Mexico Review by Yumac

Move Over, Acapulco! www.mexico-review.com A BI-WEEKLY March 4, 2012 Mexico City Vol. 01 No. 04 32 pages

The DF Race Can the Left Hold the Capital?

0018920360242

New Brew Mexican Beer Just Got Better

Meet Puerto Vallarta and The Riviera Nayarit

Press of Plenty Mexico City Has a Daily for Every Point of View

Plus: Pending Events, Revealing Numbers, Telling Quotes and More

PEOPLE : POLITICS : CULTURE : TRAVEL FROM MEXICO. IN ENGLISH.

CONTENTS

www.mexico-review.com SPECIAL EDITION January, 2012 Mexico City Vol. 01 No. 01 32 pages

MEXICO REVIEW March 4, 2012

0018920360242

Mexico 2012: A Year of Change, A Year of Renewal Presidential Politics An Early Look at a Historical Election

Remembering Leonora A Farewell to the Last of Mexico’s Surrealists

Magical Trips Nine Special Pueblos You’ll Want to Visit

PEOPLE : POLITICS : CULTURE : TRAVEL.

Totally Tri The National Soccer Team Has a World To Conquer

FROM MEXICO.

From the Executive Director BY ANA MARÍA SALAZAR : 2

IN ENGLISH.

They Said It Vive Latino

Mexico Review is more than a magazine. It is a multimedia project that includes TV, radio, and internet.

The editorial focus of Mexico Review is general interest news exclusively about Mexico with special emphasis on politics, elections, art and culture. Our intention is to go beyond the headlines and explain the news, to put events in context and to offer our readers information about life in Mexico. With so much going on in Mexico, why not

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Mexico City’s Monster Rock Music Festival

www.mexico-review.com A BI-WEEKLY January 27, 2012 Mexico City Vol. 01 No. 02 32 pages

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Just Say No

Anita’s Diary Hanging with Rivera, Orozco and the Rest

Soccer’s Start The Mexican League’s Clausura Gets Under Way

Plus: Pending Events, Revealing Numbers , Telling Quotes and More

FROM MEXICO.

IN ENGLISH.

Urban Roots

A Celebration of Mexico, Past and Present

www.mexico-review.com

0018920360242

Silencing Criticism

The owner of the Chivas has denied access to reporters from a critical newspaper. And the rest of the sports press doesn’t seem to mind. BY TOM BUCKLEY

: POLITICS : MEDIA : 10

The Capital Race Gets Off to a Lively Start

There will be a lot at stake in the July 1 Mexico City mayoral election, and three very different major candidates promise to make the race interesting. Unfortunately, the dominant image so far is the eyesore of runaway (and illegal) campaign propaganda. Women in Politics Moving Toward Gender Equality

Mexicans Abroad How They’re Changing European Soccer

Public and Private Nine Working Together to Build Mexico

PEOPLE : POLITICS : CULTURE : TRAVEL.

FROM MEXICO.

Pyramid Power Music in a Magical Place

TEXT AND PHOTOS BY TOM BUCKLEY

: POLITICS : ELECTIONS : 12

IN ENGLISH.

To subscribe call: (949)680: 4336 USA (55)5203: 4943 MEX subscriptions@mexico-review.com

There are at least two dozen daily newspapers in Mexico City alone. Whatever else they might think, readers can’t complain that they’re not getting a variety of viewpoints.

: POLITICS : MEDIA : 4

PEOPLE : POLITICS : CULTURE : TRAVEL

A BI-WEEKLY February 12, 2012 Mexico City Vol. 01 No. 03 32 pages

A Difference of Opinion

BY TOM BUCKLEY

Why Can’t Congress Get Anything Done? IFE’s Groove Can the Election Referee Get It Back?

Quotable quotes by, for and about Mexico : 3

By the Numbers

How high does Mexico rank in ease of doing business? How much will Coca Cola invest in Mexico in 2012? Are thieves really rampant on the Mexico City subway system? : 15

www.mexico-review.com

Barely Passing

An ambitious new documentary exposing a woefully underperforming education system has gotten all of Mexico talking about reform. Timed to the presidential election season and backed by an influential businessled organization, “¡De Panzazo!” may have more of an impact than previous efforts. BY KELLY ARTHUR GARRETT

: LIFE & LEISURE : FILM : 22

Taking on South America

Three Mexican clubs earned invitations to the prestigious Copa Libertadores. Two off them are taking it seriously. BY TOM BUCKLEY

: LIFE & LEISURE : SPORTS : 24

Democratic Brew

Mexican-made craft beers are just starting to get noticed. They’re not going to break the grip of the two big commercial brewers any time soon, but they already offer two things that had been missing: lots of choice and eyeopening quality. BY KELLY ARTHUR GARRETT

: LIFE & LEISURE : FOOD & DRINK : 27

March Madness ...

Some of the big events to watch for in Mexico during the month of March. : LIFE & LEISURE : EVENTS : 32

Queens of the Pacific

Mexico’s biggest tourism-industry gathering switched its venue this year from Acapulco to Puerto Vallarta. Could that mean Vallarta and the adjacent Riviera Nayarit have taken over as the prime west coast resort area? BY JIMM BUDD

: LIFE & LEISURE : DESTINATIONS : 16

Move Over, Acapulco! www.mexico-review.com A BI-WEEKLY March 4, 2012 Mexico City Vol. 01 No. 04 32 pages

The DF Race Can the Left Hold the Capital?

0018920360242

New Brew Mexican Beer Just Got Better

Meet Puerto Vallarta and The Riviera Nayarit

Press of Plenty Mexico City Has a Daily for Every Point of View

Plus: Pending Events, Revealing Numbers, Telling Quotes and More

PEOPLE : POLITICS : CULTURE : TRAVEL FROM MEXICO. IN ENGLISH.

: On the cover The Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe rises from the center of town and serves as an unofficial symbol of Puerto Vallarta. Photography by Jimm Budd

FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Recognizing the spin is no easy task

EDITORIAL

Oscar McKelligan PRESIDENT

Ana María Salazar

VICE PRESIDENT & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Fernando Ortiz LEGAL ADVISER

Tom Buckley

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Mexico can be a difficult country to understand, even if you are fluent in Spanish.

Kelly Arthur Garrett MANAGING EDITOR

Blake Lalonde

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Unfortunately the Mexican media offers only a glimpse of the complicated and convoluted political and security environment currently prevailing here. Even if you browse several newspapers daily or you listen to and watch the news and the political roundtables, it is virtually impossible to figure out what is going on. That is unless you have an in-depth understanding of the political and ideological leanings of all the media outlets.

Andrea Sánchez

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Daniela Graniel ART DIRECTOR SALES Verónica Guerra de Alberti CANCÚN REPRESENTATIVE

Abril de Aguinaco CABO REPRESENTATIVE

Iker Amaya Álvaro Sánchez

In this issue, we feature an extraordinary piece highlighting how one political event – the falling-out between two political parties (the PRI and Panal) – has resulted in a fascinating variety of interpretations by the pundits, talking heads and on opinion pages. And despite our flourishing democracy, media censorship continues. Reading a Mexican newspaper or watching the nightly news, somewhat reminds me of the Soviet era, when you had to read between the lines to uncover the truth. Granted, using the Soviet example may be an exaggeration since the difference between Mexican and Communist era media is that the censorship is not coming entirely from the central government. Here it is more likely to come from state and local authorities. However, what most promotes censorship in Mexico are threats from organized crime. Mexico, as you know, is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. On the lighter side, are you still considering where to go for spring break? Despite the recent travel warning issued by the U.S. government, there are many fabulous and safe vacation destinations in Mexico. Don’t miss Jimm Budd’s article on Puerto Vallarta and the Riviera Nayarit. I promise you will wish you were there. With so much going on in Mexico this 2012, can you afford not to subscribe to Mexico Review or visit www.mexico-review.com? Ana María Salazar Executive Director anamaria.salazar@mexico-review.com

@MexicoReview

2!MEXICOREVIEW : March 4, 2012

Mexico Review

U.S. REPRESENTATIVES

CONTRIBUTORS Jimm Budd BOARD OF DIRECTORS Oscar McKelligan Ana María Salazar Yurek McKelligan Fernando Ortiz

