June fairs and festivals: classical concerts, fireflies and a crazy parade

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May 23, 2022

A ride at a previous version of the San Juan del Río fair, one of many events taking place next month.

Stargazers were treated to a bright orange, extremely large, super blood flower moon earlier this month. For some North American peoples the event is known as the full corn planting moon, signalling warmer temperatures and marking time to sow the fields.

Even for those that won’t be working the fields, there’s every reason to get out in June with a host of concerts, festivals and culinary events to visit.

• The National Festival of Cheese and Wine, Tequisquiapan, Querétaro (Now–June 5)

There are still two weekends to enjoy a few glasses of wine and a selection of cheeses. The 42nd edition of the annual event is on in the magical town of Tequisquiapan and art and fashion exhibitions and concerts accompany the culinary offering.

Tickets to the event for a day are available for 250 pesos (US $12.50). This year Spain is invited to showcase the quality of its cheese and wine.

• Expo Festival Guadalupe, Nuevo León (Now–June 12)

A festival in Nuevo León’s second biggest municipality with over 70 years of tradition, Expo Feria Guadalupe can entertain the kids at the fairground and at a children’s rodeo. A cattle exhibition, commercial area and beer garden are among other attractions.

• International Wine Festival, San Luis Potosí city (June 3-4)

This international wine festival returns to San Luis Potosí city’s Arts Center for its 10th edition. Tickets for June 3 start at 800 pesos (US $40) and for June 4 at 1,000 pesos (US $50), which include concerts and art exhibitions, wine tasting, access to the Beer Fest, and a welcome kit with a wine glass and souvenir bag.

VIP packages for 10 people are available for 15,000 pesos, but are only available for June 3. Those offer access to an exclusive area, table service and “gastronomic experiences.”

• Guanajuato Artisanal Beer Expo, Guanajuato city (June 3-5)

There’s booze aplenty in June: Guanajuato city will be popping bottles and pulling pints for its seventh annual beer expo. More than 40 beer producers and 200 styles of beer will be on offer at the free event. There will also be live music, stand up comedy, a gastronomic offering and a prize for the best beer.

The expo will be open from 12-10 p.m. in the Plaza de las Ranas, one of the main entrance points to the historic center.

• SCORE Baja 500 off-road racing, Ensenada, Baja California (June 4-5)

Cars, motorcycles, quad bikes and other four-wheelers line up to race through the desert terrain of Baja California. In the second of four race weekends, competitors will look to complete the 800-kilometer circuit fastest, with separate contests for different types of vehicles. The races are on June 4 and awards are presented on June 5.

• Corpus Christi Festival, Papantla, Veracruz (June 11-19)

The Catholic feast day of Corpus Christi and coinciding festival return to the magical town of Papantla, after two years of cancellations. The free celebration includes a light show, where some 300 indigenous dancers pay tribute to both Catholic and Totonac cultures.

• San Juan del Río Fair, San Juan del Río, Querétaro (June 16-July 3)

A local festival with traditional events including cockfighting, bull fighting, equestrian shows and fairground rides, but also a modern cultural offering with documentary screenings, music of varied genres: ska, reggae, rock, rap and others, and folkloric dances. Free concerts include pop star María José on Friday night and ballad hit maker Edith Marquez on the final night.

Tickets for concerts in the palenque stadium start at 400 pesos (US $20). Artists include banda outfit Los Tucanes de Tijuana, Mexican-American singer Marisela and pop singer Napoleón, who found fame in the 1970s.

Each day has a different theme, including youth, disability, environment, water, business, sport, farming, health and family, children, seniors, Women’s Day, and a day for the arts. General entrance costs 60 pesos (US $3) before 6 p.m. and 100 pesos (US $5) thereafter.

• Viewing of the Fireflies, Nanacamilpa, Tlaxcala (June 17 – August 14)

For those looking to connect with the natural world, the spectacle of fireflies lighting up the nighttime forest for mating season will return to the Firefly Sanctuary in the town which has become famous for its luminescent insects.

