, and leader of the “Los Chapitos” faction of the Sinaloa Cartel — in a town in the municipality of Culiacán, in the early hours of Thursday morning.

“[The criminals] managed to regroup with the intention of rescuing Ovidio ‘N,’” Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval explained at a press conference on Friday morning. “The aggressors used 50-caliber machine guns, so it was necessary to give fire-cover from airplanes.”

Military aircraft fire from above early Thursday morning in Jesús María, the town in the municipality of Culiacán where Guzmán was captured.

Immediately after the arrest, Guzmán’s followers launched a series of armed attacks and 19 blockades around Culiacán, terrorizing the city for around 12 hours.

Gunmen fired at one military and one commercial airplane at Culiacán International Airport, causing air traffic to the city to be suspended and the airports of Culiacán, Mazatlán and Los Mochis to be closed. Several bus lines also suspended transport through the region. Authorities ordered schools and businesses to close and local people to take shelter as the battle raged through the city.

“The authorities counted 19 dead among the lawbreakers and detained 21 people, seizing Barrett rifles, machine guns, 26 handguns, magazines, cartridges and 13 vehicles,” Cresencio said. “Ten soldiers, emphasizing their values, lost their lives in the line of duty.”

Despite the anarchy, authorities insisted that no civilians were killed, presenting this as a vindication of AMLO’s approach to the struggle against drug cartels.

“Action was taken to take care of the civilian population so that there were no innocent victims,” President López Obrador emphasized.

One of at least 19 "narco-blockades" that blocked Culiacán's roads on Thursday.
One of at least 19 “narco-blockades” that blocked Culiacán’s roads on Thursday. (Cuartoscuro.com)

“We didn’t come to win a war; we came to build peace,” added Rosa Icela Rodrígez, minister of security and citizen protection. “This operation demonstrated the new behavior of the government of Mexico; Human rights and well-being are prioritized.”

In October 2019, Ovidio Guzmán was captured but then swiftly released, after a similar wave of violent retribution by Sinaloa Cartel members — known as the “Culiacanazo” — sparked fears of mass civilian casualties. AMLO insisted at the time that he supported the controversial decision.

All the same, Thursday’s successful operation is a welcome boon for his government, particularly coming just days before the presidents of the United States and Canada are due to visit Mexico for the North American Leaders Summit.

By Friday morning, local authorities reported a return to relative calm in Culiacán.

“There has been no incident during the course of the night; we consider that the conditions exist to return to normal activities,” Sinaloa security secretary Cristóbal Castañeda said on Twitter. “Shops and businesses can be reopened. The authorities of the three levels of government continue in coordination and we will maintain operations and patrols in the city.”

With reports from Milenio, Animal Político and Forbes

En Breve Travel: Prefab hotels, Islas Marías discounts and new sea turtle sanctuaries

By
MND Staff
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0
The modular rooms of Habitas Bacalar, made of what appears to be palm thatch, look out over a river or estuary with forest in the background.
Prefab hotels, like these at Habitas Bacalar, will be a major travel trend in 2023 according to Condé Nast. (Habitas Bacalar)

Guadalajara will open 15 hotels in the next two years

Guadalajara expects to expand capacity to 30,000 hotel rooms in the next two years with the opening of 15 hotels across the city. This would turn Guadalajara into the city with the largest number of hotel rooms after Mexico City.

According to Francisco Martínez Hermosillo, vice president of tourism promotion for the  Guadalajara Chamber of Commerce, the tourism industry in Guadalajara recovered faster post-pandemic than that of Monterrey or Mexico City.

Plaza de la Liberación in Guadalajara.
Plaza de la Liberación in Guadalajara. (Roman Lopez / Unsplash)

In 2020, the tourism industry reported hotel occupancy ranging between 18% and 20%, while in 2021, it reached a hotel occupancy rate of 46%. By late December 2022, the industry estimated that the city would close the year with a hotel occupancy rate of 59%. Data on the actual number hadn’t been reported at the time of publishing this story.

Martínez Hermosillo also reported that Guadalajara has developed many tourist attractions to entice visitors from all over the country. He said that the city’s geographical location — just a five-hour drive away from 13 cities — makes it an ideal destination for both business and pleasure.

