Intersections

Watch: VICE News Highlights of 2015

 

Some of the work produced out of our office in Mexico City shows up on this compilation of highlights from VICE News' year.

You're eating fake tortillas, and Diana Kennedy is pissed about it

** Originally published at Munchies, on May 7, 2014:

“Why is it that we have allowed people who are totally incompetent in food to design our food?” Diana Kennedy was saying, her gray and white hair lifting lightly in the breeze. “Our food doesn’t have the flavor it used to have. I remember the chile poblanos, full of flavor, thin-fleshed, very dark green, and that big. Now ¡olvidalo!”

“Forget it,” she said. Today, there is actually a four in ten chance a chile poblano served to you anywhere in Mexico has been imported, most likely from China. Kennedy knows this, and the truth seems to burn through her entire being.

A living legend in food, Kennedy started exploring the markets of Mexico’s towns and villages more than fifty years ago, meeting cooks and gathering plants and recipes with the precision of a ethnobotanist. It has been her lifelong project of achieving total intimacy with Mexico’s native ingredients.

Sitting at Kennedy’s outdoor dining table with a tiny glass of mezcal before me, I struggled to imagine the flavor of the chile poblanos back then because fifty years ago, Mexico and the planet were simply different places than they are now. There were less people, for one, and probably a lot less contaminants in the air, in the soil, in the water. In our lives.

There was no transgenic corn in Mexico fifty years ago, and definitely none imported from the United States—as there is today—not in the land where science has agreed that corn was born.

At 91 years old, Diana is old enough to remember what that Mexico tasted like. Her palate fuels her ideas—and anger.

“People are losing taste, especially in the US, and then it passes to Mexico,” Kennedy told me. “It’s ridiculous, but then nobody has paid attention to the agriculture in Mexico.”

* All photos by Alejandro Mendoza.

Mal Del Puerco: Pulques para el 2 de Octubre

 * Fotos por Alejandro Mendoza.

** Originally published at VICE México:

El miércoles fue 2 de octubre, fecha oscura en México para la gente que le importa una cosita que es la protección de derechos y de la justicia en nuestro país.

En otros años, he cubierto la marcha de los estudiantes y de los señores y las señoras del Comité del ‘68, los que siguen vivos, los que siguen caminando cada 2 de octubre en memoria de los compañeros de las unis y las prepas que perdieron hace 45 años en la Plaza de las Tres Culturas. (QDEP Carlota Botey, ¡presente!)

Créanme que la convicción personal me guía como periodista en esta fecha.

La primera vez que entendí lo que ocurrió en 1968 en México —porque nunca se sabrá a fondo y con claridad— caí en una depresión de varios días, no lo creía y no lo quería creer. ¿Dónde hubiera estado si a mí me hubiera tocado caminar por estas calles en esas fechas y no en las de hoy? ¿Estuviera en Tlatelolco en esos días tensos, antes del inicio de las Olimpiadas en la Ciudad de México, cuando las clases medias del “Mexican Miracle” salieron a reclamar la apertura de un estado autoritario y corrupto?

Y a la vez, se me ha pasado la fecha impredeciblemente. El año pasado, casi ni me di cuenta cuando se aproximaba el 2 de octubre. Al final, no hubo heridos en los demadres entre encapuchados/anarquistas/infiltrados/porros y las fuerzas de la seguridad pública en su labor de “vigilar” la marcha conmemorativa, el baile de putazos de siempre.

Pero este 2013 no pude ignorar el calendario. Desde el 1 de diciembre han ido incrementando los golpes entre la policía y manifestantes que ven tan mal su situación y sus expectativas para el futuro que deciden joder el tráfico en la ciudad, y hasta el acceso al aeropuerto cuando se les ocurre. Pobres. Los polis les pegan, y los ciudadanos les tiran duro hate. En todo caso, se siente un lento aumento en la tensión en el aire, y me preocupa lo que traerán los próximos cinco años —por lo menos para todos los que no directamente vamos a ganar bajo la gloria de la restauración del viejo régimen.

Pero… fuera con la depre.

Los días en el inicio del otoño han estado lindos, y hoy viernes es luna nueva. ¡Todo nuevo! Y como la mañana, el día, la tarde, la noche y la madrugada para mí gira alrededor de la comida, decidí el miércoles marcar el 2 de octubre tomándome unos buenos pulques, schido’la’banda.

En la calle Aranda, atrás del triste y olvidado mercado setentero de artesanías de la calle Ayuntamiento, entre unos baños públicos y el Molinero Progreso (que huele tan rico siempre), está la pulquería Las Duelistas. Sí, ya todos las conocen y ya ha salido en todos los medios y ahora llegan turistas y cámaras casi diario. Lo hermoso de Las Duelistas es que a pesar de la atención mediática, no ha cambiado: es un lugar para los viejitos de la colonia que conocen los secretos milenarios de este regalo del maguey, y los chavos estudiantes que lo han “descubierto” de nuevo. (¿Podemos ya dejar de hablar del descubrimiento de estas generaciones al pulque? Ya pasó, ¿no? Por su attn., gracias).

Mi amigo El Ponce me trajo a este lugar por primera vez en 2008 cuando llegué a vivir al barrio. Era cuando apenitas el amigo ponk El Xuve estaba elaborando los bellos murales del panteón de dioses mexicas que ahora decoran el lugar y lo hacen (creo yo) uno de los espacios más especiales en el Centro. El dueño Arturo Garrido siempre me ha dado la bienvenida. Sus curados, más.

Este miércoles en Las Duelistas, me atrajo el tuit de diario de la noche antes, anunciando los curados del día próximo:

 

Miércoles de Mango, Betabel, Avena, Apio y Guayaba y de botana unos Frijoles guisados con chorizo acompañados de una salsa molcajeteada

— Las Duelistas (@LaPulqueria) October 2, 2013

 

Llegué con mi compañero de VICE México, Alejandro Mendoza, y empecé con un curado de betabel, uno de mis favoritos de este lugar. Como me iba a quedar a tomarme por lo menos dos tarros hoy, pedí la botana, esta vez unos frijoles con chorizo, picados con cebolla y cilantro, y unas tortitillas simples.

La pulquería estaba llena ya de jóvenes y grandes. A tres cuadras de aquí, la policía de la ciudad ya tenía sus vallas metálicas cerrando el paso a la Alameda Central, a Bellas Artes y a Madero. Pero eso no se sentía adentro de Las Duelistas.

Le pregunté a mi servidor de siempre que dónde estaba Don Arturo. Ahí anda, me dejó saber, “A ver si va a la marcha”, agregó, y no entendí si hablaba en serio. En pocos minutos llegó Don Arturo, nos saludamos y sólo se quejó de que los policías hubieran tomado el Centro de nuevo.