• Parade of the Crazy People, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato (June 19)

The famous Desfile de los Locos (parade of the crazy people) returns to the artistic hub San Miguel de Allende. Wild colors and extravagant fancy dress are guaranteed at the parade where comedy takes center stage.

The story goes that the parade began with horticulturalists who dressed up to give thanks for the harvest, and gave out fruit to passersby. The event is free and clowning around is highly encouraged.

• Tangamanga Marathon, San Luis Potosí city (June 26)

More than 3,000 spectators, 7,000 runners and 1,500 volunteers are expected this year at the marathon starting in Tangamanga park, a huge green space in the southwest of the city.

There are races at distances of 5, 10, 21 and 42 kilometers.

Runners can sign up here and should arrive at least 30 minutes before their event.

• GNP Paax Festival Classical Music Festival, near Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo (June 29-July 3)

A new classical music festival conceived by renowned Mexican conductor Alondra de la Parra will feature over 100 international artists at the Hotel Xcaret Arte near Playa del Carmen from June 29 to July 3.

Events include two concerts every night at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. as well as presentations of books, chamber music and talks with the creators. Tickets for a single concert start at US $50 (Coral Pass) while a package for five nights at the festival and hotel accommodation starts at US $2,240 (Manta Ray Experience), but shorter packages are also available.

De la Parra said the name “paax” comes from the word for music in Mayan and is phonetically the word for peace in Latin.

Mexico News Daily

AMLO maintains strong approval rating but insecurity is a worry for many

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MND Staff

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May 23, 2022

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President Lopez Obrador at an event in Veracruz earlier this month. Presidencia

A strong majority of Mexicans continue to approve of President López Obrador’s performance but many are worried about insecurity, a new poll indicates.

A national survey conducted for the newspaper El Universal by the polling firm Buendía & Márquez found a 63% approval rating for AMLO, who has now been in office for 3 1/2 years.

In El Universal polls carried out every three months since early 2019, the president’s approval rating has only dipped below 60% twice: once in May 2020 when Mexico was in a loose lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic and again three months later. It peaked at 85% three months after López Obrador took office.

His current approval rating —as Mexico’s faces high inflation, high interest rates and ongoing security issues — is 2% lower than it was in February. One-third of 1,000 respondents said they disapproved of the president’s performance.

A robber caught on camera threatening passengers on a bus in Hidalgo. Only 46% of poll respondents gave López Obrador high marks for combatting insecurity. Internet

Among those who approved of AMLO’s performance, the most commonly cited reason for that position was his efforts to combat poverty, including through the government’s social programs. The second most commonly cited reason was simply that he does good work and gets results.

Only a very small number of respondents cited his personal attributes, large-scale infrastructure projects such as the Maya Train, Felipe Ángeles International Airport and the Dos Bocas refinery, the economy and efforts to combat corruption.

Among those who disapproved of AMLO’s performance, the most commonly cited reason was that he does poor work and doesn’t get results. The economy and the president’s personal attributes ranked in second place as negatives ahead of insecurity/violence and the withdrawal of government support or the provision of government support for those who don’t need it.

Almost six in 10 respondents — 57% — said that it is now reasonable to demand results from the government given the period of time it’s been in power, while 39% said it’s still too soon.

poverty in Iztapalapa — Children living in poverty in Mexico City’s borough of Iztapalapa. File photo

The 1,000 participants were presented with four challenges faced by the government and asked to nominate which was the most pressing. Almost four in 10 respondents — 36% — choose reducing insecurity; 28% nominated improving the country’s economic situation; 25% opted for reducing corruption in government; and 9% selected protecting Mexicans from COVID.

Only 46% of those polled said that López Obrador has done a good or very good job in combatting insecurity — which remains a major problem in many parts of the country — while 51% said the opposite. In contrast, 60% said he has done a good job in combatting corruption and 61% indicated the same with regard to his management of the economy.

Over 60% of respondents complimented the president for living modestly, being honest and representing a change in Mexican politics, but 49% said he has old-fashioned ideas and 44% said he has a tendency to conceal the truth.