Official map of Tulum’s tourist attractions is launched

Tulum’s tourist attractions are now included on an official map, announced local tourism chief Jorge Mario Molina.

The map, written both in English and Spanish, shows 30 landmarks across downtown Tulum starting with the Archaeological Zone. It shows main roads, names of streets and the way to get to the most representative places of Tulum so that visitors can get to know the “cultural, artisanal and commercial attractions” of the city, Molina said.

Tourists can request the map at the Municipal Tourist Information and Business Assistance Center (Citaem), scan the QR code and carry it in their phones.

Tulum’s new map of tourist attractions.

Molina added that this map marks a “before and after” for Tulum, since for the first time ever, the city will have a tool to optimize tourists’ experiences in one of the most visited cities in the world.

Low prices to travel to Islas Marías 

Islas Marías, the former penitentiary island in the Pacific Ocean near the coast of Nayarit, opened its doors to tourism on Dec. 21. Only 13 days  days after  opening, discounts of up to 50% are already being offered by travel agencies and the official webpage of the islands.

When the tourist destination first opened, transfer and lodging prices were criticized for their high price tag: they range from 5,500 pesos (US $287) to just over 8,000 pesos (US $417) and include a two night lodging, buffet in the only restaurant in town and the boat transfer.

The attractions include an agroecological farm, an artisan’s shop and a church dedicated to our Lady of Guadalupe. But  the main attraction is the notorious maximum-security prison, Laguna del Toro.

The whole complex is managed by the Islas Marías Integral Tourism Company under the direction of the Mexican Navy. The archipelago is not the only tourist infrastructure under the administration of the Armed Forces. The Ministry of Defense is responsible for the development of the Mayan Train in the Yucatán peninsula and the army oversees the Holiday Inn hotel at Mexico City’s Felipe Ángeles airport.

The entrance to Puerto Balleto, one of the main settlements in the archipelago.
The entrance to Puerto Balleto, one of the main settlements in the archipelago. (Víctor Ortíz / Semarnat)

Tulum prefab hotels make Condé Nast’s 2023 list of travel trends

Prefabricated hotels are predicted to become a travel trend during 2023, according to Condé Nast magazine. These hotels are based on modular design and prefabricated architecture. Parts of the buildings are created in a factory, packed with a minimum amount of space, and shipped to the destination where they are assembled directly on the ground — and a hotel in Tulum by Habitas revolutionized the concept, according to Condé Nast.

The firm’s first prefabricated hotel opened in Tulum in 2017. The Habitas hotel is described by Condé Nast as a “conscious and sustainable refuge” that, with minimalist simplicity, managed a “perfect balance between low-impact vacations and style.”

In addition to Tulum, the firm has hotels in Bacalar, Quintana Roo; San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato and various international destinations including Saudi Arabia, Namibia and Morocco.

Habitas has also built their own factory in Mexico to accelerate the construction of more hotels in Mexico, planned for Los Cabos and Todos Santos. Hotels in Costa Rica and Bhutan are coming soon, according to the Habitas website.

Mexican beaches are recognized as sea ​​turtle nesting sanctuaries

The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) announced late in December  that several beaches in the states of Chiapas, Guerrero, Jalisco, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas and Yucatán, are now recognized as Protected Natural Areas (ANP) under the category of “sanctuaries”.

Dozens of turtles crawl up a beach to lay their eggs, with several people walking between them in the distance.
Thousands of Atlantic ridley sea turtles lay their eggs at Playa Rancho Nuevo in Tamaulipas every year, one of the highest-density sea turtle nesting events in the world according to the government. (Conamp)

According to the Semarnat, the original environments in these sanctuaries have not been significantly altered by human activity. Thus, the recognition of the 17 ANPs, which cover an area of ​​more than 6,600 hectares, allow for those ecosystems to be preserved and restored.

Mexico’s role in sea turtle breeding  is relevant since six of the world’s seven identified species spawn on Mexico’s Pacific and Caribbean beaches. All those species are in danger of extinction, with two species considered critically endangered — the leatherback turtle and hawksbill turtle.

The new sanctuaries will only allow for research, recreation and environmental education activities that are compatible with the nature and characteristics of the area.

With reports from Players of Life, La Jornada Maya, Aristegui Noticias, El País and Condé Nast Traveler

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