Nidec already has production bases for a variety of products in Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí and other states. Via Cluster Industrial
The Japanese company Nidec plans to invest around US $715 million in the construction of a plant in Mexico that would produce motors for electric vehicles, Nidec’s CEO Shigenobu Nagamori said in an interview with Nikkei, a Japanese news agency.
Since its founding, Nagamori said, Nidec has maintained a policy of local production for local consumption, implying that the new plant would serve the North American market.
The plant wouldn’t be Nidec’s first investment in Mexico. The company already manufactures engines for conventional vehicles in Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato and Querétaro.
Nidec makes traction motors for electric vehicles using a system they call “E-Axle,” which combines a motor, an inverter and a reducer. They can be installed in any vehicle and serve the same function as an engine for gasoline-powered cars. The company already manufactures “E-Axle” motors in China and Europe.
Although it has not yet been announced where Nidec’s plant would be built, construction is expected to begin during or after the next business year starting in April.
Baja California Sur also stands to benefit from the nearshoring trend; 25 Asian companies are looking to relocate to the state because they “see the attraction of being close to the most important market, which is the United States,” Alonso Gutiérrez, the state’s Deputy Economy Secretary, said at the Mar de Cortés Summit over the weekend.
La Pimienta solar plant in Carmen, Campeche. Atlas Renewable Energy
A new solar park with the capacity to generate enough electricity to meet the annual needs of over 300,000 households has begun operations in Campeche.
Built by United States-based company Atlas Renewable Energy in the southwestern municipality of Carmen, the US $440-million La Pimienta plant officially opened last Thursday.
Atlas said in a statement that the facility is now “fully operational,” adding that its 300-megawatt (MW) capacity makes it the second largest solar plant in Mexico. A 754-MW solar farm operated by the Italian company Enel in Coahuila is currently Mexico’s largest.
Atlas noted that La Pimienta will supply energy to the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) under a 15-year contract “to support the power needs of the Yucatán Peninsula.”
The new solar plant covers more than 650 hectares and has a capacity of 300 megawatts. Atlas Renewable Energy
“… La Pimienta is composed of more than a million solar panels, which are spread across 651 hectares. The solar plant will generate about 789 Gigawatt hours annually, which could be compared to supplying enough energy to benefit more than 300,000 families,” the company said.
“La Pimienta represents the first large-scale solar renewable energy investment in Campeche, with the participation of high-caliber institutions including the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), [Mexico’s] National Bank of Public Works and Services (Banobras), MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and Société Générale.”
Camilo Serrano, general manager for Atlas in Mexico, said at last week’s opening that the company is “very proud that our largest project to date is now fully operational.”
“This project is very special for us, as we are able to supply clean energy to the Yucatán Peninsula and avoid the emission of more than 1.7 million tons of CO2,” he said.
Serrano indicated that wind energy could also be generated at La Pimienta project at some point in the future.
Campeche Governance Minister Aníbal Ostoa Ortega and the United State’s consul general in Mérida, Dorothy Ngutter, attended the opening ceremony, at which the latter emphasized the U.S. government’s commitment to clean energy projects in Mexico.
Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard said at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt earlier this month that Mexico would collaborate with the United States to double its capacity to produce renewable energy over the next eight years.
In its statement, Atlas said that construction of La Pimienta created over 1,000 jobs, many of which were filled by locals. The company highlighted that it “trained 355 local women in technical skills and hired 165 of them, raising female representation [in the construction of the solar park] from a traditional 2% to 15%.”
Sellers at "Palacio de la Flor" in Mexico City have begun the sale of poinsettia flowers. Foto: Juan Pablo Zamora Pérez / Cuartoscuro.com
Flower growers from seven states around the country have started the harvest of the nochebuena flower (also known as poinsettia) in time for the holiday season.
A growing staple of the Christmas season worldwide, it is believed that the nochebuena flower was discovered by the Mexica leader Moctezuma in the southern parts of Mexico, who then took it to his palace in Tenochtitlan to use in ceremonies and rituals.
Later, with the arrival of the Spanish conquerors, the Franciscan monks used the plant to decorate altars and started calling it nochebuena since it bloomed during the Christmas festivities (Christmas Eve is known as nochebuena in Spanish). The flower was first introduced to the United States in 1825 by U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett, and came to be known as “poinsettia”.
Because the cultivation process takes approximately six months, producers started preparing the land to plant cuttings in May in order to have the flowers ready for November.