Over half of the participants — 53% — said the government’s foreign policy priority should be maintaining close ties with the United States while 34% said it was more important to have close relations with other Latin American countries. An additional 7% said that relations with the United States and Latin America were equally as important.

López Obrador has indicated he won’t attend next month’s Summit of the Americas in the United States if Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua are not invited, a stance for which he has faced significant criticism.

Asked whether Mexico is on a good path under AMLO’s leadership, 53% of poll respondents said it was while 38% said it wasn’t. The president has almost universal recognition, with just 2% saying they didn’t know who Andrés Manuel López Obrador was.

A poll published last week found that the ruling Morena party, which the president founded, is easily Mexico’s most popular political party.

With reports from El Universal

Mexican Caribbean destinations absent from Airbnb’s top-10 list this summer

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MND Staff

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May 23, 2022

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A 'bubble-glamping' dome is an Airbnb listing in Mazamitla, one of the top-10 destinations in Mexico this summer.

Destinations in the Mexican Caribbean are well known as popular destinations but they didn’t make an Airbnb list of the top-10 most popular destinations in the country this summer.

The Quintana Roo cities of Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum have long been major draws for domestic and international tourists. Tripadvisor recently named an Isla Mujeres beach as the best in the country and 19th best in the world.

However, the Mexican Pacific and the Gulf of California have proven more popular with Airbnb users looking for a summer getaway. Mazatlán, Sinaloa, was at the top of the list followed by La Crucecita in Bahías de Huatulco, Oaxaca. Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca; San Carlos and Bahía Kino in Sonora; Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur; Mexicali, Baja California; and Mazamitla, Jalisco, all featured on the list.

One unlikely tourist destination in central Mexico was León, Guanajuato. The only destination on the Yucatán Peninsula, the region which encompasses the Mexican Caribbean, was Sisal, Yucatán.

Airbnb said “unique,” or unconventional properties within Mexico accounted for more than half of nights reserved in the first three months of the year, an increase on similar reservations over the same period in 2019.

On the whole, Mexico has kept its appeal among U.S. travelers. An Airbnb list of international destinations most sought by U.S. tourists includes Puerto Escondido; La Paz, Baja California Sur; and Mérida, Yucatán.

According to a survey by Airbnb, nine out of 10 users are considering traveling this summer, most with their families. The survey found that the same proportion of users are seeking adventure when they travel.

With reports from Palco Quintanarroense

Counting whales, one blow at a time

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MND Staff

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May 23, 2022

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gray whale in El Vizcaino whale sanctuary — The gray whales that migrate here are born in Mexico and reproduce here.

Counting whales is a science in a Baja California Sur whale sanctuary, where almost 300 gray whale calves were born during the 2021–2022 birthing and mating season, according to the National Commission for Natural Protected Areas (Conanp).

Rangers conduct nine censuses in the El Vizcaíno Whale Sanctuary every season, counting the mammals as they observe them breaching and expelling air through their blowholes.

Conanp’s highest estimate of the number of gray whales in the sanctuary this season was that made in February when its rangers counted 948, including 290 females and an equal number of calves.

Other whales migrated more than 9,000 kilometers from the Bering Sea near Alaska and Russia to mate in the sanctuary, part of the UNESCO-protected El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve, which is located off the western coast of northern Baja California Sur.

Everardo Mariano Melendez, director of the reserve, described the gray whales that arrive every year as “Mexican whales.”

“They’re born in Mexico and they reproduce in Mexico,” he told a Milenio newspaper journalist who recently accompanied rangers as they conducted a census.

After spending a few months off the coast of the Baja peninsula, they return to northern feeding grounds, Melendez said.

Noé López Paz, a biologist and Conanp ranger, said the whales begin their return migration after the new mothers teach their offspring an essential life skill.

“The censuses and monitoring trips show that mom interacts with her calf and shows it how to breathe for two or three months, and then they migrate north,” he said.

López told Milenio that climate change is one of the greatest threats to gray whales. Fifteen whales, including calves, were found dead by rangers this year. CNN said in a recent report that many thousands of Pacific gray whales have likely died in recent years.