Me eché p’atrás el de betabel. Pedí luego un curado de apio, sin chile, sólo sal y limón. Para este entonces, ya sentía la peda de los 400 conejos. Me sentía feliz, fuerte y no quería que las madrizas que seguro venían más tarde en la calle me bajaran la buena vibra.

Los frijolitos me llenaron bien. Me acerqué a la rockola, y, como por instinto, busqué Panteón Rococó. Ahí estaban. Por unos segundos, pensé en pedir “Nada Pasó.”

No, esta vez no. Qué cliché. Qué tristeza. Mejor otra… ¡Salud!

Otras pulquerías donde he chupado, sin fichas directas. (¡Búsquenle, que esto no es Chilango Punto Com, dudes!):

La Ana María, en la Colonia Portales

El Salón Casino, en la Colonia Obrera

La Risa, en Mesones en el Centro

Un puesto en la Merced

La Pirata, por Patriotismo

La Antigua Roma (por si te atreves), sobre Allende, cerca de Garibaldi

No Más No Llores, allá en Xochimilco

La Titina, por Misterios y Calzada de Guadalupe

Un puesto de tacos en la México-Cuernavaca libre, después de Tres Marías

El fin de un ciclo: In Yucatan for 13.0.0.0.0.

** Originally published in the February 2013 issue of Gatopardo magazine, with photographs by Eunice Adorno (gallery here).

* The following is an excerpt. Gatopardo is on newsstands in Mexico now.

Sábado 15 de diciembre de 2012 
[11 Ix o 12.19.19.17.14]

Finalmente conseguimos aquí una información clave. En el pueblo llamado Ticul, al sur de Mérida, un poco antes de llegar a Oxkutzcab, vivía un experto en garabatas, como se le llaman a los huaraches en Yucatán. Uno de los curanderos que conocimos en Kambul, Jorge Coronada, nos dijo que el maestro José Ortiz hacía los mejores zapatos de la península. Nos lanzamos para allá.

Un lugar se revela por el carácter de sus caminos: a lo largo del periférico de la ciudad de Mérida —una vía moderna repleta de fábricas y oficinas de gobierno— era común la presencia de la policía, fuerte aunque nunca amenazante. Pasamos por uno de los varios retenes que se instalaron para seguir manteniendo el orgullo de Yucatán: el estado más seguro del país. Al llegar a Umán tomé una calle que nos llevaría al centro, pero se convirtió en un camino cuyo sentido era opuesto al que veníamos. Del otro lado venía un joven en un taxi-motocicleta y cuando nos pasó me miró con desdén y me dijo: "¡Vete a la verga, vato!". Pensé que nunca se puede decir de un lugar que "la gente es tan amable y tan acogedora", porque siempre hay excepciones.

Cuando llegamos a Ticul ya era de noche. El cielo estaba despejado y un mar de estrellas brillaba arriba con intensidad. La luna estaba majestuosa y los caminos entre la selva oscura eran largos y rectos. Este pueblo era como los demás en Yucatán: tenía un mercado, una estación de camiones, zapaterías, tiendas de ropa y de teléfonos celulares, además de casas de piedra de un piso que parecen haberse construido hace veinte o doscientos años. Todos los pueblos de la llanura de la península son iguales; están edificados alrededor de una plaza con una iglesia que parece un fuerte. De hecho, muchas funcionaron como tales: las iglesias de pueblos como Tizimín, Muna y Ticul son altas, con pocas ventanas y están construidas con muros de ladrillo de grandes dimensiones; un recuerdo del pasado, cuando los mayas se resistieron a la conquista española por generaciones —mucho más tiempo que los aztecas.

[Previously, "Incidents of Travel in the Yucatan, Part 1."]

Un viajero del siglo XIX, John L. Stephens, describió a este pueblo como "el perfecto retrato de quietud y descanso". Íbamos en el coche por el centro polvoriento, cuando giré a mi derecha y enseguida me detuve junto a un hombre de mediana edad, que estaba sentado afuera de una zapatería. Buscamos al señor José Ortiz, el zapatero, dije. Aquel hombre tendría unos sesenta años, el cabello blanco y unos extraños ojos verdes y cristalinos. "Él es mi padre", contestó y explicó cómo llegar a su casa.

Unas cuantas cuadras atrás, sobre la misma calle, nos topamos con el taller del señor Ortiz. Había un pequeño letrero pintado a mano junto a un poste de madera que marcaba la fachada de la casa. La puerta estaba abierta, y dentro se veía todo iluminado por un foco fluorescente pegado a una mesa de trabajo, que bañaba la habitación con una luz azul pálida. No había nadie adentro. Tocamos y llamamos a la puerta, tocamos y llamamos. En la ventana de la calle se veía una serie de luces navideñas que formaban un altar a la Virgen de Guadalupe, de esas que vienen con música de villancicos con un solo tono. Poco a poco nos fuimos metiendo y esperamos dentro. Viejas fotografías y mapas colgaban de las paredes, como si no hubieran sido tocados por décadas. Estaba claro que el taller del señor Ortiz era un lugar especial. Me sentí satisfecho por estar ahí.

[Previously, "Incidents of Travel in the Yucatan, Part 2."]

Una mujer pasó por la calle y al vernos preguntó qué estábamos buscando. Un minuto después, José Ortiz Escobedo llegó y se acercó a mí y mis compañeros.

Era un hombre viejo y muy delgado que vestía pantalones y una playera de trabajo. Tenía un rostro bien parecido, moreno, y una nariz triangular puntiaguda. Nos saludó con amabilidad, y pudimos entonces presentarnos. Queríamos ver, le dijimos, las garabatas que vendía. Al principio fue un tanto difícil comprender lo que decía. Tenía noventa años de edad. Su acento maya era fuerte —el turbulento y entrecortado castellano, que hierve en la punta de la boca para luego estallar en sus cus y kas.

El señor Ortiz explicó que no podía vendernos ninguno de los huaraches de piel que colgaban en la pared. Parecían objetos delicados, pero resistentes. "Te pueden lastimar los pies", dijo. Ortiz sólo hace sandalias a la medida. Dijo que podría tomarnos la talla y tendríamos que regresar mañana o el día siguiente, si así lo deseábamos. Me probé un calzado y me quedó perfecto, pero el señor Ortiz insistió en que no nos vendería ni un solo par que no estuviera hecho a la medida. Ni un cinturón, además, aunque también intenté llevarme uno. Por un momento me resultó imposible entender que, a diferencia de la ciudad de México, aquí el dinero no podía comprarlo todo.

[Previously, "Incidents of Travel in the Yucatan, Part 3."]

Le pregunté si había escuchado algo acerca de la supuesta predicción de los mayas sobre el fin del mundo. "Si se acaba el mundo, me voy para Mérida", concluyó.