“Mexico Review” ES UNA PUBLICACIÓN QUINCENAL PROPIEDAD DE YUMAC S.A. DE C.V. CON OFICINAS EN AVENIDA DURANGO NO. 243-7O PISO, COL. ROMA, DEL. CUAUHTÉMOC, C.P. 06700, TEL. 2455-5555 Y (949) 6804336 EN CALIFORNIA USA. VOL. I, NO. 04. “Mexico Review” INVESTIGA SOBRE LA CALIDAD DE SUS ANUNCIANTES PERO NO SE RESPONSABILIZA CON LAS OFERTAS RELACIONADAS A LOS MISMOS. ATENCIÓN A CLIENTES EN ZONA METROPOLITANA 5203-4943. LOS ARTÍCULOS Y EL CONTENIDO EDITORIAL SON RESPONSABILIDAD DE SUS AUTORES Y NO REFLEJA NECESARIAMENTE EL PUNTO DE VISTA DE LA PUBLICACIÓN, NI DE LA EDITORIAL, TODOS LOS DERECHOS ESTAN RESERVADOS. PROHIBIDA LA REPRODUCIÓN TOTAL O PARCIAL DE LAS IMAGENES, Y/O TEXTOS SIN AUTORIZACIÓN PREVIA Y POR ESCRITO DEL EDITOR. “Mexico Review” HAS OFFICES IN MISSION VIEJO, CALIFORNIA 92691 (949) 680-4336 FOR ADVERTISEMENT CALL OR GO TO OUR WEBSITE www.mexico-review.com. THE PUBLICATION WILL START BEING FREE, ONE PER READER OR ONE PER HOUSEHOLD AND WILL DEVELOP INTO SUBSCRIPTIONS. PLEASE ADDRESS ALL CORRESPONDENCE TO “Mexico Review” 26861 TRABUCO ROAD SUITE E217 MISSION VIEJO, CALIFORNIA 92691-3537 USA EMAIL subscriptions@mexico-review.com OR letters@mexico-review.com. PUBLISHED BI-WEEKLY (SUNDAYS) BY YUMAC S.A. DE C.V. APPLICATION TO MAIL AT PERIODICALS IS PENDING AT MISSION VIEJO CALIFORNIA. SUBMISSIONS OF ALL KIND ARE WELCOME. ADDRESS THEM TO THE EDITOR AND INCLUDE A SELF-ADDRESSED STAMPED ENVELOPE. COPYRIGHT 2011. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. “Mexico Review” TRADEMARK IS PENDING.

they said it...

ho You Callin’ a Monopolist

“If we have less than 100 percent, it means there a r e c o m p e t i t o r s , s o t h a t ’s a n o t h e r l i e .”

- Grupo Carso president Carlos Slim, who c o n t r o l s t h e c e l l u l a r p h o n e g i a n t Te l c e l a n d t h e e q u a l l y d o m i n a n t Te l m e x p h o n e c o m p a n y, r e a c t i n g s t r o n g l y t o a n O E C D r e p o r t b l a m i n g i n s u f f i c i e n t c o m p e t i t i o n i n M e x i c o ’s telecommunications industry for $25.8 billion i n e x t r a c o s t s a n n u a l l y.

AMILIAR ACES

“There’s little new about the Mexican left. In the last quarter century, it’s had two candidates, and both of them are old-style caudillos. It’s advantage is that never having reached the presidency, that archaism still has a lot of past ahead of it.”

Notes from a Second Class Citizen

“T

he ‘Loving Republic’ is honesty and justice, and in the particular case that concerns us most, we can summarize it in two words: hugs, not bullets.”

- Former Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, seeking the presidency with a coalition led by the center-left PRD.

It’s true discrimination. - NÉSTOR DE BUEN, Spanish-born labor rights attorney, UNAM professor emeritus and newspaper columnist, referring to the fact that naturalized Mexican citizens, of which he is one, cannot run for or occupy federal political positions, a governorship, a Supreme Court seat, or serve in the military in peace time, any police force or on a Mexican-flagged ship or aircraft, among other prohibitions.

- JUAN VILLORO, novelist and columnist, referring to the presidential runs of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas (1988, 1994, 2000) and Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2006, 2012).

THAT’S THREE, ACTUALLY

T R A I N S P O T T I N G

T’S HIGHLY UNLIKELY THAT RECENT EFFORTS TO REVERSE THE DECEPTION AND IMPUNITY IN ELECTORAL MATTERS WILL BE ENOUGH TO PREVENT A DISASTROUS TRAIN WRECK DURING THE ELECTION PROCESS. BREAKING THE LAW CONTINUES TO BE AN ENTERPRISE OF GREAT BENEFITS AND FEW COSTS, FOR THE PARTIES AND THE CANDIDATES.” - JOHN M. ACKERMAN, a researcher at the Legal Research Institute at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and frequent contributor to Mexican and American publications.

Hardball ...

“ To d a y … w e s t a r t o n a n e w p a t h t o d e f e a t M e x i c o ’s r e a l a d v e r s a r y, w h o r e p r e s e n t s a u t h o r i t a r i a n i s m a n d t h e w o r s t of antidemocratic practices, who represents the return to corruption as a system and impunity as a sentence, and that a d v e r s a r y i s [ E n r i q u e ] P e ñ a N i e t o a n d h i s p a r t y.”

- Former Education Secretary and presidential candidate J o s e f i n a Vá z q u e z M o t a , going right after her frontrunning rival from the PRI during her victory speech after winning the nomination of the center-right PAN on Feb. 5.

… Or Cricket

“Congratulations and welcome to the democratic contest. May i t b e f o r t h e g o o d o f M e x i c o .” - E n r i q u e P e ñ a N i e t o , tweeting after Vázquez Mota’s victory.

THEOLOGY LESSON

“

Religions worry me, because they’re usually an excuse for ostracism, denial and intolerance rather than a step toward discovering the best in human beings.

“

LETTER

- GUILLERMO ARRIAGA, screenwriter for “Amores Perros,” “21 Grams” and “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.”

March 4, 2012 : MEXICOREVIEW"3

S POLITICS

MEDIA

top in front of a newsstand in Mexico City and glance at the many headlines adorning the display racks. You’re likely to see as many different “top stories” as you see different newspapers. Newspapers across Mexico – and in the capital there are said to be upward of 24 different dailies – are renowned for the broadly divergent editorial lines they tout. The selection of top stories further reflects the editorial leaning. Do you want a leftist spin on the news? Look for La Jornada or Proceso magazine. Do you prefer a pro-business (some would say pro-government) take? Check out Reforma and El Financiero. Does yellow journalism appeal to you? You’ll find a healthy dose in La Prensa and El Gráfico. Editorial spin machines have been revved up frequently in early 2012. Prompting editorial page sermonizing were the “accidental” leak about government agents on the alert for three former governors of Tamaulipas (pro – proof that PRI governments are corrupt and/or have links to drug cartels; con – proof that the Calderón administration is politicizing justice); the capture of a Veracruz government agent carrying $ 2.2 million in cash (pro – proof that the PRI is illegally funding its presidential campaign; con – uncommon, but not unbelievable that a legitimate payment was the intention, and justice is being politicized); the Federal Competition Commission decision to block a major telecoms merger (pro – preventing a duopoly and/or maintaining fairness in another telecoms sector; con – revenge and/ or ineptitude; neutral – let the monopolies fight each other across telecoms sectors). IN FULL AGREEMENT

On Sunday, Jan. 22, newsprint aficionados were taken aback. Almost every paper had selected the exact same top story. The day before, the former, long-time ruling party (the PRI) and its front-running presidential candidate had canceled an alliance with the party fronted by the powerful leader of the teachers union. Terse headlines about the PRI-Panal break were splashed across virtually every front page. The fact that all the papers agreed that this was the top story means 4!MEXICOREVIEW : March 4, 2012

A Difference of Opinion

NEWSPAPERS AND THEIR COLUMNISTS provide a wide variety of interpretations of the day’s events. TEXT AND PHOTOS BY TOM BUCKLEY

March 4, 2012 : MEXICOREVIEW"5

POLITICS

MEDIA

I’M RIGHT, YOU’RE WRONG

that editorial pages would be filled with interpretations, providing a good opportunity to analyze editorial lines and compare political tendencies across newspapers. The topic was turned inside out steadily for almost two weeks and four lines of examination were prominently featured. The “truth” about the break-up was the most popular approach, followed by diagnosis of the impact. Also getting attention by columnists were the perceived consequences of the break and potential outcomes. Since versions of the “truth” were far and away the most common arguments, we’ll focus on these contrasting tracts before presenting a brief look at the other three lines of examination. 6!MEXICOREVIEW : March 4, 2012

A week after the alliance was canceled, Milenio columnist Jorge Medina Viedas catalogued the various interpretations thusly: Critics of PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto insisted the break-up was fake; opponents of the hardline PRI argued that it was a set-up planned by PRI old guard to get even with teachers union leader Elba Esther Gordillo; critics of PRI Sen. Manlio Fabio Beltrones said he schemed to win his cabal more candidacies while maneuvering his enemy Gordillo out the door. Meanwhile, Medina Viedas wrote, PRI adherents contended that the original alliance was a political miscalculation that was rocking the party and a simple cost-benefit analysis made it clear that the alliance must be canceled.