“While [the] underlying cause remains elusive, many researchers point to the conditions in and around a rapidly changing Arctic Ocean. The retreating ice sheet, warming waters and a shifting ecosystem may be decimating gray whales,” the report said.

So far this season, Mexico’s rangers have found 15 dead whales. Some experts estimate that thousands of Pacific gray whales have died in recent years. File photo

In making their whale number estimates, Conanp park rangers count whales’ air expulsions, or “blows,” one by one as they travel around the sanctuary on boats. A single census is conducted over a period of five hours.

Gabriel Zaragoza Aguilar, a Conanp ranger who has participated in whale counts for 25 years, told Milenio that there are two observers, a data recorder and a skipper in each of the two boats that simultaneously conduct a census.

Rangers identify a mother and calf either by seeing them directly or observing “one large blow and one small one“ from a greater distance, he said.

With the use of binoculars, “we can observe their behavior from far away,” Zaragoza said. “… When they’re asleep, they float on the surface,” he explained.

The ranger said the peak mating season is January and early February. “You see three, four whales circling around, and sometimes they expose their parts,” he said.

José Buelna Grado, another Conanp ranger, said the highest number of whales counted in a single census was 2,721 in the 2011—2012 season, or almost triple the 2021–2022 high.

López said that over 1,000 calves have been born during some seasons in the Ojo de Liebre lagoon, which is part of the El Vizcaíno sanctuary. Environmental officials estimated in 2019 that more than 25,000 gray whales had been born in the lagoons of Baja California Sur in the past 30 years.

The whales attract tourists to the sanctuary for sighting trips every year. According to Conanp, some 2,650 people — including tour operators, hoteliers and restaurateurs — benefit from the tourism activity, which annually injects approximately US $3 million into the local economy.

According to Conanp, the gray whales’ presence injects US $3 million in tourism-related revenues annually into the local economy.

The gray whales are considered friendly given that they breach in close proximity to vessels and appear to play with or put on a show for onlookers. However, they can also be dangerous: a Canadian tourist died in 2015 after a gray whale struck a tour boat off the coast of Cabo San Lucas in Baja California Sur.

Gray whales are the eighth largest whale species. According to National Geographic, they grow up to 50 feet or 15 meters and weigh 30 to 40 tonnes.

With reports from Milenio

On this nerve-wracking ride home, even an atheist would start praying

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Joseph Sorrentino

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May 23, 2022

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The Ride home drawing border — During this half-hour trip, the writer found out too late that his driver was more than a bit tipsy. MIGUEL ÁNGEL GÓMEZ CABRERA

I’m not sure when my thoughts changed from “I want to get home” to “I want to get home alive,” but change they did.

I was in San Pablo Oztotepec, in the Mexico City borough of Milpa Alta, to get some information for an article that I was writing about the traditional alcoholic beverage pulque. Eduardo, a young guy I’d met in the nearby pueblo of San Pedro Atocpan, introduced me to Don Pedro, a clachiquero, which is what people who make pulque are called; it’s from the Náhuatl language.

Pulque is slightly alcoholic — typically between 2% and 4% alcohol — and most people I’ve talked to mention its medicinal properties. Eduardo may also drink it for medicinal purposes, but he also drinks it to, well, get drunk.

“It makes me happy,” he told me, explaining that although it’s mildly alcoholic, if you drink a couple of liters, as Eduardo did, you’re gonna get drunk.

And he did. He drank a liter while we toured Don Pedro’s maguey plants and more than a liter as we walked around the pueblo the rest of the day. I realized he was getting drunk when he began slapping people on the back, laughing a lot, talking loudly to everyone he met and the fact that although it was clear (to me at least) that he’d had enough pulque, he kept drinking more.

I didn’t really mind at first, but my work was done, it was getting toward late afternoon and I did want to get back home, which was about a 30-minute drive away. Eventually, after a couple of more stops to talk with people and a couple more sips from the bottle of pulque, we got in the car. That’s when the real fun started.

Because by that point, he was not getting drunk. He was drunk.

Having lived in Mexico for a bit over three years, I’m thoroughly familiar with what driving is like here. It’s a cross between a video game and pushing shopping carts in a supermarket.

In supermarkets, no one stays on one side of an aisle. We weave. We stop. We block the aisle. We back up. This is exactly what driving is like in Mexico. Except drivers in Mexico are driving something much larger than a shopping cart and going much faster.

It can be nerve-wracking. Add a young guy and excess alcohol consumption to the mix and it’s more than nerve-wracking, it’s life-threatening. Toss in narrow, twisting roads hugging hillsides and a lack of guard rails and even an avowed atheist like writer Christopher Hitchens would start praying.

By my count, we almost had two head-on collisions, which I’m sure Eduardo wasn’t even aware of. Why do I think so, you may ask. Because he was texting and calling while driving.

We came close to ending up in a ditch when he became more concerned with reading a text than watching the road. He stopped and parked several times to stare at his phone. OK, “park” isn’t a really accurate description because when you actually do park, it’s by the side of a road, perhaps smack up against a curb. Not so in this case.

Eduardo would stop the car in the middle of the road and read or answer a text. Cars just went around us.

The route we were taking was about 20 miles long from beginning to end, but I figure we tacked on several extra miles due to how much he was weaving.

But we made it. Maybe those prayers I was fervently saying, which were dredged up from somewhere deep in my memory, had some effect.

Or maybe I gotta start believing in miracles.

Joseph Sorrentino, a writer, photographer and author of the book San Gregorio Atlapulco: Cosmvisiones and of Stinky Island Tales: Some Stories from an Italian-American Childhood, is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily. More examples of his photographs and links to other articles may be found at www.sorrentinophotography.com He currently lives in Chipilo, Puebla.

Mexican environmental activist among 8 winners of Global Citizen Prize

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MND Staff

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May 23, 2022

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Mitzy Cortés Guzmán, a Mixtec activist, was the only Latin American winner this year.

An indigenous environmental activist from Oaxaca has been named one of eight winners of the Global Citizen Prize.

Mitzy Cortés Guzmán, 23, from San Sebastián Tecomaxtlahuaca, 270 kilometers west of Oaxaca city in the Mixtec region, was one of 10 indigenous women land defenders who acted as a delegate at the UN Climate Change Conference 2021 (COP26). She is a member of the environmental groups Semillero de Mujeres Defensoras (seedbed of women activists) Milpa Climática (climate milpa) and Futuros Indígenas (indigenous futures).

Cortés also runs the “Pulques Contra el Cambio Climático” (pulques against climate change) podcast.

The prize provides the winners with one year of support from Global Citizen and a donation toward their work.

Cortés said that local communities should have control of their own destinies.

“Those who are fighting and have to pay [for damage] are often the people. It is the communities that are saying: ‘We don’t want a mine, we don’t want a company, we don’t want another way of life, we are happy with our way of life,’” she said.

Cortés added her work was necessary due to a growth in societal problems. “There is a huge increase in violence, a lot of injustices and corruption where inequalities, instead of being ended, are increasing,” she said.

The activist, who was recently appointed minister of communal property in San Sebastián Tecomaxtlahuaca, said that work in the town was her priority. “One can have many accolades, but there is also a responsibility within the community … It’s important to talk about what is happening in our communities, but it is even more important not to detach ourselves from our land and everything that happens here,” she said.

The seven other prize winners are women from Germany, the United States, Samoa, South Africa, the United Kingdom, India and Nigeria. They were all credited at a ceremony in New York on Sunday, which will air on Youtube and Twitter on June 2.

At least two Mexicans have previously received prizes from Global Citizen: environmental activist Martha Isabel Ruiz Corzo was awarded a prize in 2020 for her work protecting the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve in Querétaro and former President Enrique Peña Nieto received an award in 2014 for his leadership in creating the Pact for Mexico, a cross party deal for policy reform signed in 2012.

Global Citizen aims to end global poverty and works toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

With reports from El Universal

Snarled traffic aids massive highway robbery in Querétaro

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MND Staff

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May 23, 2022

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State and municipal police responded to the incident.

Some 300 drivers were robbed and two people were shot on a highway in Querétaro on Friday when armed thieves took advantage of paralyzed traffic.

At least six thieves emerged from the surrounding hills at around 6:20 p.m. on the Mexico City-San Luis Potosí highway near the community of La Solana, 30 kilometers north of Querétaro city.

Two people who resisted the robbers were shot in the arm but were treated by paramedics and didn’t require further treatment. One suspect was arrested.

At least seven of the victims arriving at the nearby toll plaza at Chichimequillas asked to be allowed to pass free because the thieves had left them penniless. Other victims made official complaints at the plaza to state and municipal police.

One victim said the robbers raided every vehicle. “We were ambushed by six people. They were all men, not even 20 years old and they pointed guns at us. They took away cell phones, cash and wallets from everyone, all the cars … I think we were more than 300 cars,” the victim said.

Toll plaza workers said that such robberies have become frequent on the highways and that two people had been killed by robbers in the previous 15 days, the newspaper AM de Querétaro reported.

The newspaper also reported that most of the recent robberies on the highway had been on trucks and trailers.

With reports from El Universal Querétaro , AM de Querétaro and Quatratín

Excessive sargassum at 24 beaches in Quintana Roo; ‘intense season’ coming

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MND Staff

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May 23, 2022

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Every mainland beach between Cancún and Tulum had "excessive" quantities of sargassum over the weekend. Facebook, Somos Playa del Carmen — Every mainland beach between Cancún and Tulum received "excessive" quantities of sargassum over the weekend. Facebook, Somos Playa del Carmen

The number of Quintana Roo beaches plagued by excessive quantities of sargassum declined to 24 on Monday after reaching 50 over the weekend.

The Quintana Roo sargassum monitoring network’s latest map shows that some beaches in the Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum areas and all those on the east coast of Cozumel are covered with excessive amounts of sargassum.

There are 11 beaches with abundant quantities of the seaweed and 22 with moderate amounts. An additional 19 beaches have very low amounts while four are sargassum-free.

The maps published by the monitoring network on Saturday and Sunday both showed 50 beaches with excessive amounts of sargassum, which washes up on the Quintana Roo coastline annually over a period of several months. The network said it was the first time in four years that so many beaches were affected by excessive quantities of the weed, which emits a foul odor when it decomposes.

The beach area of the Xcaret theme park was closed on Sunday, as workers removed the seaweed. — The beach area of the Xcaret theme park was closed on Sunday as workers removed the seaweed. Facebook, Somos Playa del Carmen

It said Sunday that “moderate to very intense” quantities of sargassum are expected this week and published photos showing massive amounts of the weed on Quintana Roo’s famous white sand beaches.

Among the beaches that turned brown due to a sargassum invasion were those that adjoin the Xcaret and Xel-Ha theme parks. The beach areas of both parks were closed Sunday.

The monitoring network said that the excessive quantities that reached the coast over the weekend indicated that this sargassum season will be an intense one.

“The situation in terms of the quantity and volume of sargassum that will arrive on our beaches this year will be critical and places the whole marine and coastal ecosystem as well as tourism activity at risk,” it said on Facebook, noting that tourism is the main driver of the Quintana Roo economy.

“Taking more drastic measures at a greater scale to combat sargassum is urgent. Reconsidering the strategy to combat sargassum is a priority. The actions taken up to today haven’t been enough,” the network said.

Esteban Amaro, a marine biologist and director of the network, said last month that it has been clear for years that the anti-sargassum strategy doesn’t work.

“Over and over again the same deficiencies have been on display. For example, we’ve already seen that the barriers don’t work because the sargassum goes over [them]. They’re barriers designed for the contention of oil spills,” he said.

The navy uses sargassum-gathering vessels to remove the seaweed before it reaches the shore, but the amount extracted is dwarfed by the quantity that washes up on Quintana Roo’s beaches every sargassum season.

Beaches affected by "excessive" quantities of sargassum declined to 24 on Monday, from a weekend high of 50. — Beaches affected by excessive quantities of sargassum declined to 24 on Monday, from a weekend high of 50. Facebook, Red Sargazo

Instead of having an anti-sargassum strategy whose central component is removing the weed from beaches, efforts should be focused on installing longer and more robust barriers at sea, Amaro said. Such barriers would assist the navy’s collection efforts, he added.

The monitoring network chief has said that large quantities of sargassum are the result of an increase of nutrients in the sea and higher than normal water temperatures due to climate change.

The Riviera Maya branch of the Business Coordinating Council (CCE) agrees that more barriers could be part of the solution to the problem.

“We’re going to work with experts and organized society so that they help us … [with] this possibility,” said local CCE president Lenin Amaro Betancourt.

He acknowledged that existing barriers and efforts to remove sargassum from beaches with machinery have been insufficient.

Amaro asserted that collecting sargassum at sea in collaboration with Caribbean countries, the United States and even European nations is also required. Much of the weed originates in the Sargasso Sea, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean.

“We’ve been asking for support since 2016 but there is no real interest … in solving the problem,” Amaro Betancourt said.

President López Obrador in 2019 put the navy in charge of combating the sargassum problem, but its efforts over the past three years have done little to stop the arrival of the weed on the Quintana Roo coastline.

The president has downplayed the seriousness of the problem, saying once that the amount of sargassum collected on Quintana Roo beaches every day is less than 3% of the 13,000 tonnes of trash collected daily in Mexico City.

With reports from EFE, Milenio and Sipse

Gold medals for teachers cost education ministry 218 million pesos

By

MND Staff

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May 23, 2022

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The awards honor 40-year veteran teachers.

The federal government’s austerity drive didn’t stop it from spending over 200 million pesos on gold medals to honor veteran teachers.

The Ministry of Public Education (SEP) purchased 3,308 medals last year at a total cost of more than 218.2 million pesos (US $11 million), according to a contract seen by the newspaper El Universal.

Each 42-gram Maestro Altamirano Medal, awarded to teachers who have worked in public or SEP-affiliated private schools for 40 years, cost 65,966 pesos (US $3,325).

The medal – which was first awarded over 80 years ago – is named after Ignacio Manuel Altamirano, a 19th century writer, teacher, journalist, lawyer, politician and diplomat.

The SEP purchased the more than 3,000 engraved medals from the jewelry company Talleres de los Ballesteros, which has stores in Mexico City and several states.

The contract was awarded directly, that is without a competitive tendering process. It is public but one of its clauses states that the information derived from the two parties entering into the contract as well as all information the SEP provides to the company is confidential.

Three high-ranking SEP officials signed the contract as did Mario Arturo Flores Majul, a representative of Talleres de los Ballesteros.

Delfina Gómez became public education minister in February 2021, but her name doesn’t appear on the contract.

President López Obrador has made austerity a centerpiece of his administration, and has eschewed the personal trappings of power such as the presidential plane and official residence, which was turned into a cultural center.

With reports from El Universal

Hidalgo biosphere reserve offers something new to see at nearly every turn

By

Leigh Thelmadatter

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May 21, 2022

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01 Aguacatitlan — Basalt formation at the Barranca de Aguacatitlán. Alejandro Linares Garcia

Being a gringa (a female gringo), I tend to research a place before I go, especially when it’s off the beaten tourist path; it helps to get a sense of what to see.

But in Mexico’s rural areas, knowing where to go is only half the battle.

Such is the case with the Barranca de Metztitlán biosphere reserve in Hidalgo. This more-than-96,000-hectare protected area is recognized by UNESCO’s World Networks of Biosphere Reserves but is unknown to foreigners and even to most Mexicans.

UNESCO and the Mexican federal government list it as the Barranca of Metztitlán, but in reality, it encompasses an area with four small canyons (barrancas) named after the four rivers of the area: the Amajac, the Metztitlán, the Almolón and the Metzquititlán. These canyons vary from 300 meters to almost four kilometers wide.

The massive amounts of water here allow for irrigated farming here, something not common in Mexico. Corn and other crops to grow year-round. Alejandro Linares García

The other major formation is Lake Metztitlán.

This jumble of geological formations and ecosystems offers new and wonderful scenery around just about every turn as you wind up and down mountains and canyon sides. Geologically, it’s a mix of both sedimentary and igneous rock, due to its history of arising from the sea, then having lava and ash spewed over it. Seismic activity lifted and folded this rock, and erosion exposed it.

The average altitude is 1,353 meters above sea level, but it is extremely rugged as elevations vary from 800 to 2,000 meters within only a few kilometers, generally because of the canyons.

The biosphere has many different plant species, including pines, mezquite and other trees as well as scrub, but the most important are the cacti, with over 60 species found in the zone some various meters high. What is most striking overall is the contrast between lush green of the canyon bottoms with the rock, cactus and scrub along the sides and up top.

This is because this is an arid and semi-arid area, but it receives significant water as part of the Moctezuma River basin, an important flow of water for eastern Mexico.

The most visible aspect of this river system is Lake Metztitlán, a shallow body of water and wetlands system formed when a landslide of limestone blocked the Venado River, forming a natural dam. The average depth is only nine to 10 meters, and its expanse varies greatly between the dry and wet seasons.

The lake is not only extremely important to the local ecology but also to migrating birds from the United States and Canada, prompting its inclusion in the Ramsar Convention in 2004.

Although a biosphere reserve, it is not a park. Humans have lived here since the stone age, with arrowheads, cave paintings, ceramic shards and more found in exposed rock.

Panoramic demonstrating the size of the Santos Reyes monastery in Metztitlán built in the 16th century. RubeHM/Creative Commons

The area was important to the Aztecs because of trade routes here, forcing locals to fight to keep their independence. After the Spanish conquest, the two main population centers were established — Metztitlán, with its massive 16th-century fortress of a monastery, Santos Reyes, and Metzquititlán.

Since becoming a reserve, life goes on pretty much as before. About 75% of the land is still agricultural; the rivers are used for extensive irrigation, and the lake is used for fish farming.

There are restrictions — in particular a ban on collecting cactus species and measures to protect the bat populations in the many caves. However, these have had only moderate success.

Most residents support an end to poaching and “reforesting” cactus areas, but since 2000, the number of cactus species has dwindled from 120 to only 62. Bat protection faces resistance as many consider them a threat to livestock.

The direst issue is that of Lake Metztitlán. Its recession recently has been extreme, with the lake drying almost entirely in 2020 and 2021.

The natural and rural scenery is some of the best I have experienced in Mexico, but it is not easy to see. Most attractions are in the north of the biosphere with a couple in the south. The heart of the reserve is the area between the town and Lake Metztitlán, where the canyon is very wide with a large flat very green agricultural area below and a church on a large rock formation in the middle of it all.

The lake in the dry season is small, but you can see evidence of how it grows and shrinks. The best views are on the west side, but there are no roads to that part for the average car.

Other attractions include waterfalls at Aguacatitlán and El Salitre, several lookout points for panoramic views, a cactus sanctuary in Metztitlán, caves with paintings and bat colonies and capricious rock formations. Nothing is marked on the roads, so you have to rely on Google maps and asking locals. All roads have bad sections (at the very least), and many are impractical for most cars.

Fields in the wide space between the town of Metztitlán and Lake Metztitlán, surrounded by dry canyon walls. Alejandro Linares García

The most developed attractions are at the southern end near the bustling tourist area between Huasca de Ocampo and Pachuca. The Barranca de Aguacatitlán is a worthwhile side trip from Huasca, especially for early risers that like to hike before it is too hot.

Here are a fair amount of services for tourists such as horseback riding, cabins, camping, and restaurants. In the north, however, these are much fewer, with lodging, food and iffy cell phone/internet connections limited to Metztitlán and Metzquititlán.

In the end, the biosphere reserve is a wonderful drive for those willing to trade off smooth road conditions for spectacular scenery and a lack of crowds. You may get disappointments: we could not find the waterfall at El Salitre nor get to the Cueva de la Malinche for lack of an available local guide. What we could see, however, was more than enough to satisfy a couple of wandering shutterbugs.

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.