El señor Ortiz, que no había ido a Mérida en muchos años, nació en esa casa donde estábamos parados, lo mismo que su padre. Ha trabajado como zapatero por más de setenta y cinco años. Se casó a los veintidós, y su esposa aún está viva y tiene la misma edad, noventa. Tienen ocho hijos, aunque sólo sobreviven cinco, y doce bisnietos, dijo. Se puso a traducirnos ciertas palabras mayas como che para madera, o eck para estrella. Los mayas de Yucatán siempre han dicho lo que piensan, dijo. Y como él es un hombre de edad, no fue nada tímido para enunciar lo que pensaba. "Los mayas lo que ven, lo dicen —dijo—. Lo que hablábamos ahora es mestizado, no es la verdadera lengua maya. La verdadera es ofensiva, ofende a la mujer".

"El apellido que tengo no es maya… Es español… Y a pesar de que soy maya porque nací en tierra maya y nuestro estilo es maya, el apellido no lo es".

Le preguntamos qué comía para estar tan sano y despierto: chaya, lechuga, espinaca, rábano, chayote, nada de carne. Se movía por la habitación libremente y usaba sus brazos para hacer énfasis en sus ideas. "Tengo que trabajar —dijo—. Si uno se acuesta, envejece más pronto".

Cuando le pregunté de nuevo sobre el significado del "fin del mundo", contestó que "el sistema de ellos termina. El sistema de los otros, ahorita, es lo que va a terminar. Y empieza lo de los mayas".

[Previously, "Incidents of Travel in the Yucatan, Part 4."]

* English-language posting is forthcoming ...

After 7 years, Mexico may renew search for missing miners' bodies

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's new government is considering relaunching an abandoned rescue effort to reach the bodies of 63 miners in a coal mine in northern Mexico since 2006, one of the worst mining disasters in the country's history.

The Pasta de Conchos tragedy left 65 dead and exposed poor and dangerous working conditions for miners in one of Mexico's largest but also most under-regulated industries. Relatives of the victims have insisted in protests that the recovery operation be resumed and in recent days sought support from members of the new federal Cabinet.

A methane explosion trapped the miners on Feb. 19, 2006. The recovery effort was abandoned in April 2007 after only two bodies had been brought out.

The Pasta de Conchos disaster deepened rifts between representatives of the victims -- their families and unions -- and Grupo Mexico, the mining conglomerate that owns the coal mine in the municipality of San Juan Sabinas, Coahuila state.

This week, after a fresh push by relatives of the victims before the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto, the attorney general's office indicated it was open to examining the investigation and possibly reopening the recovery effort.

Speaking Wednesday at Mexico's Senate, the deputy attorney general for human rights, Ricardo Garcia Cervantes, said the Pasta de Conchos case is a reminder that poorly regulated mines known aspozitos should be closed.

"We should prohibit pozitos, because since Pasta de Conchos they've generated an unjustified number of dead," Garcia said. "They're an avoidable human pain."

By one count of victims' relatives, at least 67 more miners have died since Pasta de Conchos in accidents or explosions in Mexico through early 2012.

No dates or guidelines have been been set yet for a reexamination of the case, said Armando Seguro, a spokesman in the attorney general's office.

Juan Rebolledo, vice president for international relations at Grupo Mexico, told The Times that the company has not received any formal petition to reenter the mine and would not comment further.

The explosion occurred during the mine's overnight shift. Some basic figures about the incident, such as at what depth it occurred, remain in dispute. In 2008, widows of the miners and volunteers from other mining regions of northern Mexico converged at Pasta de Conchos and attempted to storm the mine and launch their own effort to reach the bodies.

* Photo by Sharon Steinmann, via LAT.

Mexico finds fire-god figure at top of Pyramid of the Sun

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- Did the rulers of the ancient city of Teotihuacan dedicate their largest pyramid to the god of fire, the so-called old god with a signature beard and fire atop his head?

Mexican archaeologists announced this week that a figure of the god, called Huehueteotl, was found in a covered pit at the apex of the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, a popular archaeological site north of Mexico City.

Excavations are ongoing, but the discovery suggests that a long-disappeared temple at the top of the pyramid was used to perform ritual offerings to the fire god, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, or INAH, said in a statement Monday.

Huehueteotl is known in the archaeology of various Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmecs and Aztecs, and the Aztecs' predecessors in the Valley of Mexico, the Teotihuacanos. He is commonly represented as a viejo, or old man, sitting in a cross-legged position, often with a beard and a beaked nose, and with a hearth-like source of fire balanced on his head. Huehueteotl is associated with wisdom and rulership.

Archaeologists found the Huehueteotl, along with two stone pillars, in a covered pit about 15 feet deep, at a height of about 214 feet from the ground. The pit is below the remnants of a platform at the top of the Pyramid of the Sun that probably served as the foundation for a temple.

The people of Teotihuacan finished building the pyramid around AD 100 and destroyed its apex temple themselves around the end of the 5th century or the beginning of the 6th century, INAH said.

Archaeologists did not know that a pit existed at the top of the stepped pyramid, renowned as one of the largest of its kind in the Americas. It is now thought that Leopoldo Batres, the pioneering archaeologist who restored the pyramid to the basic form seen today, covered the platform a century ago without properly excavating it.

"Once we didn't find the bottom of the platform, upon further digging we figured out it was pit," INAH archaeologist Nelly Nuñez said in a video.

In 2011, INAH archaeologists announced they had found a 400-foot-long tunnel at the base of the Pyramid of the Sun, which is still being studied. Mexico's government has been excavating the structure in earnest since 2005. Only a fraction of the Teotihuacan site has been studied in about 100 years of government archaeological work there.

The Huehueteotl was uncovered between June and December. It weighs 418 pounds and is made of a gray volcanic stone. An INAH spokeswoman said Wednesday that the fire-god figure and other objects found with it were still being examined. It was unclear when they might be exhibited to the public.

** Photo by INAH via LAT.

In Mexico, 1,000-year-old mummified dog begs for attention

** Originally published in the print edition of the Los Angeles Times:

MEXICO CITY — For nearly 50 years, the mummified remains of a dog believed to have lived 1,000 years ago sat forgotten in a school museum in north-central Mexico.

That meant, among other things, that no one got to admire the ancient dog's irresistible facial expression.

The canine, which has no name, appears in recently released photographs lying on its side as if relaxing. Its expression is serene and somehow friendly.

Archaeologists say the mummified male dog is about 1,000 years old, but other than that, little is known about it, including whether it is a xoloitzcuintle, the indigenous Mexican hairless dog, because of its curious shape.