Morelos, Mexico City, Puebla, Jalisco, the State of México, Michoacán, and Oaxaca are the largest producers of nochebuenas, with the leading municipalities being Xochimilco, Cuernavaca, and Atlixco.
According to data from the Agricultural and Fisheries Information Service (SIAP), the 2021 sale of nochebuena flowers reached 17 million plants worth 668.5 million pesos (around US $34.4 million), which were planted in an area of 257 hectares. However, 2020 and 2021 were difficult years for growers, registering losses of up to 50% according to José Francisco León Santiago, director of a nursery in Atlixco, Puebla, as quoted in El Universal newspaper.
Puebla, which ranks as the third-highest in production of poinsettias, is pushing to become the leader in production of the seasonal flower. To that end, the first edition of the Ruta de las Mil Flores (Route of a Thousand Flowers) was inaugurated last week – an event that expects to sell more than 2 million flowers and that will run until the end of the season. For this holiday season, Puebla’s Ministry of Economy forecasts revenues of up to 130 million pesos (US $6.7 million).
Poinsettias grow wild from Sinaloa to Chiapas, and there are 30 varieties today – including white, yellow, and pink – which are exported to countries like the United States, Japan, China, France and Spain.
The near-five-tonne guac made Sunday included 10 tonnes of Peribán-grown avocados (weighed before the skin and seeds were removed) as well as huge quantities of onion, tomato, serrano pepper, lime and cilantro. It was put together in just over three hours at Peribán’s inaugural Avocado Expo, which concluded Sunday.
Long lines of participants skinned and de-seeded 10 tonnes of avocados to make the guacamole. Facebook / Ayuntamiento de Peribán
Mercedes Cervantes, president of the expo’s organizing committee, said that locals were very happy with the giant guacamole — a word that comes from the Nahuatl ahuacamolli, which means avocado sauce.
“The result was very good. Peribán has outdone itself, it’s a great joy for us,” she said. “Our main goal is to promote Peribán, which is known [in Mexico] but not internationally. We want people to know that Peribán produces avocados of the highest quality and flavor.”
There were no Guinness World Record officials on hand to certify the new record on the spot, but streamed footage of the production process allowed the organization to verify it from afar, according to a report by the newspaper El Heraldo de México.
By Sunday evening, Guinness World Records had officially recognized that the guac was the world’s largest, local authorities said on Facebook.
The massive serving of guacamole was shared among attendees at the Avocado Expo in Peribán, an avocado-growing municipality on the border with Jalisco where one innovative company is transforming avocado waste into biogas and organic fertilizer.
Despite its immense size, the guac was “well balanced” with a perfect combination of ingredients, according to Francisco Farías, who attended the expo with his family.
Among the record-holders are María José Cristerna — the Mexican “Mexican Vampire Lady” — who has more body modifications that any other woman in the world, and over 14,000 boxing enthusiasts who participated in the largest ever boxing lesson, held in Mexico City’s central square, the zócalo, in June.
It seems that suddenly, at every stoplight in Mexico, someone is selling cellophane bags of pistachios. Is it harvest season for these nuts, I wondered?
Turns out, it is. Pistachios are harvested in early fall, and in Mexico, the desert climates of Chihuahua and Sonora are where they’re grown. The trees need long, hot, dry summers; and while it takes seven to 10 years for pistachios to begin bearing fruit and producing nuts, modern grafting techniques have shortened that time. Pistachio trees can live up to 300 years (!), and in Iran and Turkey, which have the tastiest and most popular varieties, old (dare we say “ancient”?) orchards abound. The southwest United States is the world’s biggest producer of pistachios, though.
Like cashews, pistachios grow inside an odd-looking fruit called a drupe. The distinctive half-open shell occurs naturally, once they ripen, with a perceptible pop. The nuts are then hulled, dried and sorted as “open-mouth” or “closed-mouth.” Harvesting and processing is time-consuming and labor-intensive, hence pistachio’s relatively high cost. Like blueberries and beets, they’re full of antioxidants.
In Mexican cuisine, pistachios are used in sweets like polvorones (the real Mexican wedding cookies), nut brittle and a variety of other candies. They can also be ground with cilantro to make flavorful sauces for chicken and pork. In other countries, pistachios are used in a wide variety of dishes, from Sicilian cakes, cookies and pasta sauces to Middle Eastern baklava, layered cakes and couscous. In China, pistachios are a traditional New Year’s gift, and their “smiling” shell represents happiness, health and good fortune.