The initial punditry primarily focused on who was to blame while expressing skepticism about the PRI and Panal insistence that it was a cordial split and a mutual decision. Ricardo Raphael (El Universal, Jan. 23) claimed that Panal leader Luis Castro blamed the old guard of the PRI, identifying PRI Sen. Francisco Labastida as a ringleader of the so-called “dinosaurs.” It had been well documented that the alliance had prompted an internal PRI rebellion as regional chiefs thought too much had been conceded, specifically four Senate candidacies and 24 deputy spots. One of the Senate candidacies was in Sinaloa, Sen. Labastida’s home state. Raphael declared that the senator had threatened to resign from the party if this concession was not canceled. Carlos Marín (Milenio, Jan. 23) asserted that Panal initiated the break after Peña Nieto campaign coordinator Luis Videgaray sought to tweak the candidate lists and give the Panal alternative spots in different states. Marín identified Labastida, Beltrones (and two of his cronies) and even former PRI leader – and bitter Gordillo enemy – Roberto Madrazo as being behind a conspiracy to dump the union leader and her party. This despite the fact that Madrazo has not been spoken of as a mover and shaker within the PRI in nearly five years. On the same page as Marín, Milenio counterpart Ciro Gómez Leyva dismissed the conspiracy theory, suggesting instead that Videgaray told him it was just plain electoral math: “It really was simply math. Gordillo and Panal promised about 3 or 4 percentage points in votes and solid Election Day organization. But a closer look at the ‘calculator’ revealed that the internal strife over candidacies and the loss of prestige for linking up with Gordillo was more than 4 points.” Another Milenio columnist, Héctor Aguilar Camín cited a competing newspaper to support Gómez Leyva on an adjacent page: “Media reports cite the internal PRI rebellion, but a Reforma story before the break-up suggested the party was contemplating Gordillo’s high negatives in polling numbers. It was probably both, but we must calculate the proportion. If it was rebellion, it is just confirmation that the PRI dinosaurs exist. If it was the polls, it reflects

a careful analysis of the usefulness of alliances in the eyes of the electorate (in other words, the opinion of voters was being taken into consideration). … Perhaps public opinion is finally influencing political decision making. Maybe we’ll see some dinosaurs getting kicked aside.” Two days later, Aguilar Camín seemed to embrace the rebellion theory while also placing blame on Gordillo: “There was some protest voiced by Gordillo adversaries, particularly Labastida and Beltrones. [Mexico City mayoral candidate Beatriz] Paredes also had public differences with Gordillo … and wanted to avoid the perception of links to Gordillo and her high polling negatives. Also, new PRI president Pedro Joaquín Coldwell is friends with both Beltrones and Paredes and he has his hand on the pulse of the party. … Gordillo’s persistent obstinance in demanding post-electoral perks well beyond the expected electoral value simply became unacceptable.” Jesús Gil Olmos (Proceso, Jan. 28) claimed to have the inside story:

“This wasn’t a cordial break-up, with both the PRI and Panal deciding it was best to go their separate ways. Instead, there were angry shouts, accusations and insults with Gordillo eventually floundering around desperately, looking for a fallback solution while declaring that she was the victim of a double cross. … PRI sources continue to insist the split was carried out to maintain internal equilibrium while admitting that political conditions to sustain the alliance simply did not exist anymore.” Roberta Garza (Milenio, Jan. 24) said the decision went beyond electoral math, suggesting that candidate Peña Nieto had come to realize that he could eliminate a potential campaign issue for leftist rival Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Carlos Ramírez (El Financiero, Jan 23) argued that the break-up revealed that Peña Nieto wasn’t as strong as was commonly reported since he did not have control over his own party, “threatening to reprise the divisive scenes of 2000 and 2006,” the PRI’s only presidential election losses.

López Obrador reacted to the breakup by immediately labeling it a simulation, saying that Peña Nieto was only pretending to split with Gordillo to avoid the negatives but that the alliance would still be observed in some fashion. La Jornada quickly sprang to López Obrador’s defense and wrote in a Jan. 22 editorial: “Unlike 2006 when Gordillo left the PRI after acrimonious confrontations with party leadership, this split took place in apparent tranquility with talk of an agreeable split and mutual benefits. So it is pertinent to consider López Obrador’s assertion that it is a simulation designed to limit the erosion of Peña Nieto’s image as a result of an alliance with Gordillo.” PROJECTING OUTCOMES

Commentators soon moved into prediction mode, with conjecture ranging from difficult days for Panal to the end of Gordillo’s reign atop the teachers union.

March 4, 2012 : MEXICOREVIEW"7

POLITICS

MEDIA

But Peña Nieto is unlikely to forge a pact after the damage already done and the obvious negatives associated with Gordillo. So what can she do? She can select a Panal presidential candidate that will siphon votes from Peña Nieto’s main competitors. Another approach would be to make the SNTE more belligerent. A new political narrative has only just begun.” WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

A new twist was added when Panal named civil engineer and ecologist Gabriel Quadri as its presidential candidate. Columnists will no doubt ponder what his entry into the race means when campaign season reopens in March and the debates are scheduled. The aforementioned La Jornada editorial (Jan. 22) already published its prediction, drawing upon candidate López Obrador’s accusation: “Any Panal presidential candidate would be selected to help the PRI … just like 2006 [when Panal allied with the National Action Party].”

Aguilar Camín (Milenio, Jan. 25) offered that the timing of the break-up “would make it virtually impossible for any Panal value to be transferred to another party.” Leonardo Curzio (El Universal, Jan. 23) elaborated further: “Panal candidates (her friends and relatives) must now run on their own merit. That means we’ll see the actual strength of Panal. At the same time, Peña Nieto benefits by appearing to have the guts to say no to Gordillo (something President Calderón never dared to do).” Gordillo’s potential downfall soon became a topic of conversation. El Financiero’s Carlos Ramírez submitted it for consideration first (Jan. 23): “… the break-up could also put [Gordillo’s] 22-year stranglehold over the teachers union at risk since she is left without political protection, without accomplices who could offer her impunity during the next sexenio.” Proceso’s Jesús Gil Olmos was quite blunt (Jan. 25): “The break with the PRI would seem to suggest that [Gordillo’s] reign has ended 8!MEXICOREVIEW : March 4, 2012

and the mythology of her immeasurable power is beginning to crumble.” Axel Didriksson (Proceso, Feb. 6) returned to the notion of comeuppance from another angle over a week later: “This is not a good time to be in a weakened position because the time for the [teachers union] to select a new leadership committee is fast approaching. If the legal procedures are followed strictly – unlike the selection process in 2008 when Gordillo manipulated the law – Gordillo and her union cronies might be in danger of getting voted out.” POTENTIAL IMPACT

Columnists also were wondering what the break-up meant for the federal elections. José Antonio Crespo (El Universal, Jan. 31) asserted that the PRI was a clear beneficiary of the discarded alliance: “The political capacity of Gordillo and Panal has been overstated. Their votes help, of course, but they are not a determining factor. The PAN-Panal alliance in Michoacán failed to win the governorship for Luisa María Calderón [in November elections].”

Milenio’s Aguilar Camin (Jan. 26) insisted that Panal discipline was still an attractive concept: “This structure and experience of Panal and the teachers union members could be invaluable on election day, especially for organizing poll watchers.” Roberta Garza (Milenio, Jan 24) dug deeper: “The question if Gordillo laments overreaching depends on whether or not the divorce with the PRI is genuine. If not, we can expect to see subtle contributions from Panal that will be repaid with official and unofficial benefits from a Peña Nieto administration. If the split is genuine, we might expect to see another union leader set up for a fall via questionable legal tactics. The only thing that is perfectly clear is that the fight for political power in Mexico is the imperative while education has not really mattered to the political class for a long time.” Milenio’s Medina Viedas (Jan. 29) also revealed that a variation of the “simulation” theory was not so easy to reject as first appeared: “It would be eminently pragmatic [for Gordillo] to stay close to the PRI candidate.

Ahead of the 2006 election, Panal presidential candidate Roberto Campa skewered PRI nominee Madrazo with illegally obtained tax documents in a debate, dooming Madrazo’s already slender chance at victory. Panal’s alliance with the victorious National Action Party was parlayed into a lucrative sexenio. Erstwhile Gordillo ally Jorge Castañeda (Reforma, Jan. 26) was more phlegmatic: “Panal and Gordillo might have learned a valuable lesson. Union control strategies don’t necessarily translate to electoral politics. A trade union and the employer must inevitably return to each other, but the same is not true with regard to politics where one party can simply leave the table. Perhaps – with the possible exception of Lula – that’s why good union leaders rarely make good politicians.” Ezra Shabot (El Universal, Jan. 30) offered a blue print for survival to Gordillo: “Elba must hope the election devolves into a two-man race so that she can exchange her real or imagined power for political perks and access to public funding.

… Gordillo basically offered to rent her entire ‘franchise’ to the PRI but the old guard [strong-armed her].” In his previously cited column (El Financiero, Jan. 23), Carlos Ramírez identified this tragicomic aspect of Mexican politics: “This affair again demonstrates that Gordillo created Panal to be a profit-making venture dedicated to electoral alliances and not a real political party in any sense of the concept.” So Panal is on its own and, on the surface, it holds no chits over any of the three major parties, or their candidates. This potentially weakens the bargaining position of the all-powerful teachers union and forces Panal to secure its official registration as a party on its own merits. In that vein, Ricardo Raphael (El Universal, Jan 23) penned a hopeful conclusion: “Public education could be the main beneficiary [of the PRI-Panal split] since any potential federal administration has not renounced policy control over Education by making a [deal with Gordillo].”

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POLITICS

MEDIA

Silencing Criticism

THE PRICKLY OWNER of the Guadalajara Chivas drums up support for his ban on reporters from an antagonistic sports daily. Ĺ&#x17D; Ĺ&#x17D; Ĺ&#x17D;Ä Ĺ&#x17D; Ă˝Ĺ&#x17D; Ĺ&#x17D;

10!MEXICOREVIEWâ&#x20AC;&#x201A;:â&#x20AC;&#x201A;March 4, 2012

he Mexican Soccer Federation (FMF) is no better nor worse than other similar federations around the world. Unfortunately that can be seen as a particularly damning comparison. And as if to confirm the verity of that initial statement, the FMF has decided to treat the notion of freedom of expression with disdain. In case we doubted the omnipotence of the FMF as the caretaker of soccer in Mexico, there was little to no uproar from journalists who youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d think would tenaciously defend the tenets of freedom of speech. Since the controversy occurred during the first weekend of the mandatory six-week dead time of the presidential campaign, perhaps columnists and editorial boards were waiting for the full slate of soccer games to come to an end before turning their thoughts to ethics and moral principles. This failure to stand up for justice was equally as repugnant as the ban imposed on Record journalists. On Saturday, Feb. 18, the FMF issued a press release stating that the â&#x20AC;&#x153;18 teams comprising the First Division and the federation support the Guadalajara soccer team.â&#x20AC;? The statement reflected â&#x20AC;&#x153;solidarityâ&#x20AC;? for Guadalajaraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decision to ban all reporters working for the sports tabloid Record from its installations and denying them access to games. Record has earned a reputation of fearlessly (though this is not to say always objectively) reporting on scandals in Mexican soccer. And there are many: the expulsion of eight players over a sex scandal in Ecuador during the 2011 Copa AmĂŠrica; the controversial successful defense of five players kicked off El Tri ahead of the 2011 Copa Oro after testing positive for clembuterol; the appropriation of Puebla team properties by federal treasury officials; cases of drug money laundering through soccer club ownership in lower divisions, among others. Guadalajara, its owner Jorge Vergara and Record have been feuding over coverage and the heat was intensifying as the Chivas were winless in their first six games. The Chivas accused the tabloid of â&#x20AC;&#x153;a campaign of hate and abusesâ&#x20AC;? in defending the ban. The Chivas are one of Mexicoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most

popular clubs and Record has blamed the teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recent abysmal play on owner Jorge Vergara and his wife Angelica Fuentes, who serves as executive president of the team. The news filtered across the news wires and international newspaper websites at a crawl. The earliest stories reported that all 18 teams not only supported the Guadalajara decisions, but would also ban Record scribes from their own stadiums, as per the press release. Shortly thereafter reporters actually called spokesmen for the teams and it became apparent that the FMF press release had been issued without bothering to inform the teams. Incredibly, a few teams initially voiced support for the ban. Ahead of its home game against Mexico City rival UNAM, a Cruz Azul spokesman said Record reporters would be permitted access â&#x20AC;Ś for now. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Since we have not received an official notice yet, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to continue as things were,â&#x20AC;? said Manuel VelĂĄzquez. However, Record later reported that it was denied entry into the stadium. Cruz Azul team president Alberto Quintano insisted he was not behind the order, although the team personnel who blocked the reporterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s access claimed they were acting at the behest of Quintana, according to Record. When contacted by reporters, UNAM â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a team owned by the national university â&#x20AC;&#x201C; said it would not blackball journalists. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The professional football team of UNAM has never contemplated the possibility of restricting in any manner the exercise of freedom of expression,â&#x20AC;? the team said in a statement. Record sports director Alejandro GĂłmez was succinct, telling The Associated Press that this was more than about attending a soccer match. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is dangerous,â&#x20AC;? GĂłmez said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Today it was us, but tomorrow any club unhappy with coverage â&#x20AC;Ś can ask for the same thing and the rest will have to go along. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a shame because Mexican soccer needs to improve and polish its image instead of taking measures like this.â&#x20AC;? One might think that freedom of expression and censorship would be featured among

headlines in the Sunday papers. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be wrong. The sports pages also ignored the issue or downplayed it. Among the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Big 3â&#x20AC;? Mexico City newspapers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Reforma, El Universal and Milenio â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the first two failed to report about the issue in either their news sections or their sports sections. Milenio addressed it tangentially by publishing a short sidebar saying that UNAM would not support the veto, and reporting in the final paragraph that the ban was carried out in four stadiums on Saturday night. Throughout Sunday, Mexico newspaper websites completely ignored the issue, whereas Record reported that Toluca granted it access to the game vs. Chiapas. On Sunday afternoon, AmĂŠrica â&#x20AC;&#x201C; owned by the Televisa TV network â&#x20AC;&#x201C; played at home against Pachuca and Record correspondents were permitted inside to cover the game. The deafening silence in the media over the weekend speaks volumes. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unlikely that a parallel occurrence in the political spectrum would be so easily shrugged off, especially within the context of a presidential election. It either speaks to the power of the FMF, or the Mexican mediaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to distinguish between the validity of political journalism as compared to sports journalism.

March 4, 2012â&#x20AC;&#x201A;:â&#x20AC;&#x201A;MEXICOREVIEW"11

POLITICS

ELECTIONS

obody disputes that the presidential contest merits top billing. But the elections in Mexico City surely won’t lack for intrigue, invective and indecision. The Mexico City mayor is unofficially the second most-powerful politician in the land, and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) is determined to retain that post and preserve its dominance across the capital. The July 1 election has the potential to be a genuine three-way race at the top of the ballot and national voting trends (the proverbial coattails of an attractive presidential candidate) could be reflected in borough races as well. Equally appealing to the political junkie is the electioneering and the evaluation of the same by the often overwhelmed electoral institute arbiters. IEDF councilors have already been made to rule on election code cases, but in the past these pronouncements have been minimized or ignored by political parties and media alike.

Beatriz Paredes seems set to compete for the second straight time on the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ticket after finishing a disappointing third in 2006. Since then, Paredes served as national leader of the PRI, presiding over the former ruling party’s impressive revival as it won key state elections and became the top party in the Chamber of Deputies. Isabel Miranda de Wallace is the surprise selection of the National Action Party (PAN). A surprise because she is not a member of the party. An anti-crime crusader who came to prominence in 2005 as she campaigned to have her son’s kidnapping case resolved, Miranda de Wallace eventually helped lead police to the kidnappers by doing her own detective work. She was awarded the National Human Rights Award in 2010. INTERNECINE STRIFE

WHO WANTS TO RUN THE CAPITAL?

The PRD has won City Hall and held large majorities in the local Legislative Assembly ever since the Federal District began holding elections in 1997. Prior to that, the president appointed a regent, and the local legislature only dates back to the late 1980s, but its authority was limited. The Federal District – much like Washington, D.C., in the United States – still lacks true political autonomy. But the office of Mexico City mayor enjoys a major national platform and earns international exposure as well. The capital is viewed globally as a major progressive urban center. Marcelo Ebrard was even recognized as 2010’s “Best Mayor in the World” by the World Mayor Project. Ebrard – unlike the two men voted into office before him – is serving out his term instead of running for president. The three candidates seeking to replace him offer an enthralling contrast that promises to contribute to a tantalizing race. The PRD nominee is Miguel Ángel Mancera, an attorney who served laudably as Mexico City attorney general until Jan. 6. Unlike the three PRD mayors he aims to succeed, Mancera is not a career politician. As such, his candidacy was initially rejected by party hardliners who didn’t regard him as a true member of the PRD. 12!MEXICOREVIEW : March 4, 2012

Capital Race Gets Off to Lively Start THREE COMPELLING CANDIDATES vie for City Hall as residents assailed by campaign propaganda. TEXT AND PHOTOS BY TOM BUCKLEY

The official campaign season doesn’t start until March 30, but all three candidates have been fending off blows or putting out potential fires. Ironically, the danger has primarily been found within. The PRD is famous for tribal warfare and too often the combatants have little regard for the self-damage done. Mancera seemed to have avoided fratricidal conflict when some of his most strident critics among the early mayoral contenders publicly backed his nomination. But full unity was not achieved. Alejandra Barrales, the assemblywoman who finished second in the party primary, refused to appear at Mancera’s nomination ceremony and withheld her support for weeks afterward. News reports indicated she was demanding key Cabinet positions in exchange for a show of support. Mancera quietly and efficiently built a campaign staff that won nods of approval from the various factions but potential pitfalls loomed. The local PRD committee has twice suspended a council meeting after competing groups could not agree on selection procedures for borough chiefs and assembly seats. Unlike the PRD and the PAN, the PRI’s mayoral candidate seemed a foregone conclusion over a year ago. Undeterred by the poor showing in 2006, Paredes had a reasonable plan. She figured to exert discipline within the party and ride the coattails of popular presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto to victory. March 4, 2012 : MEXICOREVIEW"13

POLITICS

ELECTIONS

25.8 million Population of Mexico in 1950.

Mexico’s ranking among 183 countries in how easy it is to do business.

129

As the presidential slate has taken shape over the past four months, Peña Nieto has seen his comfortable lead in the polls shrink. And PRI unity is still being cobbled together in the party’s notoriously raucous Mexico City operations. Peña Nieto helped broker an uneasy peace at the PRI city council meeting, but there appears to be a rift between Paredes and the powerful faction headed by Cuauhtémoc Gutiérrez, the leader of the trashpickers union in the capital. If Paredes can’t count on complete party unity, she has no chance to win. Tonatiuh González and Juan Antonio Flores have registered to compete with Paredes, but is not given much chance to win. PAN candidate Miranda de Wallace was a controversial choice within party ranks. The activist is not a member of the party and hopefuls demonstrated varying degrees of resentment about the decision. On Feb. 1, Miranda de Wallace noted that PANistas were slow in accepting her platform and commentators accused the PAN of turning their backs on her, denting any momentum possible from the uniqueness of her selection. On the stump, Miranda de Wallace has been direct in demonstrating her independence. She has said “I am not President Calderón’s candidate” and has forcefully asserted that “I am not a member of the [PAN] so I don’t have to defend their political positions.” The latter statement might prove helpful as she strives 14!MEXICOREVIEW : March 4, 2012

to differentiate her policy positions from those of the conservative party. Her role as an anti-crime crusader will place that issue on the agenda and could put Mancera on the defensive. As late as November (before Mancera won the nomination), Paredes continued to lead in polls with any PAN candidate registering as a mere blip. In late January, one poll had Mancera at 43 percent, Paredes at 16 percent and Miranda de Wallace at 13 percent. For Mancera, the worst-case scenario is that compromise is not reached in the PRD elections council and a factional split drags on his campaign. It seems like his race to lose. Other bad news for Paredes is that the poll was taken before Miranda de Wallace had her first strategy meetings with PAN officials. The thinking is that Miranda de Wallace can only rise in polls as the party machine revs into action hoping that her status as a political outsider resonates with disaffected members of the electorate. The above-mentioned poll says that 28 percent of voters remain undecided, suggesting that there are plenty of votes out there to be won. CAMPAIGN DEBRIS

Fans of urban landscapes and observant pedestrians can’t help but notice the glut

of election materials cluttering up their line of sight. It appears as if every available lamppost, stop light, telephone poll, phone booth, overpass and tree has been hijacked by campaign banners and party advertisements. The department responsible for enforcing the local advertising ordinance reported on Feb. 7 that 96 percent of campaign materials they saw hanging was hung illegally. The report – based on a drive across 118 kilometers of local thoroughfares – recorded 6,264 banners, posters and billboards. Over half of the material in violation of the law featured PRD candidates (57 percent). Another 17 percent of the material belonged to the Labor Party, a member of the alliance backing Mancera. PAN (2.5 percent) and PRI (1.5 percent) violations were minimal. Another 22 percent of the “political messages” hung in violation of the law were for current officials and legislators, most of whom are members of the PRD. Mayor Ebrard promised to take action but it will be interesting to see if he moves to “correct” the situation, keeping in mind that inadvertently removing signage for a PRD candidate who belongs to a different faction than his could provoke a schism. In the meantime, pedestrians and commuters will become quite familiar with the faces of Lía Limón, Mauricio Soto, Mario Delgado and Agustín Barrios Gómez, among many others.

Number of years between Best Actor Oscar nominations for a Mexican (Anthony Quinn, in 1964 for “Zorba the Greek” and Demián Bichir, in 2012 for “A Better Life”).

661

113.9 million

Official estimated population of Mexico as of September 2011.

406

1.4 billion

Number of passenger trips per year on the Metro system.

6 billion

Annual losses, in pesos, to the publishing industry attributed to piracy.

1.8 million

Approximate average annual population growth in Mexico through 2050 at the current rate.

1.7 million

Current population of Ecatepec, Mexico’s second largest city (after Mexico City).

1 billion

Amount in dollars Coca Cola has promised to invest in Mexico in 2012.

Number of robberies committed inside Mexico City’s Metro system in 2008.

Number of robberies committed inside the Metro system in 2011, a 38.56 percent decrease from 2006.

Number of books out of every 10 sold in Mexico that are pirated versions.

China’s ranking in the same category.

Brazil’s ranking in the same category.

By the Numbers

5 billion

Number of dollars diabetes treatment costs the Mexican health care system annually, according to the international consulting firm FSG.

129 billion

110 million

Annual losses, in pesos, in authors’ royalties due to piracy.

Percentage of Mexicans who approve of the job their Senate is doing, according to the Consulta Mitofsky polling firm cited in the magazine Nexos.

Percentage of Mexicans who approve of the job their Chamber of Deputies (the lower house) is doing.

Percentage of Americans who approve of the job their Congress (both houses) is doing, according to a December 2011 Gallup poll.

Numberofdollarsthatthelackofadequate competition in the telecommunications industry cost Mexicans from 2005 to 2009, according to a recent OECD report that has been disputed by Carlos Slim (América Móvil and Telmex).

March 4, 2012 : MEXICOREVIEW"15

life& leisure

DESTINATIONS

Queens of the Pacific HAVE PUERTO VALLARTA and the Riviera Nayarit usurped the throne from Acapulco? TEXT & PHOTOS BY JIMM BUDD

16!MEXICOREVIEW : March 4, 2012

March 4, 2012 : MEXICOREVIEW"17

T life& leisure

DESTINATIONS

oward the end of March, many eyes will be on Puerto Vallarta and the neighboring Riviera Nayarit. Tour packagers from several countries will be gathering there for the Tianguis Turístico, an annual trade show where they meet with their suppliers – sales executives from airlines, bus lines, hotel chains, car rental firms and more – to put together the programs that they hope vacationers will buy in the coming months. “This is big business,” says Enrique Carrillo, general director of Fonatur, the government’s tourism development agency. “The tourism industry is Mexico’s biggest employer.” For the first time the Tianguis will be held somewhere other than Acapulco. Back in 1966, when it all got started, there were no other options. “But in recent years, people have been requesting other venues,” says Rodolfo López Negrete, chief operating officer of the Mexican Tourism Board. The board – properly the Consejo Nacional de Promoción Turística – organizes the Tianguis. Acapulco protested the shift, but López Negrete said that declining attendance led to the decision to move the trade show around. “That Puerto Vallarta got the nod seems only fair,” says Aurelio López Rocha, who heads the Jalisco Tourism Secretariat, noting that Puerto Vallarta is second in seniority as a major Mexican international resort destination. The adjacent Riviera takes in some 300 kilometers of coastline from Nuevo Vallarta through Punta Mita and Guayabitos on up to Playa Novilleros, near the state border with Sonora. The area has long been popular, but only recently has it been dubbed the Riviera Nayarit, after the state it’s in. (Puerto Vallarta itself is in the state of Jalisco.) 18!MEXICOREVIEW : March 4, 2012

stand along beaches above and below the town itself. First came the Posada Vallarta, today the Krystal Vallarta, north of the village. To the south, the Camino Real – now Dreams – opened in 1969. The next year, U.S. President Richard Nixon flew in to meet with President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, an event that added to the fame of Puerto Vallarta. The rest, some would say, is history. Puerto Vallarta is more than just a village now, having grown to a point where it is more like half-a-dozen destinations served by one airport. Culture, cuisine and ecology are the big attractions these days. The quaintest town on the Mexican Pacific has become much more than just a beach. LOTS TO DO

The work of Puerto Vallarta-born painter Manuel Lepe (1936-1984) attracted the attention of the international art world, leaving the town teeming with artists and galleries to this day.

Taken together, Puerto Vallarta and the Riviera make up the biggest holiday area in Mexico. With size comes diversity. “Vacationers can find there just about anything they want, as long as they are not looking for snow,” writes New Jerseybased travel journalist Craig Zabransky. Just how much the Tianguis attendees will see of it is a mystery. Plans do call for them to be housed in a variety of hotels throughout the area, but just getting to the exhibit areas may prove to be a challenge. Traffic crowds the narrow, cobbled streets, and that traffic gets worse on weekends now that new highways have brought the town within a few hours’ drive from Guadalajara. “It’s going to be a mess,” said one veteran Mexican hotelier, who asked not to be identified, “but disorganization is an annual feature at the Tianguis.” Still, the minor woes suffered by trade fair attendees is no way to judge Puerto Vallarta and the Riviera Nayarit. The place speaks for itself. Let’s take a look at it. FROM FISH TO PRESIDENTS

In a manner of speaking Puerto Vallarta began at Mismaloya, about a half-hour by car from downtown Vallarta. It was on this cove that John Huston in 1963

Among the greatest joys is the resurrection of the neighborhood around Playa los Muertos (Beach of the Dead), which local boosters turned into a slum when they

“Puerto Vallarta is, among many other things, the place to connect with the opposite sex. Or the same sex.”

A statue honors the director John Huston (above), whose filming of “Night of the Iguana” in the early 1960s put Puerto Vallarta and its picturesque coastline (below) on the tourism map.

directed “The Night of the Iguana,” and in the process made Vallarta famous. Among the stars of the movie was Richard Burton. Elizabeth Taylor had no role in the film, but showed up to keep him company. They were married, but not to each other – not yet anyway. The potential for gossip attracted journalists. Once they arrived (getting to Vallarta was a challenge half-a-century ago), they found that they had little to write about except the delights of the Eden they’d discovered. A tourist mecca was born. It started out as a fishing village. It looked the way Mexican fishing villages are supposed to look. Cobbled streets tumbled down steep hills to the Malecón, once an unpaved seaside promenade. Tile roofs topped whitewashed houses. Until the 1950s, the only way to get to Vallarta was by boat. Then Mexicana Airlines began flying in from Mexico City every other day. A handful of foreigners discovered the place. This is one reason Huston decided on Vallarta for his movie. American residents were ready to stand in as extras any time Huston needed them. Huston changed everything. A statue of him in town reminds anyone who may have forgotten. The bigger, more luxurious hotels March 4, 2012 : MEXICOREVIEW"19

life& leisure

DESTINATIONS

Golfers have their choice of three courses in Puerto Vallarta and four more on the Riviera Nayarit, including the Club de Golf Punta Mita (shown here), with water hazards the size of an ocean.

tried to rename it Playa del Sol (Beach of the Sun). The streets leading down to Los Muertos, particularly Basilio Badillo and Olas Altas, have become the address of some of the best places to eat and drink in town. The local tourism office calls this the Zona Romántica, which it can be, depending on who you’re with. It also can be a good spot to look for fine 20!MEXICOREVIEW : March 4, 2012

art or folk art along the stone streets that line the Río Cuale or on the island in the middle of the river. That might mean arriving in time for lunch, and the choices of spots are many, most of them quite good. “Our restaurants are one of Puerto Vallarta’s biggest attractions,” says Andreas Rupprechter, proprietor of Restaurant Kaiser Maximilian in the Los Muertos

neighborhood. “We like to think that our town has more outstanding restaurants per square meter than anywhere this side of Vienna … or Paris. And in Puerto Vallarta, you are not limited to European food.” Maybe not, but Vallarta seems to have attracted quite a number of European chefs, among them Bernhard Guth and Ulf Henrikkson, who opened Trio, a short walk from Kaiser Maximilian. Thierry Blouet’s Café des Artistes, also in central Vallarta, has become something of a gourmet shrine. Vacationers who want to do more than lounge by a swimming pool join teams of biologists and naturalists in releasing baby sea turtles that might otherwise be gobbled by predators, making sure the hatchlings wait until dark before scurrying to the sea. Several firms operate tours, everything from hikes into the jungle to horseback rides, excursions on mountain bikes and kayak outings. Humpback whales winter in Banderas Bay off Vallarta. Canopy tours have become especially popular. “Canopy tours send you zipping through the tree tops, riding in a harness attached to a steel cable,” says Paulo Rodríguez, a guide at Vallarta Adventure. “They give you a chance to see something of what lies in the hills that surround the bay.” Then there are picnic cruises across the bay to tiny hidden havens along the shore. These include Yelapa, a cove with many restaurants and activities such as parasailing. At Playa de las Ánimas (Beach of the Spirits) and Quimixto, you can hire a pony or hike up trails into the hills. Ladies should eschew high heels. Golfers have their choice of three courses in Puerto Vallarta itself and four more over in the Riviera Nayarit. When it comes to shopping, those attending the Tianguis Turístico find more to do than buying racy t-shirts and tacky souvenirs. The art galleries claim to rival the best in Mexico City and they’re more fun to visit. More than a dozen places sell fine painting and sculpture, and while that may not sound like much, few visitors get to see them all. The late Manuel Lepe, Mexico’s premier primitive painter, gets credit for putting Puerto Vallarta on art maps. Lepe’s trademark angels flying over the beaches delighted Hollywood types who began flocking to the area in the 1960s.

The Riviera Nayarit attracts the already connected — families with young children.

BEDS GALORE

A few years ago Puerto Vallarta appeared to be in a tailspin, with too many hotels chasing too few tourists. Airlines had to be all but bribed not to cut service. That’s changing. A new Hilton and a Holiday Inn Express are in the works, according to the local hotel association. AM Resorts plans to inaugurate a Now Amber Resort while Posadas de México is looking at opening a low-priced One in the resort area. Just where they will be located has not been announced. First thing vacationers need to decide is where in Puerto Vallarta they want to bed down. This means that tour operators in town for the Tianguis Turístico should be taking a look, although there is so much to see you wonder where they will find the time. Then you need to decide what part of town feels best to you. Above town? Below town? The Marina? Perhaps one of the cozy little inns right in town (but not on the beach)? The highway out to Mismaloya is dotted with resorts, including Barceló right at Mismaloya, a Presidente Inter-Continental, the classic Garza Blanca and Dreams, which is all-inclusive (room, meals, entertainment and activities included in the basic price). You can rent condominium apartments and villas. In town are more intimate and usually less expensive digs. Toward the north, beyond where the Malecón begins, are more fancy places to stay. And then there is the Marina, which could be a resort destination in itself. You will find the Sheraton, Holiday Inn, Marriott and Westin out this way, along with properties managed by European and

Mexican chains. In all, there are more than 100 places to bed down in Puerto Vallarta, and many more across the Ameca River where the Riviera Nayarit begins. Luxury hotels crowd the southern shores of the Riviera Nayarit, starting at Nuevo Vallarta and Flamingos, continuing out to Punta Mita and beyond. Punta Mita is the address of both a Four Seasons and a St. Regis, plus two Jack Nicklaus Signature golf courses (“signature” courses apparently being better than unsigned courses). The Riviera has two other golf courses with three more said to be under way. Beyond Punta Mita less elegant lodging abounds, along with plush and notso-plush all-inclusive resorts. In all, the Nayarit Riviera includes more towns, villages, hotels and resorts than I could count. An entire vacation would not provide enough time to explore them all, but trying could be fun. “The beaches are better over here than in Puerto Vallarta,” says a biased Richard Zarkin, who left his native Mexico City hoping to baskbeneaththepalms.Asapromoterforthe RivieraNayarit,Zarkinfindshimselftoobusy to do much basking. “The waters over here remain shallow for quite a distance, which makes the beach safer for children,” he says. “We have resorts both in Puerto Vallarta and Nuevo Vallarta,” says Carlos Aquino, a vice president of the fast-growing Villa Group, builders of timeshare properties. “We provide what our customers want.” Puerto Vallarta appeals to the young and those who wish they were young. It is the place to connect with the opposite sex. Or with the same sex. More conservative

The Riviera Nayarit includes 300 kilometers of coastline from Nuevo Vallarta to Playa Novilleros. vacationers are dismayed by the way that Puerto Vallarta has become supposedly the most gay-friendly destination in Mexico. The Riviera Nayarit, on the other hand, attracts the already-connected crowd, families with young children. Adolescents probably will be happier if their parents opt for accommodations in Puerto Vallarta. “But that is changing,” insists Zarkin, the Riviera Nayarit promoter. He compares the little town of Bucerías to the Puerto Vallarta of the 1970s, which might be something of an exaggeration. “We are putting in our own seaside boulevard, a malecón 10 meters wide, at least three kilometers long,” he says. The Malecón, he promises, will be equal or better than that of Puerto Vallarta. “It will be the address of bistros, boutiques and the best art galleries,” he says. In neighboring Litibú, the Nayarit government has announced that, with the help of Fonatur, 167 hectares are being prepared for the construction of 10 resort hotels, nearly 1,000 vacation residences and a 72-hole golf course designed by Greg Norman. Iberostar will be among the pioneers, promises Miguel Fluxá, CEO at the big Spanish resort group. He, or one of his people, doubtless will have more to say once the Tianguis trade show gets under way. The Tianguis is where hotel chains and airlines often make their biggest announcements. Jimm Budd is the dean of English-language journalists covering the tourism industry in Mexico, and writes a regular tourism column for the Mexico City daily Reforma. His kindle book ¡Mexico! is available at www.kindle.com by typing “Jimm” in the search box.