The specimen was pulled from the Cave of the Candelaria, a 30-foot-deep ancient burial site in the semidesert region known as La Laguna, by government researchers in 1953. Along with the dog, archaeologists found textiles, ceramics, arrowheads and mummified figures such as a 3-year-old child wrapped in a rope.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History says it was eventually stored at the museum of the Escuela de Bachilleres Venustiano Carranza, a state school in the city of Torreon.

It lay there, in effect forgotten, until August, when the institute's archaeologists at the Regional Museum of La Laguna examined the school's holdings, found the dog and determined that it hadn't been properly studied. Authorities said the dog will soon undergo DNA tests and carbon-dating.

Jaime Alejandro Bautista, the institute's subdirector of public records, said the mummified remains would prove telling if they turned out to be those of a xoloitzcuintle — pronounced "cho-los-kuint-leh." It would push the border of the breed's native region significantly farther north than the Mesoamerican region of central and southern Mexico. It could also suggest that nomadic northern peoples such as Chichimecas had earlier contact than previously thought with urbanizing pre-Hispanic societies such as the Aztecs.

"We know that dogs are associated with funeral rites in pre-Hispanic societies, so it is likely that it was deposited there intentionally," Bautista said. "The dog mummified naturally, due to the conditions of the microclimate in the cave."

Its skin, or what's left of it, is coated in a varnish, a preservation-minded mistake years ago by an unknown custodian, Bautista said.

"We just lost track of it. At the time, an adequate museum did not exist to receive it," he said.

Indeed, the northern region of Mexico is sorely understudied by anthropologists and archaeologists in comparison with the deeply studied Mesoamerican region. There are even fewer U.S. specialists — "five or six," by one count — who concentrate on the north and who might be able to independently comment on the rare mummified dog.

The dog could be put on display at the Regional Museum of La Laguna as early as mid-2013.

In the meantime, its friendly expression will remain out of public view.

** All photos courtesy of INAH.

Maya 'doomsday' may actually be Sunday, archaeologist says

** Originally published at World Now:

TULUM, Mexico – Hold on to your doomsday fever, folks, the Maya calendar date celebrated Friday as the “end of the world” might actually be off by two days – or a full year.

The end of the 13th baktun cycle of the so-called Long Count of the ancient Maya’s intricate, interlocking calendar system might correspond to Sunday, not Friday, said Carmen Rojas, an archaeologist with Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History.

As "end of the world" hype swept the globe Friday, scholars pointed out that the Maya calendar hasn't been decoded enough to make exact correlations with the Gregorian calendar that we use.

Rojas stressed that the Maya not only calculated baktun cycles of 144,000 days, but also had systems that measured the marches of Venus and the moon. Other scholars note some Maya glyphs mark dates thousands of years further into the future.

In addition, calendar dates that Maya leaders recorded on pillars that survive to this day might have been modified over time to suit certain cultural or political interests of the day, Rojas said during a walk-through Thursday of the ruins of Tulum, a pre-Hispanic port city situated on a spectacular bluff overlooking coral reefs in the Caribbean Sea.

One such inconsistency leads some Maya scholars to believe the 13th baktun cycle ends on Sunday, while others say it might be off by a full year or more.

Dec. 21 "is not a relevant date for us. It is an accident that someone would take and pull it out,” said Rojas, a specialist in the archaeology of cenotes, a type of sinkhole. “If you look at a book of Maya epigraphy, there are so many dates that could be commemorated. The glyphs are also not so easily interpreted. It depends on the correlation that you use.”

Nonetheless, in recent days, tourists from around the world have flocked to the so-called Maya Riviera on the Caribbean coast of Mexico’s Quintana Roo state, leading to higher-than-normal occupancy at hotels and on flights arriving at Cancun’s international airport, local reports said. Many visitors say they are using the supposed end of the 13th baktun as an opportunity for spiritual reflection and cleansing.

In Guatemala, people are gathering at the Maya site of Tikal for ceremonies marking the end of the baktun cycle and the winter solstice, which does correspond to sunset on Friday. Separately, highland Maya tied to the indigenous rebel army known as EZLN in Mexico’s state of Chiapas have mobilized and occupied at least five towns, reports said.

As tourists arriving on packed buses swarmed the Tulum site on Thursday, one visitor said she came to the region to get married at a nearby resort -- just in case.

"The end of a cycle is the end of a cycle, there are obviously translation issues," said Rhonda Church, a visitor to Tulum from San Marcos, Texas. "I find it interesting."

* Photo: People pray at Chichen Itza, on Dec. 21, 2012. Credit: Jacinto Kanek / EPA

Merida, Mexico, says: Hope to see you after the world doesn't end

** Originally published in the print edition of the Los Angeles Times:

MERIDA, Mexico -- Contrary to any Hollywood doomsday scenarios or a variety of less-than-optimistic New Age theories, the world will not end Friday, Mexican tourism authorities and Merida residents assure anyone who asks.

Yes, the end of the 13th baktun cycle in the so-called Long Count of the Maya calendar corresponds more or less with Dec. 21, this year's winter solstice.

But the event merely signals the "end of an era" and the start of a new one, locals and scientists say. Or, as some academic Mayanists have explained, the end of the 13th baktun — a date deciphered from totem glyphs and written numerically as 13.0.0.0.0. — is a sort of "resetting of the odometer" of time.

It has become reason enough for people of this flat, tropical region of Mexico to celebrate their Maya culture and history and make mystically minded calls for renewal and rebirth. Officials and residents have also expressed high hopes that foreign tourists will be inspired to visit the Yucatan Peninsula through Friday and beyond. (Assuming the world is still here.)

A handful of residents and officials from Merida, the capital of Mexico's Yucatan state, gathered Saturday at a small cenote, or freshwater sinkhole, for a "Blessing of the Water" ceremony. A man dressed in white and described as a shaman stood before an offering marking the four points of the compass, saying prayers in the Mayan language for Madre Tierra, or Mother Earth.

"We must reflect on how humanity has conducted itself, what we've done to the Madre Tierra during this cycle," said Valerio Canche, president of a local association of Maya spiritual healers.

Canche walked among the people, singing in Mayan in a low voice. He took a handful of herbs and dipped them in water drawn from the cenote, then splashed droplets on the heads of those gathered — a cleansing ceremony.

"Let us conduct ourselves, as brothers all, for the common good," Canche said. "Not only for the Maya people, but for the entire universe."

This cenote, in a community called Noc Ac about 14 miles outside the historic center of Merida, sits inside a dilapidated, unguarded government lot, little more than an opening in the ground shaded by a large tree.

Chicago diary, Part 3

The talk at DePaul was about the processes in which the populist-progressive current leaders of Mexico City, under the administration of Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, have re-socialized the core of the city into a "user-friendly" urban enthusiast's playden. The process I think at least partly reduces or represses some of the instinctual, genetic cultural ticks of improvisation and negotiation that define the true capitalino or chilango. "Safety first."

I'll have more about these ideas in future pieces. In the meantime, thank you Hugh Bartling and the DePaul community for the invitation. And thank you, Ector Garcia, gifted artist, for showing me around.

Chicago is impressive and I am eager to return.

** See Chicago diary, Part 1, Part 2.

Developers in Mexico seek to build resort on protected Isla Holbox

** Originally published in the print edition of the Los Angeles Times:

By Daniel Hernandez and Cecilia Sanchez

ISLA HOLBOX, Mexico — Separated from the Yucatan Peninsula by a lagoon, this pristine island has streets of sand, iguanas that roam among humans, and a police presence best described as casual. In the tiny town on its western tip, golf carts are the primary mode of transportation.

"It's like out of movie, isn't it?" said a chuckling Ramon Chan, a 41-year-old vendor who on a recent day was hacking away at fresh coconuts from a cart on the beach.

In recent years, however, Isla Holbox (pronounced "holl-bosch") has sat at the center of a complex legal dispute pitting powerful developers seeking to build a high-end resort against a group of longtime residents who say they were cheated out of their rights as holders of revolutionary-era communal lands, known as ejidos.

The fight illuminates the growing practice of transferring communal ejidos — which make up slightly more than half of the national territory — to private hands, a practice that was authorized in 1992 but remains a legal twilight zone.

In separate cases, nine islanders allege that Peninsula Maya Developments offered to buy their individualized ejido parcels in a 2008 deal to which they agreed. But in the process, theejidatarios allege, the developers also persuaded them to unwittingly sell their permanent, constitutionally guarded titles to the Holbox ejido at large.

Because Mexico's agrarian law refers to "inalienable" titles toejidos, the islanders are asking courts to nullify the dual sale of their parcels and titles.

In response, the company said the sales were legal and clear and suggested in a statement that the ejidatarios are trying to shake them down for more money than the original price of about $388,000.

The developers contend that the ejidatarios are challenging the deal through loopholes in the ejido laws, which established strict codes meant to protect the rural peasant class from abuse by private interests. The suits over the $3.2-billion development plan are working their way through Mexico's agrarian tribunals, with one awaiting a hearing before the Supreme Court.

In the meantime, the island simmers with discord, and the eastern end, where La Ensenada resort would be built, remains untouched.

Mexico declares zone on Cozumel a protected natural reserve

** Originally published at World Now:

Mexico's government has declared a 93,477-acre territory on Cozumel island off the Yucatan Peninsula a protected natural reserve, in a bid to limit development within the zone and protect wildlife.

The new federally protected zone covers the northern and eastern end of the teardrop-shaped island as well as an offshore zone of about 1,161 acres, Mexico's environmental and natural resources ministry said in a statement.

The designation is meant to help protect the 533 species identified in the region, including algaes, sea sponges, fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals, said the agency, known in Spanish as Semarnat.

Rising tourism and development in Cozumel have threatened the wildlife, environmentalists say. Coral reefs and mangrove trees have suffered because of increasing human activity along the so-called Mayan Riviera, environmental studies show.

In August, Semarnat denied a petition by a private energy developer to build a wind-energy park on the island, citing lack of specifics on its potential environmental impact.

The Semarnat announcement is the 18th such designation made during the term of President Felipe Calderon. This year, Calderon's government canceled a proposed mega-resort project on the Baja California peninsula that environmentalists say would have harmed the biodiversity of the nearby Cabo Pulmo National Park.

The declaration on the Cozumel protected natural reserve prohibits any "change of use" of the land -- including construction -- that would affect the "original ecosystems." However, the decree permits sustainable tourism within the zone.

* Photo: A view of the northern shore of Cozumel island off the Yucatan Peninsula. Credit: Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (Semarnat)

Un domingo en los Dinamos

(You're not supposed to do this anymore in D.F., but oooooh ... just for old time's sake, like it's the year 2002.)

This is Parque de los Dinamos in southwestern Distrito Federal.

The bottom part where most visitors gather is not much. And like with other big parks on the outskirts of the city, there is a petty and sometimes-violent crime issue at los Dinamos that should be noted.

But anyway, it's the woods, it's the mountains, and in crowded chilangolandia, it's a sigh of relief.

Additionally, the pulques are good.

These are curados of piña con guarana and an apio. Both were excellent.

Incidents of travel in the Yucatan, Part 4 *

This is the mercado in Tizimin, a stop between Valladolid and the port of Chiquilá. The mercado is easily one of the coolest structures I think I've ever seen in Mexico. It is circular; concentric rows of stalls are separated in meats, produce, produce, and meats again. Tizimin is known for its meats. But not for this building, unbelievably.

The design makes the market feel airy, inviting, even logical; those are qualities that would rarely be used to describe a mercado in Mexico, where stalls are usually crammed into a dense maze system. The circular design also permits the room to be flooded with natural light all day. Noise bounces around soothingly.

I found a circular market online in Coventry, Britain, and one Givry, France. Any others? In Tizimin's case, it feels like one of those rare "perfect" buildings, in terms of its properties of harmony, and I'm glad I got to see it.

It was a Saturday. We asked vendors when the market was built, or who designed it. The most we got was that it was about 50 years old. If so, the mercado would have been built during the boom of spirited Modern architecture in Mexico, chronicled by enthusiasts such as Mario Ballesteros.

What brilliant young Maya architect snagged this PRI era contract and came up with harmony? Is the form a reference to prehispanic Maya design? Or is it by the architect who did TAPO? Serious Investigations.

Incidents of travel in the Yucatan, Part 3

Vendors, vendors, vendors ...

People, people, people ...

And then ...

Incidents of travel in the Yucatan, Part 2

** From here to below, photos by Alberto Bustamante.

Incidents of travel in the Yucatan, Part 1

Is this for real?

Your faithful writer, floating over an eternal galactic blue portal into the inframundo.

Google Street View now available for Mexico archaeological sites

** Originally published at World Now:

For travelers who've never been to the ancient Maya city of Chichen Itza, a virtual window into the site's pyramids and plazas is available online, among 30 archaeological zones in Mexico now mapped by history's greatest peeping Tom: Google Street View.

From the comfort of a computer, any Internet user anywhere can now zoom in and examine the perfect form of Chichen Itza's Kukulkan pyramid, known also El Castillo, or the Castle.

On Google Street View, a viewer can almost feel like they might tumble into the Sacred Cenote, or natural sinkhole, where Maya priests practiced ritual sacrifice. Or imagine cavorting on the Plaza of the Thousand Columns. Or maybe do some souvenir browsing, up close and in intensely high resolution.

Google and Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, or INAH, announced the new maps last week. Using a 360-degree camera mounted on a bicycle, Google captured "street views" of other major archaeological sites in Mexico, such as Monte Alban in Oaxaca and Teotihuacan outside Mexico City.

Lesser-known Mesoamerican sites are also now mapped by Google Street View, including Tula in the state of Hidalgo and Xochicalco in Morelos.

The Internet search engine has focused its publicity campaign for the new maps on images captured at Chichen Itza, one of Mexico's most storied tourist destinations. But for travelers who have been there, could Google Street View now be better than the real thing?

Consider: A recent (physical) visit to Chichen Itza confirmed that tourists are no longer allowed to climb the Castillo pyramid, no more tackling its famous 91 steps that President Felipe Calderon recently climbed in a widely mocked tourism video.

Visitors can no longer actually, physically cavort among the plaza of the columns. In fact, most of the structures at Chichen Itza these days are off-limits to tourists, who must settle on snapping photos behind wire barriers. Worse, the archaeological zone is also overrun with vendors from the neighboring communities, making a non-virtual visit a somewhat disappointing experience overall.

Since Chichen Itza was declared a new Seven Wonders of the World site in 2007, access has been limited due to concerns over deterioration and also because the site's restoration process is ongoing, said an INAH spokesman.

The same is true at the Palenque zone in Chiapas, the spokesman said, where a visitor like you and me may no longer be able to climb that site's spectacular structures. But on Google, at least, there's a decent shot of a man in an orange polo with a sweat towel on his head.

* Photo: A view of the Kukulkan pyramid, or El Castillo, at the Chichen Itza archaeological site in the Mexican state of Yucatan. Credit: Google, via INAH

Mexico cancels mega-resort project near Baja California reef

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's government on Friday halted a controversial mega-resort development in Baja California Sur after environmentalists said it would have threatened a large coral reef in the Sea of Cortes that has rebounded dramatically from years of damage.

The government canceled the proposed Cabo Cortes project by withdrawing provisional permits first granted in 2008 to the Madrid-based company Hansa Baja Investments. President Felipe Calderon said at the presidential residence Los Pinos that the company failed to provide enough proof that the project would not harm the rich biodiversity of the nearby Cabo Pulmo National Park.

The protected marine reserve of more than 17,550 acres -- most of it at sea near Cabo San Lucas -- has become  a symbol of environmental renewal after years of overfishing in the area.

"Due to [the project's] magnitude, we needed absolute certainty that no irreversible damage would be generated, and that absolutely certainty, simply and plainly, was not generated," Calderon said.

The Spanish company did not immediately react to the cancellation of the project. Hansa Baja Investments reportedly has been hard-hit by the Eurozone financial crisis.

Nonprofit groups, environmental advocates and researchers in Mexico campaigned heavily to stop the Cancun-size Cabo Cortes development, arguing that the proposed marina and 30,000-room hotel would be built too close to the reserve, one of the largest and most important in the country.

Since the Cabo Pulmo reserve was established in 1995, the total amount of fish rose by more than 460%  over a 10-year period, according to a 2011 study by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

Greenpeace Mexico said in a statement that more than 220,000 citizen signatures opposing the project were delivered to the federal government last week. The group hailed Calderon's decision as a victory but said that it would still press for investigations of authorities in Mexico's environmental agency over the Cabo Cortes development's permit process.

"The Cabo Cortes project was not only unsustainable, it was also illegal," said Greenpeace Mexico Executive Director Patricia Arendar. "Mexico needs accountability, transparency in the authorization of projects of this kind, and guarantees that environmental rights will be respected."

* Photo: An undated photograph of a humpback whale at the Cabo Pulmo National Park marine reserve. Credit: Prometeo Lucero / Greenpeace

Mexico's 'Popo' volcano shoots glowing rocks

** Originally published at World Now:

Glowing red rocks were thrown from the top of the active Popocatepetl volcano at dawn Friday, producing more spectacular (and slightly frightening) images from the peak southeast of populous Mexico City. But authorities did not raise the alert level for a potential major eruption.

"Popo" or "Don Goyo," as the volcano is affectionately known, has been shooting plumes of ash, gas and rocks for a week. Residents of the semirural communities near the volcano have reported hearing hours of "low-pitched roaring" emanating from the 17,887-foot Popocatepetl.

President Felipe Calderon said Friday during a meeting with governors of the peak's neighboring states that the government is prepared, in case evacuations become necessary. Authorities said contingency plans are ready if the volcanic activity threatens residents in the states of Mexico, Puebla and Morelos.

"The volcano is in command," said Roberto Quaas, director of Mexico's National Disaster Prevention Center. 

The government has not raised its alert level on the volcano since Monday. Yet a week of sustained exhalations has produced worry among some Mexicans who live near "Popo," which is visible from some points of Mexico City on days with relatively low pollution.

An estimated 5 million people would be directly affected by a large-scale eruption, and some 19 million other people live near the volcano.

Popocatepetl, which means "smoking mountain" in the Aztec's language Nahuatl, dominates much of the landscape in central Mexico along with its "twin" volcano, the dormant Iztaccihuatl.

Popo spews gas, ash; authorities raise alert

** Originally published at World Now:

Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano has ramped up activity in recent days, spewing ash and gas and prompting authorities to raise the alert level for neighboring communities in the states of Mexico, Morelos, Tlaxcala and Puebla.

The federal government said "Popo," as the volcano is commonly known, has been spewing red-hot rocks and also seen its lava dome expand in recent days. Ash has fallen on some communities and glowing light has been photographed atop the 17,887-foot peak at night.

The volcano has "exhaled" at least 14 times since Friday, said a recorded message at the National Disaster Prevention Center. Popo, located about 50 miles southeast of Mexico City, has been increasingly active in recent months, the center said. Late Monday, the official alert level for the volcano was raised a notch, but remained short of a grade that would require evacuations.  

Separately, Mexico has been rattled in recent weeks by a series of strong earthquakes, including a 7.4 temblor on March 20 that briefly prompted a false rumor of a rising volcano near the quake's epicenter in the state of Guerrero.

* Photo: Ash and smoke rise from Popocatepetl volcano, as seen from the town of Xalitzintla in the central state of Puebla on Tuesday. Credit: Pablo Spencer/AFP/Getty Images

Death toll is 2 in Mexico quake; no volcano

** Originally published at World Now:

Two people have died after last week's large earthquake in Mexico, the first casualties reported since the magnitude 7.4 quake shook densely populated Mexico City and damaged thousands of homes across several southern states.

The mayor of a municipality in Guerrero state, near the border with Oaxaca and near the quake epicenter, said that one man died of his injuries after a wall fell on him and that another man died from complications of a heart attack suffered during the quake.

The deaths in the Cuajinicuilapa municipality were reported to the federal government during a tour Friday of the largely rural zone by Social Development Secretary Heriberto Felix Guerra.

Previously, no deaths and no major damages had been reported since the quake, which was centered in Ometepec, Guerrero state.

It was one of the largest seismic events in Mexico since the devastating magnitude 8 quake of 1985 that left more than 10,000 dead. (A quake of equal magnitude hit western Mexico in 1995, killing 49, and a quake measuring 7.6 hit the same region in 2003.)

The low death toll in Tuesday's quake suggests Mexico's progress on earthquake preparedness since 1985 makes the country a "model for preparedness in the developing world," said an online story by Nature. 

Mexico's interior secretariat said 29 municipalities in Guerrero would receive funds for damage to homes and buildings during the quake. Thousands were damaged in Guerrero and Oaxaca, officials said.

Separately, the geophysics institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico released a statement contesting a claim made by Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre that caused a brief buzz on social networking sites. The governor said Thursday that the university's geophysicists were headed to the quake zone to determine whether a small volcano was emerging and therefore causing the seismic activity.

The institute said it was routine to send analysts to earthquake epicenters to study seismic activity after a large quake. "The earthquake ... had a non-volcanic origin," the statement said.

On Sunday, a quake measuring 7.1 hit Chile, resulting in no deaths.

A hike at the Nevado de Toluca

About half-way up the fourth-highest peak in Mexico on Sunday, we spotted these intrepid hikers. This is the Nevado de Toluca, a dormant volcano that reaches more than 15,300 feet. The sight was a humbling reminder that Mexican grandmothers don't play. They'll go anywhere in the name of family and fun. Anywhere.

Now, if this senior-citizen couple could do it, and did, damned if we couldn't. Huffing and puffing, but let's go.

This was our first view of the Nevado on Sunday, coming up after a drive through downtown Toluca, capital of Mexico's most populous state (the one with the most flummoxing name for a state in this country -- Mexico).

It's about a two-hour drive from central Mexico City to get here.

When we saw that old couple, we were just under the point far in the photo above where the green belt of trees ends and the frigid high-altitude snowy part begins. We didn't make it to the crater lakes atop, with traffic backed up heading up the road, but next time, seguro.

The Nevado de Toluca craters, as might be expected, were ritual sites for pre-Hispanic peoples. Sculpted pieces of copal were recovered by divers that have been dated at 1,500 years, and still maintaining copal's distinctive smell after that long underwater, INAH reports.

Deep, deep breaths.

(Click on any photo for a larger view.)

* What is that moonscape alien flower? Anyone?

The radical landscape paintings of Mexico's Dr. Atl

** Originally published at World Now:

He was a muralist, an educator and a civic activist who once helped save a colonial-era convent from demolition by moving in and living there. He published books, invented paints and signed his works "Dr. Atl," an imaginary honorific using the Nahuatl-language word for water.

Born Gerardo Murillo in Guadalajara in 1875, Dr. Atl is one of the most accomplished and enigmatic figures from the golden period of modern art in Mexico.

His unmistakably forceful landscapes are familiar to average Mexicans as sort of visual footnotes to an era that saw Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco flourish internationally as muralists. Yet Dr. Atl's greatest pieces have resided mostly in private collections, making them rarely available for viewing to the public.

PHOTOS: The radical landscapes of Dr. Atl

That changes with "Dr. Atl: Masterpieces," on view at the Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolcojust north of downtown Mexico City. It is the first retrospective on Dr. Atl in Mexico in 27 years, meaning a generation of art lovers could get to know his work in depth for the first time.

The show is organized by the Blaisten Collection, a private museum founded by collector Andres Blaisten that sits inside the renovated university complex at Tlatelolco. It features more than 190 works, many of which are privately owned and not usually shown to the public.

The exhibit charts Dr. Atl's progression from early, more conventional landscapes through his adoption of the curvilinear perspective -- as the eye sees, he argued -- in rendering innovative and sweeping views of the Valley of Mexico.

The artist clearly was fixated on Mexico's volcanoes as both subjects to paint and sources of inspiration, particularly as he sought to push the very boundaries of the landscape form beginning in 1922.

By the end of his career, Dr. Atl wanted to radicalize landscape painting entirely with his theory ofaereopaisajes, or aero-landscapes, in which artists would go up in planes, helicopters and eventually into space to create landscapes of infinity, of "supreme ascension." 

Several of the most arresting paintings in the exhibit depict volcanoes at night, in a slanting perspective from high above. Glowing in aquas and purples, the paintings come close to creating a vertigo effect in the viewer, suggesting a peaceful eternal space.

Dr. Atl, who died in 1964 at the age of 88, worked in the classical method, hiking his way to peaks near the twin volcanoes of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl to make swift sketches of the mountains and valley below (until he later lost his right leg). Then he would transform the quick sketches into brilliant paintings using oil and mixed wax-resin paints he made, calling them "Atl Colors."

It is a happy historical triumph that Dr. Atl was alive in 1943, when the Paricutin volcano began to poke out from the middle of a cornfield in the western Mexican state of Michoacan.

The artist recorded the rise of Paricutin as perhaps no other figure could, with dozens of sketches and paintings that showed the fiery and violent process of a once-in-a-lifetime geological phenomenon.

"For him it was important to walk among the volcanoes. He studied them from all angles," said Vannesa Bohorquez, director of the Blaisten Collection museum, during a recent visit to the show.

"If you didn't know the artist, you'd think these were done by a young [painter]," Bohorquez added. "You need a physical strength to do this, and this was a very old man who had lost a leg."

The artist was also a committed educator and activist, founding an open-air art school and living for an undetermined amount of years in the Convent of La Merced in the historic center of Mexico City in an effort to prevent its demolition. The building still stands.

"Dr. Atl: Masterpieces" is on view until April.

* Photo: "La sombra del Popo," or "Popo's Shadow," a 1942 painting by Dr. Atl on view at the Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco in Mexico City. Credit: Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times

Slow days in San Diego

Heading into Ocean Beach, San Diego, Thursday afternoon. Right where the San Diego River hits the coves and basins of Mission Bay, a gleaming cloud of white mist was heading toward the coastline, enveloping everything in its way.

By the time we got to the pier, it looked and felt like we were in San Francisco, everything wet, the sky gray-dark despite the sunlight above the clouds. The fog made the ground wet. Respite: BBQ burrito and onion rings on Newport Ave., the strip of bars and beach shops.

I tell my friends and family here to not ever forget that they basically live in Paradise. I mean it.

* Previously, "Coastal high."

Coatlicue in Chicago

A friend sent over this image of a hand-cut stencil representing Coatlicue, posted in the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago around December 12. The artist says: 

I spray painted through the stencil on paper, then pasted it up late at night, its still there, haven't talked to people about it, have noticed guys checking it out though, my roommate took a photo of it while waiting for the bus and talked to a local who said he liked it, and it would make a nice tattoo.

The Coatlicue statue, now on view at the National Museum of Anthropology, is one of the most terrifying and mysterious Aztec structures unearthed in Mexico City during the Colonial period. From a piece for Nero Magazine, by the artist Tania Perez Cordova:

After some research, the university scholars realized that the sculpture was the Coatlicue goddess. The viceroy of the time, Viceroy Revillagigedo, had the sculpture placed at the Catholic University as a monument to ancient times. After a short while, the scholars realized that some locals where secretly worshiping the sculpture and thus decided that having it in public view could revive old Aztec beliefs among indigenous people. In order to protect the catholic Spanish colony, they chose to bury the monolith once again, this time under the university’s patio. However, before it was dug in, the scholar Antonio de Leon y Gama had time to make a detailed description of it.

Read more here.

* See also, "The anthropology museum, reconsidered."

Despite policy changes, smog still afflicts Mexico City

** Originally published at World Now:

When you're above it, it might look like brown smoke. From far away at ground level, it can shine like a sheet of white ice. And when you're under it, which is most of the time, you can't really see it at all.

It is the famous air pollution of Mexico City, causing countless cases of scratchy throats, stinging eyes and mucus that looks like it came from outer-space.

It is, in a word, nasty.

And while it may no longer be known as the worst in the world -- these days Beijing's pollution problem is attracting that sort of global attention -- Mexico City's smog becomes particularly intense at the start of every Christmas season.

The effect persists even after two decades of aggressive anti-pollution policies that have dramatically cut down smog overall in Mexico's gigantic capital.

Last Saturday evening, while the mayor inaugurated the annual ice-rink downtown to kick off the holiday cheer, the city's contamination monitoring system recorded a high of 136 points on its pollution scale in Mexico City's southeast quadrant, and graded the air quality over the entire metropolitan region of 20.1 million people as "Bad."

The IMECA, as the scale is known by its Spanish acronym, has hit "bad" levels across the city all week since. The air is expected to be just as "mala" through December and into the new year.

The phenomenon joins weather, cultural and geographic factors that combine like in no other place, explained Armando Retama, director of the city's sophisticated air-quality monitoring service, with two dozen stations recording pollution levels around the clock.

The Valley of Mexico, where the metropolitan area is located, is a bowl that sits at about 7,300 feet above sea level. That landscape produces what meteorologists call the thermal inversion effect, in which colder mountain air hangs over the valley and traps warmer air and pollution particles below it.

In the mornings, it's rise and shine for many of the estimated 4 million cars and trucks that operate here.

"As the day goes on, the sun heats up the floor, and the floor heats up the air above it," Retama said in an interview this week. The air and the toxins combine, creating a haze that often transforms into ozone in the afternoon.

The pattern hits Mexico City hard in December, when Christmas shoppers and tourists bring routine gridlock to city streets. Confounding the problem, fireworks and pyrotechnic displays, popular during the seasonal festivities, add smoke and ash to the equation.

"We're producing millions of kilos of contaminants daily, in a matter of hours," Retama said.

And you can feel it. Those particles can include a host of unfriendly pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, even lead. Will it ever fully go away?

Not unless the people of the city stop driving automobiles, Retama said. Despite improvements in public transportation, such as the Ecobici and Metrobus projects, car exhaust continues to be the chief factor contributing to Mexico City's smog, he said.

So far this week, the IMECA scale has not topped 150, which would trigger a "pre-contingency" alert for the metropolis. That would lead to restrictions on certain manufacturing sectors and on outdoor activities at schools. Every hour, the monitoring-service director said, reports on pollution levels are sent to local government agencies.

(Online, citizens can follow updates on the air quality at this live-map or via Twitter.)

Yet on Friday, the metropolitan environmental agency released a statement reminding residents of the Valley of Mexico to take precautions against contributing to the pollution problem. Locals were advised to minimize the use of automobiles, chimneys, fireworks and open fires. 

"Oh yes, I feel it, especially in the past few days," said Alejandra Abrego, 24. "My nose is dry, I am coughing and sneezing a lot."

Abrego, an archeology student strolling downtown on Friday, said she grew up in Mexico City. In her view, the smog has actually gotten worse in recent years, not better. For a generation that didn't experience the worst of the smog in the 1980s, it might seem so.

"We need more efficient public transit, so that people can start leaving their cars," Abrego said.

* Photo: Sunset from the Buenavista transit hub, Dec. 6, 2011.

Coastal high

Ocean Beach pier, San Diego, Calif., August ... one of these past few days on the binational Coast. In other words, my skin feels amazing. #products

La Plaza: Forgotten on election day in Ecatepec

** Originally published at La Plaza:

Sunday was election day in Mexico's most populous state, and as widely expected, voters gave a resounding victory to the gubernatorial candidate with the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

But in Colonia Franja del Valle de Mexico, one neighborhood in the state of Mexico, residents did not have the time or the energy to go the polls. They spent most of Sunday piling up the debris of their homes, ruined after a canal overflowed in heavy rains late last week.

With feelings of anger and helplessness, residents of this working-class colonia in the municipality of Ecatepec described a harrowing scene Thursday night when the Rio de los Remedios canal, which runs alongside the area, burst into their houses. There has been no help yet from the government, they said.

"From one moment to the next, we looked out the window, and the water was upon us," said Ignacio Ramirez, 59, a security guard.

"What did I do? I went over the wall to the neighbor's, but the water was already up to my neck. We tried opening the door but the pressure wouldn't let us," Ramirez went on. "The current took us and slammed us against the walls."

Ramirez stood with his family inside their cement-brick home, where the line marking the reach of the flood waters — a brown smudge about the height of an average-sized man — was still visible on the kitchen wallpaper. Their refrigerator, stove, television set, couches, and nearly every other piece of furniture touched by the "black waters" of the Rio de los Remedios were stacked on the muddy street outside.

Food, clothes, personal belongings, all ruined and gone. Cars and trucks in driveways out back were also useless now.

By Sunday the waters had receded, but it was more of the same all over the street. Residents said they felt abandoned by the government, even during a time of year — an election — when officials usually make sure to be extra-attentive to constituent needs.

"This is a no-man's-land," Ramirez said.

The rains

Well, it started raining again in Mexico City, meaning this meme on the drought is officially done. (Thankgod.) One of the most interesting facts I learned while reporting that post is that the famous D.F. rain is famous because the altitude, topography, and pollution of this city are uniquely intertwined to make rainy season here more existentially rainy, if you will.

I'm looking out the window now and the clouds are gathering up, just in time for rush hour. Where's my umbrella? Now, check back here in a couple months when we start our seasonal complaining about the too-much rain.