President López Obrador with military leaders at Sunday's Revolution Day ceremony. Presidencia de la República
President López Obrador used his Revolution Day speech to praise the armed forces and assert that he still commands the support of the Mexican people.
“If we were not supported by the majority of Mexicans, and especially by the poor, the conservatives would have defeated us or we would have had to submit to their whims and interests,” he said.
AMLO’s address opened a three-hour ceremony to mark the 112th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, and was followed by a military parade. In the speech, AMLO reflected on Mexico’s history — from the pre-Revolution dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz to military coup that overthrew Francisco I. Madero’smoderate Revolutionary administration in1913 — and asserted that democracy would always triumph over authoritarianism.
“The Revolution left us several lessons, but there are two major teachings: one is that dictatorships or oligarchies do not guarantee peace or social tranquility; and the other is that democratic governments can only be successful if they meet the demands of the majority and get the support of the people in return,” he said.
AMLO also used the address to thank the current military for its loyalty. He emphasized that, unlike other countries in Latin America, the Mexican armed forces are drawn from the common people rather than the oligarchy.
Referring torecent reformsthat extend the use of the military in policing tasks until 2028 while the National Guard consolidates under the Secretariat of Defense, AMLO pushed back against criticisms that his administration has pushed further militarization of Mexican public life.
“In this new transformation, as in its origins, there is a close and fraternal coexistence between the uniformed people and the civilian people,” he said.
He also defended the military’s human rights record, which has been under renewed scrutiny following a report by the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) that criticized Mexico for withdrawing arrest warrants against several military members allegedly implicated in the disappearance of 43 students in Ayotzinapa in 2014.
“The good of this military institution is greater than its errors or stains, many of them not attributable to the military commanders, but rather to the civilian governments that have misused themon some occasions; they have used the armed forces to repress the people,” AMLO said.
John Reed's accounts of his time with Pancho Villa's army were later collected in "Insurgent Mexico." He's more remembered for "Ten Days That Shook the World," his memoirs of Russia's 1917 October Revolution.
In 1913, leftist American journalist and poet John Reed spent four months traveling with Pancho Villa’s army, sending regular dispatches to Metropolitan Magazine in New York City, which were collected and published the following year as “Insurgent Mexico,” still available as a free ebook from Project Gutenberg.
Reed’s preconceived notions about Mexicans changed radically during his time as a war correspondent here, and he later described his days in Mexico as the “most satisfactory period” in his life.
It’s easy to find books describing the Mexican Revolution in terms of battles and dates, but Reed excels at showing us the aspirations, frustrations and quirks of the generals, soldiers and “peons” (as he likes to call them) caught up in the conflict.
An example is Reed’s conversation with Torribio Ortega, one of the first generals to revolt against Porfirio Díaz, who had become a de facto dictator after decades in power.
Reed in El Paso, Texas, posing in front of a boxcar apparently owned by the Mutual Film company, which had a contract with Pancho Villa to film footage of his exploits. El Paso Public Library
Says Reed: “At dawn next morning, General Ortega came to the [train] car for breakfast — a lean, dark Mexican who is called ‘The Honorable’ and ‘The Most Brave’ by the soldiers. He is by far the most simple-hearted and disinterested soldier in Mexico.”
“He never kills his prisoners,” Reed continues. “He has refused to take a cent from the Revolution beyond his meager salary. Villa respects and trusts him perhaps beyond all his generals. Ortega was a poor man, a cowboy. He sat there, with his elbows on the table, forgetting his breakfast.”
“‘You in the United States,’ said Ortega, smiling, his eyes flashing, ‘do not know what we have seen, we Mexicans! We have looked on at the robbing of our people, the simple, poor people, for 35 years, eh? We have seen the rurales [country police] and the soldiers of Porfirio Díaz shoot down our brothers and our fathers, and justice denied to them. We have seen our little fields taken away from us and all of us sold into slavery, eh? We have longed for our homes and for schools to teach us, and they have laughed at us. All we have ever wanted was to be let alone to live and to work and make our country great, and we are tired — tired and sick of being cheated…’”
Reed introduces Francisco “Pancho” Villa — born José Doroteo Arango Arámbula and a key figure in the revolution — like this:
“Villa lived in El Paso, Texas, and it was from there that he set out, in April, 1913, to conquer Mexico with four companions, three led horses, two pounds of sugar and coffee and a pound of salt.”