March 4, 2012 : MEXICOREVIEW"21

life& leisure

FILM

g n i s s a P y l e r a B

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Ĺ&#x17D; c education li b u p e u sc educamentary re CAN A docu tional system just as its predecessor foor the second straight year, cused attention on a dysfunctional judithe Mexican film world spent ciary. But while â&#x20AC;&#x153;Presunto Culpableâ&#x20AC;? found much of February with its at- a dramatic tug by staying with a single, tention split between a home- shocking case that we fear is all too typigrown Oscar nominee and a muckraking cal, â&#x20AC;&#x153;ÂĄDe Panzazo!â&#x20AC;? looks at the big picture, documentary. loading its 80 minutes with establishing Last year, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Biutiful,â&#x20AC;? by Mexican direc- shots of schools in various states of disretor Alejandro GonzĂĄlez IĂąĂĄrritu (â&#x20AC;&#x153;Amores pair, testimony by students, teachers and Perros,â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;21 Grams,â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Babelâ&#x20AC;?), was in the parents, 60 Minutes-style adversarial inrunning for the Best Foreign Language terviews with authorities, and a barrage of Film award, which ended up going to facts. With some exceptions, such as the the Danish drama â&#x20AC;&#x153;In a Better World.â&#x20AC;? contrast between shots of lovable youngAt the same time, the powerful â&#x20AC;&#x153;Presun- sters fidgeting with unchanneled energy to Culpableâ&#x20AC;? (â&#x20AC;&#x153;Presumed Innocentâ&#x20AC;?), ex- and the self-protective dissembling of buposing a callous judicial system convict- reaucrats seemingly intent on living up to ing an innocent man even as the cameras their stereotype, we feel weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re being told rolled, was setting box office records for a more than weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re being shown. documentary. But what weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re told reveals a system in This time around, DemiĂĄn Bichirâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s run shambles. Kids arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t learning. for the Best Actor Oscar was the magaTake math, that old bugaboo, as an illuszine cover topic of choice for most of the tration. Only one out of every hundred Mexmonth, while an ambitious documenta- ican students reaches an advanced level of ry was screening for the media and oth- mathematics (in Canada, by comparison, er selected audiences in the lead-up to its itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 26, and in South Korea 36). More than much-anticipated Feb. 24 opening in com- half havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even learned minimum arithmercial theaters. metic skills as they enter high school. â&#x20AC;&#x153;ÂĄDe Panzazo!,â&#x20AC;? like â&#x20AC;&#x153;Presunto CulpaAnd thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s assuming they get that far. bleâ&#x20AC;? before it, is a doc on a mission, hoping to About a third donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make it to sixth grade, spurreformofatragicallyunderperforming and well under half graduate high school.

22!MEXICOREVIEWâ&#x20AC;&#x201A;:â&#x20AC;&#x201A;March 4, 2012

College degrees, de rigeur for success in Mexico (few inspirational up-from-the-mailroom stories here), are reachable by about 10 percent and post-grads are for the select few. In the film, these cheerless facts are coming to us from an off-screen voice that soon incarnates as a familiar face, none other than Carlos Loret de Mola. The Televisa news anchorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s appearance might seem mildly incongruous in this context, his network seldom being accused of fostering an educated viewership. But Loret de Mola is a pro and a charmer, and he serves as an amiable Virgil accompanying us through the circles of school hell. He has the additional advantage of being a celebrity journalist, with all the access that implies. Plus he co-directed and co-wrote the film, so he enjoys a certain droit dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;auteur. (The principle director and cinematographer is Juan Carlos Rulfo, known for the Sundance Film Festival success of his â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the Pit,â&#x20AC;? a portrait of construction workers, and for his pedigree; heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the son of the revered author Juan Rulfo.) â&#x20AC;&#x153;ÂĄDe Panzazo!,â&#x20AC;? named after an expression for squeaking by that in this case might best be translated as â&#x20AC;&#x153;Barely Passing,â&#x20AC;? is slick enough to hold our attention for the duration. But itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not so good at matching

the visual content with the message. Showing kids acting up (or out) on the school grounds doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t demonstrate poor education, parents complaining about teachers is universal, and the fact that both a private school student and her public school counterpart come up with the wrong answer to a math problem on camera proves exactly nothing. Few doubt that a scandalously high percentage of Mexican teachers are unprepared or unwilling to perform adequately, but short of 100 hidden cameras and a lot of time, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not going to get that on film. Nor does the documentary offer any bold statements about who or whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to blame for the mess. The film makes clear, however, that the problem isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t money, or at least not education spending. Mexico spends more on education as a percentage of the total budget than the OECD countriesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; average, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re told. Which begs the question: Where does the money go? This is where the national teachers union and its contumacious president-forlife, Elba Esther Gordillo, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come off so well. After an interlude in which Loret de Mora tries unsuccessfully to get somebody, anybody, to tell him how many teachers there are in Mexico â&#x20AC;&#x201C; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s his Michael Moore moment, played for laughs â&#x20AC;&#x201C; he confronts the union boss on that and other issues. He doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get much in the way of answers, but the verbal sparring is top-rate, a true battle of titans among the influential,

if not the intellectually elite. One controls millions of votes, the other millions of viewers. At one point, the TV newsman asks Gordillo why the union resists teacher evaluations. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a pertinent question, since itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an open secret that more teachers get and keep their positions through union influence, political patronage or outright purchase than actually demonstrating qualifications. The union boss insists sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in favor of evaluations. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Then do them!â&#x20AC;? Loret de Mola shoots back. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been the head of the union for 20 years!â&#x20AC;? Gordillo, never letting go of his hand, replies with a deflection: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Well, make me the Secretary of Education.â&#x20AC;? Viewers come away from the documentary with the suspicion that whether or not Gordillo bears responsibility for the sad state of education in Mexico, the solution isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t likely to be coming from her. The union apparently interprets the filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intended message that way. It waged an energetic campaign to discredit the documentary throughout February, and newspapers reported that a respected Veracruz teacher who cooperated with the filmmakers has been harassed and threatened with dismissal. This is what reformers are up against. On the ironic side, leaders of Mexicanos Primero â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the nonprofit, pro-education citizens group that produced and financed â&#x20AC;&#x153;ÂĄDe Panzazo!â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201C; include the heads of Televisa and its foundation. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been widely alleged, mostly from the left, that the media giant

has slanted its coverage in favor of Enrique PeĂąa Nieto, the telegenic presidential candidate of the Institutional Revolution Party (PRI). Until late January, during the time the film was in post-production and first being screened, the PRI was in an electoral alliance with the New Alliance Party, which is controlled by ... Elba Esther Gordillo. Mexican politics are complicated. But letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s choose not to doubt the sincerity of Mexicanos Primero (Mexicans First) and its efforts to finally get something done about the education systemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shortcoming. All the screenings were accompanied by calls to action, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s probably no coincidence that the documentaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s release came on the eve of the presidential campaign. Hugo HernĂĄndez, who reviews film for the magazine Letras Libres, was surely right when he suggested that â&#x20AC;&#x153;ÂĄDe Panzazo!â&#x20AC;? should be thought of more as a promotional video than a traditional documentary. For anything to happen, the next president and Congress will have to do more than watch a movie; theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll need the political courage to take on vested interests. That would be close to unprecedented. But â&#x20AC;&#x153;ÂĄDe Panzazo!â&#x20AC;? and Mexicanos Primero have at least started the nation talking about education reform, which is something. And among the celebrities attending the red carpet premiere a week before the public opening were two of the three major presidential candidates â&#x20AC;&#x201C; PeĂąa Nieto and Josefina VĂĄzquez Mota of the conservative National Action Party. VĂĄzquez Mota is a former Secretary of Education. March 4, 2012â&#x20AC;&#x201A;:â&#x20AC;&#x201A;MEXICOREVIEW"23

SPORTS

New Year brings new hope just as a new soccer season brings new hope. That is unless you’re not even going to try. The Tigres won their first Mexican Soccer League title since 1982 in December, featuring a stingy defense and a patient, opportunistic offense. By virtue of their third place finish in the regular season standings the Tigres also earned a qualifying spot in the prestigious Copa Libertadores. Guadalajara and Cruz Azul finished 1-2 in the standings but both crashed out of the playoffs in the first round. However, their regular season performance won them spots directly into the Copa Libertadores group stage. Both teams have enjoyed Libertadores success. The Chivas and Cementeros are the only Mexican clubs to ever reach the finals of the South American tournament, although each lost in agonizing fashion.

JORGE ADORNO / REUTERS

CHASING INTERNATIONAL GLORY

Javier Orozco, left and Emanuel Villa of Cruz Azul celebrate Orozco’s first goal against Paraguay’s Nacional in their Feb. 8 Copa Libertadores match.

Taking on South America

THREE MEXICAN TEAMS earned invitations to the Copa Libertadores. But only two of the clubs have taken it seriously. BY TOM BUCKLEY

24!MEXICOREVIEW : March 4, 2012

Cruz Azul advanced to the finals against Argentine powerhouse Boca Juniors in 2001 only to lose the first leg at home 1-0. Against all prognostications, Cruz Azul traveled to Buenos Aires and outplayed Boca, winning at La Bombonera 1-0 and forcing a penalty shootout. Boca persevered and won the shootout 3-1 to claim their second straight Libertadores trophy. In 2010, Guadalajara played unevenly in the knockout rounds but pushed through to the finals against heavily favored Internacional of Brazil. A goal just before halftime of the home leg gave the Chivas hope, but Inter scored twice midway through the second half. In the return leg in Porto Alegre, Guadalajara scored late in the first half to level the aggregate score, only to see Inter find the net three times in the second half. The aggressive and controversial Chivas owner Jorge Vergara is obsessed with defending the prestige of Guadalajara’s colors. Vergara demands the best, firing two coaches in the past three months even as the club was compiling the best record in the Apertura 2011 tournament. He wants the Chivas to stake their claim as the premier club in Mexico and the Libertadores offers an international platform. Courtly Cruz Azul owner Guillermo Álvarez has been trying to win another trophy for the Cementeros for nearly 15 years. The Blue Machine has become the perennial

runner-up in recent years, losing four finals since 2007. The Cementeros are desperate to repay Álvarez for his faith and coach Enrique Meza says his men will contend for both the league and the Libertadores trophies. FERRETTI THUMBS HIS NOSE

During the winter break between seasons, Tigres coach Ricardo Ferretti announced his team would focus on defending its league title. The prickly coach said he would use players from the junior squad and rest most of his starters for league matches. The decision was met with a mixture of dismay and outrage because the Mexican Soccer Federation had fought hard to raise its profile. Playing in the traditionally weak Concacaf region, Mexico has struggled to win respect. After years of lobbying, the South American Federation (Conmebol) extended an invitation to Mexico for the 1993 Copa America and El Tri shocked pundits by reaching the final and giving Argentina a scare before losing 2-1. Mexico has been invited to each tournament since and has seen its reputation climb thanks

to steady growth and solid performances against quality competition. Mexican clubs have been invited to the Copa Libertadores tournament since 1998, the same year Toyota entered into a sponsorship agreement. Since then, teams have earned payouts for advancing to the knockout stage. The winner of the tournament plays in the World Club Cup tournament at the end of the same year. So coach Ferretti’s disregard was seen as narrow-minded and counterproductive. Sports columns criticized Ferretti and the Tigres, suggesting that the coach lacked ambition. The fear that the snub would hurt relations with Conmebol was voiced. ESPN commentator David Faitelson wrote: “Ferretti lacks ambition. The loyal Tigres supporters waited 29 years between league titles so it’s not as if the fans would suddenly lose patience just because the team was taking part in two tournaments, perhaps struggling in the league due to the extra energy required. Especially in exchange for seeing top-notch clubs from South America play in their home stadium.”

Guadalajara’s Omar Arellano, right, reacts after scoring against Ecuador’s Deportivo Quito in a Feb. 7 Copa Libertadores match.

ALEJANDRO ACOSTA / REUTERS

life& leisure

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SPORTS

FOOD & DRINK

Upcoming Matches

life& leisure

Gilbert Nielsen, head of the Calavera microbrewery, crafts European-style beers with a Mexican touch.

Cruz Azul and Guadalajara each have four more group stage games in their respective Copa Libertadores campaigns. The first two teams in each group advance to the Round of 16 knockout stage.

Group 6 : March 14 DANIEL BECERRIL / REUTERS

Corinthians (Brazil) at Cruz Azul : March 21

Cruz Azul at Corinthians

: April 18

Nacional (Paraguay) at Cruz Azul

Group 7 : March 13

Defensor (Uruguay) at Guadalajara

Eder NicolĂĄs Borelli of the Tigres, center, battles for possession with UniĂłn EspaĂąolaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Antonio Braulio Leal, right, and Emmanuel Herrera during their Feb. 2 Copa Libertadores match in Monterrey.

True to his word, Ferretti traveled to Chile to take on UniĂłn EspaĂąola in the play-in series with a team of youngsters. The Chilean squad were third-place finishers in the local league last year, but they beat the Tigres 1-0. In the Feb. 2 return match in Monterrey, the youthful Tigres jumped out to a 2-0 first-half lead only to see victory slip away thanks to a series of errors. Sports pages mocked the effort with headlines such as â&#x20AC;&#x153;Feline Failureâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Kittens slip up.â&#x20AC;? GOING ALL IN

: March 28

Guadalajara at Defensor : April 11

VĂŠlez Sarsfield (Argentina) at Guadalajara : April 18

Guadalajara at Deportivo Quito (Ecuador)

26!MEXICOREVIEWâ&#x20AC;&#x201A;:â&#x20AC;&#x201A;March 4, 2012

In contrast to the indifference displayed by Ferretti and the Tigres, Guadalajara and Cruz Azul approached their Libertadores group stage openers with determination. The Chivas have struggled this season, losing their first three games before firing their coach. New manager Ignacio Ambriz fashioned a scoreless tie in his first game on the touchline but the club lost again prior to its date at home against Ecuadorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Deportivo Quito. Guadalajara played inconsistently but striker Omar Arellano salvaged a tie with a goal during second half injury time. Even so, squandering points at home is never good in a short tournament, especially

since VĂŠlez Sarsfield is in Group 7 alongside the Chivas. The Argentine club is ranked No. 3 in the world (behind only Barcelona and Real Madrid) in the Federation of International Soccer History and Statistics (IFFHS). Guadalajara is ranked No. 302 by the IFFHS. Coach Ambriz acknowledged that he still has work to do and the Chivas insist they are adjusting to the new tactics. Guadalajara knows it must find success soon as the domestic season is nearly one-third over and the team travels to Buenos Aires to take on VĂŠlez Sarsfield on Feb. 22. Cruz Azul finds itself in an easier group topped by Brazilian powerhouse Corinthians. Though ranked only #151 by the IFFHS, the Sao Paulo club won the Brazilian league last year. The Cementeros are ranked #178 by IFFHS and are favored to advance into the knockout stage along with Corinthians. In their Group 6 opener, the Cementeros traveled to AsunciĂłn, Paraguay, and played a very solid game. Cruz Azul defeated Nacional 2-1 behind two goals by striker Javier â&#x20AC;&#x153;Chuletitaâ&#x20AC;? Orozco. Winning three points on the road should serve the team well with Venezuelan champ Deportivo TĂĄchira due to visit Mexico City on Feb. 21.

Democratic Brew

PHOTO: KELLY ARTHUR GARRETT / MEXICO REVIEW

: April 3

Cruz Azul at Dep. TĂĄchira (Venezuela)

THERE ARE DOZENS OF MEXICAN beers youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never " , Ĺ&#x17D;) ĂźĹ&#x17D; ( Ĺ&#x17D;." 3Ä&#x160;, Ĺ&#x17D;0 ,3Ĺ&#x17D;!)) ĂťĹ&#x17D; & )' Ĺ&#x17D;.)Ĺ&#x17D;." Ĺ&#x17D; ,Ĺ&#x17D; revolution. BY KELLY ARTHUR GARRETT

March 4, 2012â&#x20AC;&#x201A;:â&#x20AC;&#x201A;MEXICOREVIEW"27

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FOOD & DRINK

restaurant ritual has played out for decades in Mexico, at mom-and-pop holes in the wall and upscale eateries alike. It’s in call-and-response format, initiated by the customer, who calls for a beer. The waiter will then respond: Corona, Modelo, Victoria, