Christopher Columbus won't return to the capital's Paseo de la Reforma.
A statue of an indigenous woman will be installed on a Mexico City avenue at a location where a statue of Christopher Columbus previously stood, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced.
Speaking at an event on Sunday – International Day of the Indigenous Woman – Sheinbaum said that the Columbus statue removed from Paseo de la Reforma for restoration last October will not be returned to the capital’s most emblematic boulevard.
Removed two days before Día de la Raza (Day of the Race) amid threats from protesters to topple it, the almost 150-year-old statue made by French sculptor Charles Cordier will be relocated to Parque América, a park in Mexico City’s affluent Polanco district.
Sheinbuam said the base of the Columbus statue will also be removed to make way for a statue of an Olmec woman made by the artist Pedro Reyes.
“… The Columbus statue will be moved to a worthy place with the authorization of the INAH [National Institute of Anthropology and History] and in its place there will be recognition of the women in our history, especially indigenous women; that’s social justice,” she said.
“Pedro Reyes, who is a great Mexican sculptor, is making a sculpture of the Olmec woman, who is the origin of the origin,” Sheinbaum said.
The Olmec civilization is known as the “mother culture” of Mesoamerica because most scholars believe it was the first in the region and influenced those that emerged in later years.
Sheinbaum acknowledged that the idea to erect the new statue on Paseo de la Reforma – home to numerous monuments and “anti-monuments” – originated in the federal Senate. She rejected any claim that the removal of the Columbus statue is an attempt to erase the history of the Europeans’ arrival in Mexico.
The relocation of the statue is not about “hiding” it, she asserted while acknowledging Columbus as a “great” and “universal” personage.
“Some people think that the Spanish brought civilization to Mexico [but] that’s not true,” Sheinbaum added. “We have centuries of history and that which comes from outside isn’t better. We’re a multicultural nation.”
Elizabeth Hovey with one of the organic hybrid dragon fruits she and her husband Grey Hovey grow on their ranch near San Carlos, Sonora. photos courtesy of Rancho Pitahaya
Elizabeth and Greg Hovey let the world watch as they started a project that experts and even their families thought was crazy. Today, they are Sonora’s self-proclaimed “dragon fruit slayers,” growing the cactus fruit on a ranch outside San Carlos.
She is from Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, and he from Santa Barbara, California. After meeting online, Greg drove from Scottsdale, Arizona, to Hermosillo, Sonora, for their first date and, “… knew I wanted to marry her then.”
The couple worked in health insurance sales for over a decade. About 15 years ago, they became early digital nomads, working online and moving over 20 times to different places in the United States, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
But in 2016, the couple decided they needed a change. They did not know what until they came across “these funky-looking fruits,” according to Greg.
“We had no idea what they were or how to eat them, but it gave us this idea that we should be farmers,” he says.
Greg Hovey demonstrating one of the dragon fruits from his field.
“Both of us are very impulsive,” Elizabeth admits.
They began researching, running the numbers to see if it was a viable business. With organic, high-quality fruit running up to US $15 a pound, that certainly seemed to be the case.
And so Rancho Pitahaya was born.
Dragon fruit — known as pitahaya in Spanish — grows in Latin America in southern Mexico and downward into South America, but “since [Elizabeth’s] family is nearby and we love San Carlos, we chose to grow it here” in the deserts of coastal Sonora, Greg says.
The couple was told by experts and scientists that the plant could not grow there, but they decided that with some adaptations they could find a spot that was not too dry, too hot or too cold.
Finding that right spot was a televised process. Their idea of growing dragon fruit got the attention of the HGTV channel’s show Mexico Life, and the episode aired in 2016. A follow-up aired in September 2020.
Dragon fruit may be expensive in the States, but it does not appeal to everyone. Like most cactus fruits, they are low in sugar, especially the common white-pulp variety. Growers in California have been experimenting with hybridization with pinks and reds, creating much sweeter fruits.
Using California cuttings and continuing the process of hybridization, the Hoveys have gotten fruit that measures up to 18–22 on the Brix scale — which is used to gauge the amount of sugar in foods — compared to the normal 7–8 for the white variety. But this process is slow. Dragon fruit plants take seven years to produce marketable fruit.
Rancho Pitahaya also insists on using organic and sustainable farming practices.
“We are really into health and fitness, and chemicals are just really bad,” Greg says. “The worst one that they are using is phosphates for weeds. It has been proven to cause cancer, and in many places, it is illegal to use.”
The use of chemicals, he says, is also affecting local bee populations, forcing the couple to buy and maintain beehives to pollinate their crops.
Besides, they say, fruit grown organically tastes significantly better than those from conventional farms.
The Hoveys’ hybrid dragon fruit variety, which is sweeter than others, has sparked the interest of Whole Foods supermarkets.
Rancho Pitahaya began with about half a hectare of land for experimentation. These plants now produce, but the amount is only enough to sell locally.
However, they are the only growers in 800 miles and set the price for the region. When the fruit comes in season (which is now), they are selling for about US $6.50 per pound or 250 pesos per kilo.
The two prices exist because their market consists of two groups: the large number of Canadian and American snowbirds who come in the cooler months and the local year-round Mexican population.
The other two hectares were planted a little later and should begin producing next year. They already have an agreement with Whole Foods, whose buyer declared their product the best she’d ever tasted.
They have no plans to expand direct production beyond the three hectares they purchased in 2016. They have already started working with farmers, other businessmen and even the government, which is interested in the possibilities that dragon fruit offers Sonora and the rest of Mexico. They offer cuttings and the knowledge that they have gained over the years.
One major attraction is that dragon fruit requires only a tenth of the water that citrus does (widely grown in Sonora) and has a much higher profit margin.
The Hoveys’ initial goal was to make a go of it simply as dragon fruit farmers, but because of the pandemic, they have also branched out into the sales of organic food products online. This came about after their principal local outlet, the Rescate Market in San Carlos, was closed down by authorities. They had a choice to either go into lockdown or “go for it” and find a way to market their fruit as well as other local organically grown products.
The result is San Carlos Fruits and Veggies. Customers order by Thursday; the Hoveys drive out to various local farms they know and trust and bring the orders to the San Carlos marina on Saturday for pickup. Buyers don’t even have to get out of their cars.
The operation has offered all kinds of produce in season, along with mango salsas, cheeses and fresh-squeezed orange juice.
As far as farming goes, the Hoveys are interested only in growing dragon fruit despite having tried various other kinds of cactus fruit.
“Dragon fruit is the most expensive fruit; it is the healthiest fruit; it is the highest in antioxidants. It’s used to fight cancer, diabetes and heart conditions. We are in love with it,” Greg says, adding that Mexico has provided Rancho Pitahaya with everything it needs.
“We could have never done this in the United States,” he says. “The land would have cost us too much. The water would have cost too much. The labor would have cost too much. All the regulations …
View of one of the fields of dragon fruit plants at Rancho Pitahaya in Sonora.
“Down here, we were able to do all that ourselves. We are grateful to have the freedom to do what we want to do.”
• Rancho Pitahaya offers tours of the farm and the local environment, as well as seven-course meals and “dragonritas.” Besides their Facebook page, you can reach them via WhatsApp at 622 138 8495.
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.
Tight-knit family structures and existing long-term friendships can make it hard for expats to get truly close to many Mexicans.
This past July officially marked my 19th year in Mexico. I came during the last month of my 20th year, and I just turned 40 last month. Soon I’ll be able to say that I’ve spent over half of my life here.
During that time, I’ve seen a lot of people come and go, which I suppose is the nature of things when you’re part of a community of foreigners. One friend likened it to what it must feel like to be an “army brat:” constantly changing environments and social groups, only in this scenario, you’re the one that stays put while everyone else appears and disappears around you.
While I’m pretty much a permanent immigrant myself (at no time do I feel prouder at the airport than when I present my permanent resident card to the immigration official!) most others in my area only come for a stay best counted in months unless they’ve come to permanently retire.
Some are students, some are adventurers traveling through and others are evaluating potential places to live. There are a few younger long-haulers like me, but they’re harder to spot since they’ve generally blended into the local scenery and don’t tend to spend much of their time in obviously foreigner groups.
When I first arrived, I was determined to make friends with people other than my group of foreign students. After all, I could hang out with other people from the United States in my own country; why would I want to do so here? Plus, my goal was to learn Spanish, and I wasn’t going to do it by just spending my time with people who spoke my language.
I approached this, however, assuming that Mexicans’ attitudes toward friendship and their relationships with friends were much the same as those in the U.S. They are not, and it’s caused me to do quite a bit of reflection on the differences between the two.
Even as a sociologist, variety in attitudes toward the institution of friendship itself had never occurred to me, and much of what I’ve learned has been, like most things in life, through hard-won experience.
The main lesson I’ve learned here can be summed up in three simple words: family is family. And in Mexico, friends are not family, no matter how close you may become.
I’d often heard the phrase growing up, “blood runs thicker than water.” It never really meant anything to me, though.
Don’t get me wrong; I love my family. But the way that families here close ranks in tough times — and in great times, for that matter — is something that still catches me by surprise occasionally.
That was not the experience in my own family. My mother’s parents had been abusive, and she wisely and purposefully kept us away from them. My dad’s family was close-knit enough, but everyone was still fairly independent, all busy with their own lives.
Even before my parents divorced, my mother relied heavily on several close female friendships for social and emotional support. What you want to look for in a best friend, I remember her saying, was someone who’d “help you bury a body.”
When we went to her best friend’s house, we didn’t knock; we’d just walk right in and say hello as if we lived there. Decades later, that same friend sat in the hospital with our mom, holding her hand as she talked and sang hymns to her even though she was unconscious.
My sister and I, if we still lived in Waco, could probably still simply walk right into her house if we wanted to.
For better or for worse, my mother’s close friendships were the ones that became the gold standard in my own adult life, the kinds that I have personally sought out. It hasn’t always been easy to achieve here.
It’s not that Mexicans make bad friends; far from it. People here are, for the most part, gregarious and friendly, generous in all senses of the word and exceedingly polite. But if you’re looking for the kind of dynamic in which you become so close that you truly treat each other like family, you might end up feeling a little disappointed. (Exceptions, from what I’ve seen, are young and friendly good-looking foreign dudes who trigger some kind of nurturing mania in women here of all ages and are quickly absorbed into what seems to be several families at once.)
The obvious outcome here is that if you don’t have a family, you might be slightly on your own in ways that don’t become obvious until things really get tough. It’s a lesson I learned especially well when my marriage ended right before the pandemic and every family member I’d had through that union seemed to vanish overnight.
Isolation in the absence of family can happen in any country, I know, but I do feel that in my own culture, we’ve become comfortable with creating family out of whoever’s around. Good or bad, we tend to develop trust and treat good friends as if they were family quickly, which I think is a unique dynamic, and one of the things that makes me feel proud and loving toward my own culture.
It’s not a dynamic that I’ve seen quite as much here.
The lesson? For me, it’s 100% been to stop being such a snob. Continue developing and maintaining friendships with other foreigners, even if that’s not what you necessarily came for.
It comes naturally to immigrants all over the world because it must. Only other immigrants can understand the kind of peculiar alone-ness of not being surrounded by the people most similar you. (That’s another lesson I’ve learned, actually: I’m not nearly as unique as I thought).
Talking to and being around people who understand where you’re coming from, or at least how you feel as a foreigner, even if they’re from somewhere else, can often be exactly the balm you need. Two of my good friends here are from India, for example.
Because we’ll never quite fit in completely here. I’ll always be seen as a foreigner. I look different, for one — yes, there are blonde Mexicans, but I’m not visibly rich enough to be mistaken for one. And as good as my Spanish might get, I’ll always have a slight accent. I’ll probably keep guessing about 20% of the time whether I should use “por” or “para” in a sentence. I’ll always be exceedingly polite to people in the service industry, another dead giveaway that I’m not from here.
Other immigrants will come and go, and the going can be painful when you’ve become close to someone. But that’s life, and that’s our task in the absence of our families: to build family out of whoever and whatever we have around us.
This dish, made for the Independence holiday, is also a seasonal menu item in Mexico's restaurants during August and September.
All over Mexico, people are preparing to celebrate the real Mexican Independence Day on Sept. 16 (not the uber-commercialized “5 de Mayo” holiday that actually commemorates the Mexican army’s victory over French forces in Puebla in 1862).
And while COVID-19 precautions may throw a damper on the public festivities, one thing’s for sure: chiles en nogadawill certainly be served in restaurants and homes everywhere.
This iconic Mexican dish has its roots in the state of Puebla, where legend says it was created by nuns — either the Madres Contemplativas Agustinas or the Monjas Clarisas — in honor of Agustín de Iturbide, a controversial army general and future emperor of Mexico whose credits include designing the Mexican flag but whose career was marred by charges of cruelty and corruption.
Ahh, but I digress; back to chiles en nogada.
As pretty as it is delicious, this baroque masterpiece is quite detailed both in its ingredients and preparation.
The dish’s ingredients include fall fruits, walnuts, poblano peppers, as well as pomegranate seeds, which are sprinkled on top.
Local and in-season ingredients like pomegranates and walnuts, autumn fruits like pear and apple and, of course, Puebla’s namesake, poblano peppers, are combined to create a unique, flavorful entrée.
The dish’s colors are those of the Mexican flag — red, white and green — a fact that only adds to its appeal.
One of its most unusual features is the salsa de nogada, a creamy walnut- or almond-based sauce that drenches the poblano pepper, traditionally stuffed with a picadillo, or hash, of pork, beef, dried fruits and sweet spices. Pecans or almonds can be substituted for the traditional walnuts, and cream cheese can be used instead of goat cheese.
Vegetarian? Use mushrooms in the filling instead of meat, or another stuffed pepper filling you’ve used before, adding diced fall fruit, raisins and the sweet spices in the traditional recipe.
The dish is as much a celebration of the autumn season as it is of the historical event, so you can let your imagination be your guide if dietary restrictions prevent you from following the classic recipe.
Whatever the case, gather your ingredients — don’t forget the pomegranate! — and plan your Independence Day celebration. Viva México!
The dish is traditionally made with ground pork and beef, but vegetarians can simply omit them or substitute items like mushrooms.
Chiles en Nogada
Some recipes call for the peppers to be deep-fried; this one doesn’t.
10 poblano peppers
Filling:
¼ lb. ground beef
¼ lb. ground pork
1 cup tomato sauce
1 white onion, diced
5 cloves garlic
¼ tsp. cinnamon
3 black peppercorns
¼ tsp. ground cloves
½ tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
½ large apple, diced
½ pear, diced
1 peach, diced
½ ripe plantain, diced
¼ cup raisins
1 tsp. olive oil
Salsa:
2 cups walnuts or almonds
½ cup milk
3 oz. goat cheese or cream cheese
1 Tbsp. sugar
Salt to taste
Garnish: Pomegranate seeds, chopped parsley
Prepare peppers by removing the skins. With a gas stove, use tongs to char peppers over the flame until blackened on all sides. Or char them on a hot comal, turning frequently till blackened.
Poblano peppers, named after the city of Puebla, are the traditional pepper used to hold the dish’s rich stuffing.
Let cool; peel off skin. (Cooling peppers in a paper or plastic bag for about 10 minutes will make skins easier to peel off.) Carefully slit peppers open on one side. Remove seeds, leaving stems attached and peppers whole.
To make the salsa: steep nuts in hot water for about 20 minutes to make it easier to remove skins. After slipping off skins, place nuts in cool water for 15 more minutes. In a blender, place milk, goat/cream cheese, sugar and nuts; blend until smooth. Add salt to taste and set aside.
Pour oil into a skillet. Sauté half the onion, peppercorns and garlic for 2–3 minutes. Transfer to a blender. Add tomato sauce, thyme and cloves. Blend until smooth. In the same pan, add remaining onion, the meats and 1 tsp. salt. Sauté, stirring, until meat is cooked through.
Over medium-low heat, add diced fruits and plantain and cook 5 minutes more. Add cinnamon and sugar; cook, stirring, for 3 more minutes. Add tomato sauce mixture and let simmer until most liquid has evaporated but mixture is still moist.
Once meat and sauce are ready, stuff each cleaned and prepared poblano pepper with filling.
Smother with the salsa, then garnish with pomegranate seeds and parsley.
'Everyone against patriarchy,' reads the sign, with the first word spelled to reflect inclusivity, substituting an 'o' with an 'e.'
During a recent university class held over Zoom, a young Mexican non-binary person took umbrage when one of her fellow students referred to her as compañera, the feminine word for classmate or colleague.
“I’m not your compañera, I’m your compañere,” sobbed 19-year-old Andra Escamilla, using a gender-neutral term, before leaving the virtual class despite her classmate’s prompt apology.
A video of the exchange turned up on social media and quickly went viral, prompting a renewed debate in Mexico about inclusive language.
(Latinx is one gender-neutral term that is now frequently used in English in place of Latino or Latina, while some Latin American feminists use the neologism cuerpa to refer to their bodies rather than the correct word cuerpo, which is a masculine noun in Spanish.)
One criticism that some people have of the Spanish language is that the masculine takes precedence over the feminine when one is referring to a mixed group of people, animals or things. For example, you can have a group of nine niñas, or girls, but add just one boy and all of a sudden you have a group of 10 niños.
According to Georgina Barraza Carbajal, a linguist with the Mexican Academy of Language, the dominance of the masculine plural “makes people invisible.”
In an interview with the newspaper El País, she said that women are the main victims of the grammatical rule but added that non-binary individuals are also affected by it.
In that context, non-binary and LGTBIQ+ advocacy groups, among others, have proposed replacing the masculine “o” commonly used in plural terms – think todos (all of us), compañeros (classmates) and ciudadanos (citizens) – with a gender-neutral “e” in spoken language and the symbol @ or the letter “x” in written language.
Thus todos becomes todes, compañeros can be written as compañer@s and ciudadanos can be rendered as ciudadanxs.
The @ symbol is already commonly used to create gender-neutral plural terms, especially in online communication, while the use of non-sexist neologisms is also becoming increasingly frequent in spoken language.
Verónica Lozada Martínez, a linguistics professor at the National Autonomous University, said it is unclear whether such variations will grow in popularity to a point that they become established and broadly accepted but noted that a lot of academics are opposed to their use because they believe they cause a “deformation” of the Spanish language.
The Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy), the foremost authority on the language, has expressed its rejection of inclusive, or non-sexist, neologisms.
A popular maker of piñatas — oops, make that piñates — jumped into the debate with a new creation.
“The grammatical masculine [plural] functions in our language as an inclusive term. … It doesn’t have any discriminatory intention,” the academy has said.
Its director, Santiago Muñoz Machado, said in a 2020 interview that inclusive language terms strip Spanish of its economy and beauty.
“These kinds of variants damage it. [Spanish] is a beautiful and precise language. Why do you have to come and ruin it,” he said.
Prominent Mexican linguist Concepción Company has also expressed her opposition to new inclusive language words whose usage is becoming more and more common, especially among young people.
Another staunch opponent of such neologisms is a México state university professor who told his students during a virtual class that if anyone refers to him as compañere, he’ll ask them in no uncertain terms to leave the class.
“You have to understand that there are two genders: masculine and feminine,” the Autonomous University of México (UAEM) state professor said in a virtual class that was posted online.
“In the animal world there is a macho [male] and hembra [female]. There is no mache or hembre, no! Please save me the trouble of kicking you out,” he said.
The UAEM subsequently issued a statement distancing itself from the professor’s remarks, saying that values and principles of inclusion were a priority.
Also weighing in on the inclusive language debate in the wake of Escamilla’s plea to be referred to as a compañere was a piñata shop, which frequently finds inspiration for its creations in the news of the day.
Located in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Piñateria Ramirez made an Andra Escamilla piñata that it announced on social media.
“We have a [new] piñata. Why? I’m not your compañera, I’m your COMPAÑERE. I’m not your piñata, I’m your PIÑATE. … Best wishes to my non-binary clients,” the business’s post said.
The president displays his new book at Tuesday's mañanera.
The president must have woken slightly jaded in his room at the National Palace. A turbulent seven days had seen him avoid hurricanes, negotiate a political spat and narrowly avoid a hostage situation. He’d arrived back to tranquility on Sunday.
However, based on previous form, that peace wasn’t going to be long lasting.
Monday
Hurricanes were proving hard to shake: this time Hurricane Nora had hit the Pacific. Civil Protection chief Laura Velázquez Alzúa informed that the gales had affected six states and 355,000 electricity users. She reported the death of one minor in Puerto Vallarta on August 29 where a hotel partially collapsed.
The customary whistlestop tour of infrastructure projects, by video presentation, featured a far-flung entry. A short clip detailed the military’s folkloric ballet appearance at the International Festival of Military Music from Red Square, Moscow.
Later in the conference, the topic turned to homicide hotspot Guanajuato. “What I’m worried about in Guanajuato is the insecurity, because there’s a lot and the government isn’t acting well, especially the Attorney General’s Office … [probably] because they made political alliances with criminal groups,” AMLO said.
He added there had been 32 homicides in the state over the weekend.
To inaugurate the return to classes, Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum appeared on screen to announce 90% of the capital’s schools had successfully reopened their doors. A chain of presentations came in from around the country to indicate the smooth success of the academic return. Unfortunately, the transmissions themselves belied that smooth impression, and a virtual tour around the nation’s governors and educational authorities rather resembled a comedy of errors.
Tuesday
During the health rounds on Tuesday COVID point man Hugo López-Gatell said estimated cases had been declining for a month and that the trend was set to continue, while 65% of the adult population had received a first shot.
Gas Bienestar, the new state LP gas company, was launching in Iztapalapa, Mexico City. Mayor Sheinbaum, Iztapalapa Mayor Clara Brugada and Pemex CEO Octavio Romero Oropeza all lent their voices to the launch over video link.
Pemex chief Octavio Romero.
Later in the conference, the president offered a teaser from his new book A la mitad del camino, or Halfway There. In an old conversation with his predecessor Enrique Peña Nieto, his rival had expressed his dismay at the disloyalty of those in elite circles: “In an exchange with president Peña … he told me he felt betrayed because he’d given them so much, he’d attended so well to those at the top and they had acted to betray him,” AMLO said.
But for now, the president had another guest to attend to. The former governor of Tabasco, Adán Augusto, recently promoted to interior minister, was meeting AMLO for breakfast. “Some chanchamitos and chocolate with cacao from Tabasco, because we are from the republic of cacao. That’s what [Tabascan poet] Pellicer said: ‘I’m from the republic of cacao, first day of Cortés, last night of Cuauhtémoc.’ At some point, I’ll explain what all that means,” said the president, shortly before striding away to attend to the nation.
Wednesday
Some observers were left to a lonely morning coffee on Wednesday when no mañanera was broadcast. Instead, AMLO offered his third annual report to the nation later in the day from the National Palace.
He opened the address by attacking the “neoliberal farce” and privatization of state assets that had accompanied it. He touted success in infrastructure projects and energy, the vaccine program, the return to classes, and pointed to positive economic indicators.
On crime, where the administration has had mixed results, he highlighted a massive 95% drop in the theft of fuels, but could only boast a 0.5% fall in homicides.
Austerity, he said, was a flagship achievement of the administration: “We have saved 1.4 trillion pesos in purchases and contracts,” he said, and repeated his claim that 98 of his 100 promises made when entering office had been fulfilled. Only decentralizing government institutions and definitively solving the Ayotzinapa massacre remained.
AMLO added that he could already leave office with his conscience in check, but still urged voters to support the continuation of his mandate at the polls in March.
In fact, he said he felt so comfortable with his work so far that when he eventually wraps up, he expects to say: “Mission accomplished! I’m going to Palenque, I leave you my heart.”
Thursday
In an early announcement, legal counsel Julio Scherer Ibarra would step back from public service. “He’s like my brother,” the president said. In Scherer’s place would come another ally, Estela Ríos.
Congratulations flowed for the Paralympians in Tokyo, who had achieved a 14th medal. And then, to the lies of the week with Ana Elizabeth García Vilchis: “Let’s see the pinocchios,” summoned the president.
Reporters got a first-hand look at a Gas Bienestar LP gas tank.
Contrary to reports, García said, a new hospital in Guerrero would be fully equipped; Ricardo Anaya was not being unfairly persecuted; Spaniards were not in fear of an invasion by AMLO despite a Vicente Fox tweet to that effect; Gas Bienestar cylinders were all ship shape.
“We don’t have disagreements with anyone,” replied AMLO, “but we don’t accept blackmail.”
Before Scherer’s departure from public view, a journalist had a plea. “I wanted to request to Mr. Scherer that from his private practice, wherever he goes, he helps us with the Mechanism for the Protection of Journalists, because they are killing three colleagues every month.”
“I’m going to continue supporting in any way I can, always serving the president and always serving this government in which I wholly trust,” the lawyer affirmed.
Friday
Representatives from Red Cross México were in attendance on Friday. They requested help in their “battle” on the fronts of natural disasters and COVID-19. Mexico City Mayor Sheinbaum offered her presence for the third time of the week — this time in person — to support the drive.
The president nearly moved on the conference a little too hastily: “What’s missing … Oh, the collection,” before taking out a well concealed bill and popping it in a Red Cross purse.
A journalist called foul on public projects. The Toluca-Mexico City train had cost 94 billion pesos and should have cost 30; the Guadalajara train had cost 34 billion pesos, double what was estimated, he said.
“We’re going to investigate it,” replied the president.
Later in the conference, AMLO revealed the presence of far-right Spanish politicians: “Yesterday some extremists came from [the Spanish political party] Vox. They met with the National Action Party … a hand kissing in the Senate, really shameful,” he declared.
The president left in a hurry, this time to his homeland of Tabasco. He’d then move on to other states but left journalists guessing on the details.
An additional 17,409 confirmed coronavirus cases were added to Mexico’s accumulated tally on Friday while 725 additional COVID-19 deaths were reported.
Just over 3.4 million cases have now been detected and 262,221 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 have died.
The federal Health Ministry reported 100,258 estimated active cases across Mexico, a 9.5% decline compared to Thursday.
The Mexico City government announced that the coronavirus risk level in the capital would be downgraded from high orange to medium yellow on Monday. Official Eduardo Clark said that new case numbers have been on the wane in Mexico City for four weeks.
However, there are still more than 20,000 active cases in the country’s largest city, according to the federal government. In neighboring México state, Governor Alfredo del Mazo said the orange risk level will remain in place for an additional two weeks.
There are no red light maximum risk states on the federal stoplight map that will take effect Monday and remain in force until September 19, whereas there are seven on the current map. Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said earlier this week that there are “clear signs” that the third, delta variant-driven wave of the pandemic is receding.
There are 17 orange states, 13 yellow ones and two green light entities with Chihuahua joining Chiapas as a low risk state.
The orange states are Sonora, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Aguascalientes, Veracruz, Colima, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, México state, Guerrero, Morelos, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Hidalgo and Querétaro.
The yellow states are Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sinaloa, Durango, Coahuila, Nayarit, Zacatecas, Jalisco, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Mexico City, Oaxaca and Quintana Roo.
In other COVID-19 news:
• More than 86.3 million vaccine doses have been administered, according to the latest data. The Health Ministry reported that just under 462,000 shots were given on Thursday. About 65% of the adult population has received at least one shot.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio
• Residents aged 40-49 of six Mexico City boroughs will receive their second shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine next week. Jabs will be administered Tuesday through Saturday in Azcapotzalco, Iztapalapa, Benito Juárez, Gustavo A. Madero, Venustiano Carranza and Iztacalco.
Government official Eduardo Clark said Friday that an average of almost 105,000 people per day are expected to be vaccinated.
• Durango now has the highest occupancy rate for general care COVID-19 hospital beds, according to federal data. Just under 71% of such beds are occupied in the northern state.
Hidalgo ranks second with a rate of 68% followed by Veracruz (also 68%), Puebla (66%), San Luis Potosí (62%) and Nuevo León (60%).
Colima has the highest occupancy rate for beds with ventilators with almost 69% in use. The only other state where more than 60% of such beds are taken is Tabasco, where the rate is 61%.
• The average cost of a stay in a private hospital for a COVID patient has risen to 494,000 pesos (US $24,800), the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions reported. Treatment for severely ill patients who require intubation can be as high as 3.5 million pesos (US $175,500).
• The federal government estimates there will be just over 70,000 additional COVID-19 deaths in the final four months of 2021. The Health Ministry estimate was included in an extended, written version of President López Obrador’s third annual report to the nation.
The Río Seco can be entered from the south end of the community of Pinar de la Venta, located eight kilometers west of Guadalajara.
El Río Seco is a beautiful, ever-changing canyon that will please hikers of all abilities. This “Dry River” is three kilometers long and runs directly southeast from the northern edge of Jalisco’s beloved Primavera Forest, which is often referred to as the “lung of Guadalajara.”
The walls and floor of the canyon are literally reshaped after every storm, revealing fascinating new rock formations which often surprise and delight visitors who have hiked through the very same place just the week before.
The Río Seco is a perfect walk for families with small children. Because the first part of the canyon is the most susceptible to change, even those who walk only 10 minutes and then turn back will feel their short hike was well worth it.
The walls of this canyon often tower 50 meters above you, and they have a story to tell; in fact, geologists from all over the world will come to the Primavera Forest just to gaze upon sheer canyon walls like these because they clearly tell the story of cataclysmic events that unfolded in this part of Mexico long, long ago.
That story is obvious to a geologist, but it can also hold meaning for the rest of us. First, consider this: 95,000 years ago, the area encompassed by what is now the forest exploded in a Yellowstone-style volcanic eruption that threw 40 cubic kilometers of ash and rubble high into the air, leaving behind a caldera, or huge hole, which then filled with water and became a lake for 10,000–20,000 years.
Making friends with the inhabitants of the Primavera Forest. Because most of the supposedly protected forest is privately owned, such encounters aren’t unusual.
According to geologist Barbara Dye, volcanoes eventually rose up in the lake and spewed out a sort of volcanic foam that hardened into pumice rock so light that it floated on the surface of the lake for a while, though it eventually sank.
This is what geologists — and anyone — can see “written” on the high walls of the Río Seco: long horizontal lines mark layers of sediment accumulated on the lake bottom.
Above many of these strata, you may see a thick layer filled with big pieces of pumice rock, perhaps several meters in diameter. This is what is known as the Giant-Pumice Horizon, one of the most extraordinary features of the Primavera Caldera.
This hike begins at the south edge of the community of Pinar de La Venta, located eight kilometers west of Guadalajara. As you begin walking southeast, following the Río Seco, you will find yourself entirely surrounded by pumice. You are, in fact, walking inside the Giant-Pumice Horizon.
A few minutes later, you will see a horizontal layer of lake silt appear below the pumice blocks, and you can actually touch the contact point.
I mention all this because you may be very distracted by the sheer beauty of the channel you are walking through, incised on both sides by shelf-like rock formations. This is the part of the Río Seco that can look quite different from one day to the next.
After a strong rain, the Río Seco takes on new forms and the floor of the canyon may rise or fall as much as a meter.
By the way, I should mention that you are now inside a protected forest which, of course, has its rules. It’s easy to understand that you should not pick flowers or kill some poor tarantula you find wandering about, but many people balk at the regulation against taking their dogs with them into this forest.
“It’s not a capriccio,” says federal environmental protection agent Rodrigo Orozco. “Dogs leave traces of their presence wherever they go, and these traces remain for a long time. Shy creatures who live in these woods immediately recognize that an animal that they consider a dangerous predator [that includes even the smallest, cutest dog] has invaded their territory, and they are forced to move away and find a new place to live.
“When you enter a nature reserve, you are setting foot in someone else’s home, and you have to follow their rules.”
As you walk beneath the canyon walls, you immediately notice that the layer of topsoil may often be only 10 centimeters deep with nothing below it but sterile ash and pumice. How can trees possibly grow here?
The answer to this is evident in those same walls. In the Primavera Forest, the trees have learned to send their roots deep down into every crack they can find in hopes of garnering nutrition from what little the rain might wash down into the crevice. This makes it one of the most delicate forests in the world and all the more in need of protected status.
If you continue southeast along the Río Seco for one kilometer, you will go through La Caja de Piedras, The Box of Rocks. This is the narrowest point of the canyon, measuring about two meters wide between high, sheer walls composed of thousands of rocks the size of bowling balls.
Hikers pass through the walls of the Caja de Piedras and its thousands of rocks.
The passage is cool and shaded, and on its walls, you might see delicate Adiantum ferns, known as maidenhair ferns in English, or even a rare kind of wild mint that I’ve only seen in the shaded canyons of this forest.
If you continue walking for another kilometer beyond this point, you will reach an unobtrusive little pool of water. Because it never dries up, even on the hottest day of the dry season, you can be sure that elusive animals like peccaries, possums, ringtails, lynxes and yes, even pumas, come here to drink in the dead of night.
Proof that such animals really live in the Río Seco can be seen only 393 meters beyond the pool. Keep your eyes open and on the right, you will see a smooth white wall maybe a meter and a half high.
This is a deposit of a clay, possibly kaolin (an important ingredient for making high-quality pre-Hispanic pottery), and if you get very close to this wall, you’ll see scratch marks probably made by a raccoon or a coati that then licked its paws in order to ingest the clay and help its body deal with something toxic it had eaten.
About 350 meters beyond this scratching wall, the canyon peters out and turns into a woodsy trail leading to … where, I know not — because that is the farthest I have gone.
When it rains, of course, the Dry River becomes quite wet, and a thunderstorm can turn it into a real river. Just follow the rules for hiking in any canyon: if it looks like rain, stay home and play tiddlywinks.
This scratching wall is composed of a white clay called kaolin. The insert below suggests the scratcher was either a raccoon or a coati.
To reach the starting point for this hike — via any sort of vehicle, even an ordinary sedan — ask Google Maps to take you to PF7G+WQ Pinar de la Venta, Jalisco. There, you will find a cylindrical, concrete survey marker indicating the boundary between Pinar La Venta and the Primavera Forest.
Just close to the marker, you’ll find a short trail taking you down into the Río Seco. From here, walk southeast as far as you’d like to go. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the experience!
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for 31 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
Geologist Barbara Dye examines the contact point where pumice ended up at the bottom of a lake that once filled the Primavera Caldera.
“It’s not so dry today!” shouts John Pint as a storm pounds the Río Seco.
A small but perennial pool may be visited at night by lynxes, peccaries, ringtails, raccoons and even an occasional puma.
Hikers take advantage of a natural bench.
The lighter Giant-Pumice Horizon can be seen on this canyon wall, sandwiched between layers of sediment.
Delicate maidenhair ferns (Adiantum) decorate the canyon walls.
The Mexican rock band Maná will be honored at this year’s Billboard Latin Music Awards with the Billboard Icon Award to recognize the band’s achievements over the past 35 years.
The chart-topping and Grammy-winning band will be recognized for “having carved out a career that has not only remained relevant through time but has also made them the most distinguished band in their genre, celebrated globally for achieving both musical and commercial success.”
Maná has sold over 40 million albums worldwide, winning 24 Latin Music awards and has placed over 30 songs on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs list, including Spanish rock anthems such as Labios Compartidos and Lluvia al Corazón.
The band is also known for its environmental work through the Selva Negra Ecological Foundation, founded 25 years ago.
Maná has also been nominated this year for Latin pop artist of the year, duo or group.
Puerto Rico rapper Bad Bunny leads the list of nominees with 22 in 13 categories, followed by Colombian artist Maluma.
Archaeological remains found in Morelos, Mexico City.
Archaeologists have uncovered new evidence of cultural resistance to the Spanish conquest of Mexico.
The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said that its archaeologists discovered the remains of a residential complex and stone workshop in the Mexico City neighborhood of Morelos, which borders Tlatelolco, a neighborhood where a pre-Hispanic altepetl, or city-state, was once located.
The remains confirm that a few years after the conquest of Tlatelolco in the early 16th century, Mexica people returned to their old settlements to continue with their ceremonies and religious rituals “as a sort of cultural resistance,” INAH said in a statement.
It said the remains date back to the late postclassic period (1200-1521) and early colonial period (1521-1650) and remained for centuries beneath the busy streets of Morelos, located just north of Mexico City’s historic center.
The architecture of the residential complex, which included an area for ceremonies and rituals, allowed INAH archaeologists to conclude that it was occupied between 1525 and 1547.
“A small warehouse with globular pots and organic remains that belong to the colonial period was found,” INAH said.
The institute also said that two anthropomorphic statues measuring 35 cm and 40 cm were also found at the site, located near the Tlatelolco archaeological zone. José Antonio López, an INAH archaeologist, said that interpreting the meaning of the statues is not easy.
“When they were ‘alive’ in the pre-Hispanic times they were possibly buried at this place with a dedication, but with the arrival of the Spanish, and with the indigenous people not being able to recover their ancient deities, it’s possible that their meaning changed, as a form of religious and cultural resistance,” he said.
In the stone workshop, archaeologists recovered a large quantities of gray, golden and green obsidian, INAH said. Xantal Rosales García, another INAH archaeologist, said that 15,000 finished objects and almost two tonnes of obsidian were found.
Archaeologists also discovered the graves of 36 adults and children who died in pre-Hispanic and colonial times. Josefina Bautista Martínez, an anthropologist, said that one child was buried with a 15-centimeter-long obsidian knife placed on his head. She also said that a fragment of silex was placed on his body and one of his teeth was replaced with a green stone.
The archaeologists also uncovered numerous ceramic pieces including more than 200 female figurines. According to López, all the recovered materials are indicative of a “hidden religious persistence of these indigenous groups during evangelization despite the Franciscans being very close by.”