Reed greatly admired Villa’s original and imaginative approach to warfare, which he was forced to invent for himself because he never had an opportunity to learn accepted military strategy.
“His method of fighting,” says Reed, “is astonishingly like Napoleon’s. Secrecy, quickness of movement, the adaptation of his plans to the character of the country and of his soldiers — the value of intimate relations with the rank and file, and of building up a tradition among the enemy that his army is invincible and that he himself bears a charmed life — these are his characteristics.
“And where the fighting is fiercest — when a ragged mob of fierce brown men with hand bombs and rifles rush the bullet-swept streets of an ambushed town — Villa is among them, like any common soldier.”
Reed was born to wealth in Oregon and attended Harvard, where he served on the Lampoon editorial board and was a member of Harvard’s Hasty Pudding group. He would eventually become a champion of leftist and socialist movements. Bain News Service/Creative Commons
Reed gives us an example of Villa’s humor in this exchange with locals in Durango watching the passing of his army from atop a little mound.
“‘Oyez!’ said Villa. ‘Have any troops passed through here lately?’
‘Si, señor!” answered several men at once. ‘Some of Don Carlo Argumedo’s gente [people] went by yesterday pretty fast.’
‘Hum,’ Villa meditated. ‘Have you seen that bandit Pancho Villa around here?’
‘No, señor!’ they chorused.
‘Well, he’s the fellow I’m looking for. If I catch that diablo, it will go hard with him!’
‘We wish you all success!’ cried the pacificos [noncombatants] politely.
‘You never saw him, did you?’
Villa with his generals. From left to right: Rodolfo Fierro, Pancho Villa, Torribio Ortega and Juan Medina, photographed in 1913.
‘No, God forbid!’ they said fervently.
‘Well!’ grinned Villa, ‘in the future when people ask if you know him, you will have to admit the shameful fact! I am Pancho Villa!’ And with that, he spurred away, and all the army followed.…”
Finally, Reed gives us a few insights on the futility of war from “an old peon, stooped with age and dressed in rags, crouched in the low shrub, gathering mesquite twigs.”
Reed, anxious to see action after crossing a dusty plain outside Torreón, Coahuila — where a fierce battle was raging — asked the old man how he could get close to where the fighting was taking place.
The aged campesino (farmer) straightened up and stared at his inquisitor. “‘If you had been here as long as I have,’ said he, ‘you wouldn’t care about seeing the fighting.
‘Carramba! I have seen them take Torreón seven times in three years. Sometimes they attack from Gómez Palacio and sometimes from the mountains. But it is always the same — war. There is something interesting in it for the young, but for us old people, we are tired of war.’ He paused and stared out over the plain. ‘Do you see this dry ditch? Well, if you will get down in it and follow along, it will lead you into the town.’ And then, as an afterthought, he added incuriously, ‘What party do you belong to?’
‘The Constitutionalists.’
‘So, first it was the maderistas [followers of revolutionary leader Francisco I. Madero], and then the orozquistas [followers of leader Pascual Orozco] and now the — what did you call them? I am very old, and I have not long to live; but this war — it seems to me that all it accomplishes is to let us go hungry. Go with God, señores.’”
Villa, left, in 1911, with Pascual Orozco (leader of the orozquistas faction) in El Paso, Texas, at Elite Confectionary. Villa loved Elite’s ice cream and “could eat a pound of their peanut brittle.” Otis Aultman
“Insurgent Mexico” offers us a chance to look into the very souls of those caught up in the Mexican Revolution. This remarkable book is well worth reading.
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 hisblog.
In one of the pieces on display at the Met, a lord and his companion observe a small supernatural creature seated between them in this intricately carved backrest for a throne. INAH via Museo Amparo
Nearly 100 landmark Maya works are on display at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (commonly known as the Met) in an exhibit that opened Sunday and will run until April.
“Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art” is the museum’s first major exhibition in a decade to focus on the aesthetic sophistication of Maya art. It was organized by the Met and the Kimbell Museum of Art, with the participation of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).
In the Maya tradition, some gods could die while others could be born anew, embodying the concepts of regeneration and resilience. Addressing those qualities, the exhibit features rarely seen pieces crafted by master artists of the Maya Classic period (A.D. 250-900) who lived in royal cities of what is now Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize.
The sculptures, which range from monumental to miniature, depict gods at all stages of life: from the moment of their creation in a sacred mountain, to maturity, old age and, in some cases, rebirth. Some transformed into blossoming flowers or fearsome creatures of the night. Other works, like finely painted ceramics, reveal the eventful lives of the gods in rich detail.
Another item on display at the exhibition is an incense stand from the residence of a Palenque royal, which depicts a jaguar god wearing a warrior headdress. Josimar Fuentes Zuno / CNME / INAH
Among the exhibited pieces, 19 belong to the INAH’s collection, others come from Europe and Latin America, and the rest belong to the Met — with some of them having been discovered just recently.
Recent advances in the study of Mayan hieroglyphics have made it possible to identify the names of artists from the Classic period. For the first time, some of them will be credited for their pieces.
The exhibition was first proposed by James Doyle, the Met’s former assistant curator for Arts of the Ancient Americas. It was made possible by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, the Placido Arango Fund, the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund, the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund, the Mellon Foundation, and The International Council of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Fitch Ratings' headquarters in New York City. Depositphotos
Fitch Ratings on Friday maintained Mexico’s sovereign credit rating at BBB- with a stable outlook.
According to the New York-based credit rating agency, BBB ratings “indicate that expectations of default risk are currently low.”
However, the negative appendage added to Mexico’s rating emphasizes that the country’s sovereign rating is just one notch above speculative grade.
Fitch said in a statement that Mexico’s current rating is “supported by a prudent macroeconomic policy framework, stable and robust external finances, and government debt/GDP [ratio] projected to remain stable at levels below the ‘BBB’ median.”
In contrast, the BBB- rating is “constrained by weak governance indicators, muted long-term growth performance, micro policy intervention affecting investment prospects in Fitch’s view, and the potential contingent liabilities from Pemex,” the state oil company.
Fitch said that the stable outlook it attached to Mexico’s credit rating is “supported by stable public finances and the priority policymakers attach to this and broader macroeconomic stability, notwithstanding challenges from subdued economic growth prospects.”
The credit rating agency forecast real GDP growth of 2.5% this year, but predicted that the Mexican economy would grow by just 1.4% in 2023.
“Growth continues to be hindered by sluggish investment, partly related to ongoing political noise and regulatory uncertainty, particularly in the energy sector,” Fitch said.
The USMCA dispute revolves around energy policies that allegedly give the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) a competitive advantage over foreign companies. File photo
Mexico is currently engaged in dispute resolution consultations with both the United States and Canada after those two countries challenged the Mexican government’s nationalistic energy policies under USMCA, the North American free trade agreement.
In its statement, Fitch listed a total of 10 “Key Rating Drivers,” including commitment to debt stability, higher expenditure pressures, economic growth continuing to lag, near-shoring economic opportunity and continued inflationary pressures.
It said that the federal government “continues to show commitment to a stable debt/GDP ratio, by maintaining moderate fiscal deficits.”
However, government expenditure is “budgeted to increase by 11.6% in real terms in 2023 versus the 2022 budget due to higher interest costs and increased capital expenditure because of higher input costs.”
After outlining its growth forecasts for the Mexican economy, Fitch noted that “a mild U.S. economic recession in mid-2023” is currently its “central scenario.”
“… A sharper-than-expected U.S. recession is a key downside risk for the Mexican economy,” it added.
Elaborating on Mexico’s nearshoring opportunity, Fitch said that “evidence points towards higher demand for Mexico’s production (though this has yet to translate into higher aggregate investment) as a result of U.S.-China trade tensions and manufacturers’ desire for shorter and more resilient supply chains.”
“Further reliance of the U.S. on Mexico’s goods may improve the latter’s resilience despite the expected economic slowdown. Asian countries seem to have benefited from the supply chain reallocation out of China in the short term, but rising shipping costs may tip the scale more in favor of Mexico,” it said.
Fitch acknowledged that inflation in Mexico fell to 8.4% in October, but predicted that the Bank of México will continue raising its benchmark interest rate in the near term. “We project policy rate will reach 10.75% by end-2022,” the rating agency said, thus predicting a fifth consecutive 75-basis-point hike following the central bank’s Dec 15. monetary policy meeting.
The federal Finance Ministry responded to Fitch’s credit rating announcement in a statement, noting that the agency highlighted the Mexican government’s commitment to “fiscal and monetary prudence.”
It also noted that as a result of Fitch’s announcement, “Mexico maintains [an] investment grade [rating] with the eight agencies that rate its sovereign debt.”
A customer gets a haircut at an estetica (beauty salon) in Mexico City. Moisés Pablo Nava/Cuartoscuro
Last weekend, I got a pedicure … and a manicure!
My sister and I had taken advantage of the fact that I was in Texas to visit my other dad in Waxahachie, about 60 miles north of Waco. Both funnily and sweetly, getting pedicures is something that the two of them always do together when she visits. This time, I went along for the ride.
I’m a little squeamish about people touching my sensitive feet (every touch seems to tickle or hurt), but a bit of a massage after a week and a half of constantly being on my them sounded like a pretty good idea even to me.
We went to a place in a strip mall that was apparently very popular. The space was lined with massage chairs and foot tubs — surely over 50 of them — and was staffed exclusively by Asian women, with a few men who seemed to be administering things. The pedicure was nice, but the massage chair was what I was really there for. I decided to get their most basic manicure as well, which is basically cuticle removal.
It wasn’t a bad experience, but I can’t wait to get back to my regular place in Xalapa, Veracruz. It’s small, they know me and we can both understand and hear each other without too much background noise.
Now that I live in Mexico, I’m extra fancy.
You wouldn’t know that, seeing me around other women here in Xalapa, though: most of them are extra fancy as a matter of course. My fanciness is mostly just noticeable when I come to the U.S.
I normally get my nails done every two to three weeks and go to the hair salon every two to three months. I’m in the process of as-of-yet not-very-effective laser hair removal – how I dream of not spending precious minutes shaving my legs in the shower! Once or twice a month, I get a massage from someone who comes to my house for about US $30. The most expensive treatment I’ve done is Botox, which was about US $300 for everything from the neck up. The effect was cool, but even at that price, the four months it stuck around wasn’t quite enough (to me) to justify maintenance. Guess I’ll just look my age.
I can get my hair cut and styled at a fairly fancy salon for under US $25, and I can get my nails done, even with cool designs and acrylic extensions, for under 20 bucks. For a while, I had those mink eyelashes put on, my justification being – aside from them just looking super pretty – that if I didn’t need to apply makeup for work (this was during my days of teaching Chinese kids online at four in the morning), I could sleep a bit later. I stopped when I realized that combing and caring for them each morning would take about the same amount of time it would take to just put on mascara.
Prices vary from city to city, but in the non-touristy area of Mexico where I live, all kinds of beauty services are fairly accessible for someone like me, who enjoys being pampered and fussed over but would 100% forgo the same services in the U.S. — where they cost upward of US $100.
And there’s plenty of demand. For those earning pesos, the prices are likely closer to what percentage of our incomes we’d pay in the U.S. Even so, women in Mexico seem to value physical beauty to a high degree, and prices stay reasonably accessible for many because there is a lot of supply to meet that demand. A good friend of mine might not have any going-out-for-coffee money by the end of the week, but she never misses a facial.
For those of you in the U.S. already booking your tickets for a week of inexpensive beauty treatments, an important caveat: like many things south of the border, a lot of these businesses are a bit informal, which is the trade-off for services that aren’t super expensive.
While many of the places will be decorated fairly nicely and mostly have people who know exactly what they’re doing, there won’t always be much in the way of an avenue to complain if things don’t turn out the way you want. And if you’re in a non-touristy area, you’re going to need to be able to explain exactly what you want in Spanish. (Do y’all know how long it took me to figure out how to ask for “choppy” ends? Never, that’s how long – I still haven’t figured it out!).
So if you’re going for treatments in these places, don’t forget your spirit of adventure and a willingness to accept something that’s mostly what you wanted. Make sure you’ve got some time on your hands too: I don’t think I’ve ever made it out of the nail salon in less than two and a half hours, even when I was the only customer!
But I know them, and they know me and what I like. The salon is in walking distance from my house. If something needs to be fixed, I can just walk back.
Besides, they give me free coffee.
Shortly after I get back to Mexico, I’m heading straight to the nail salon for some fancy extensions and lovely, sparkly fall colors. There’s nothing essential about it for my life; it’s just one of those nice, small pleasures that fortunately doesn’t resemble a major purchase.
But whenever someone in the U.S. suggests we go for a massage or a pedicure, my answer is (almost) always the same — “No thanks, I’ll just wait until I get back to Mexico.”
Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sdevrieswritingandtranslating.com
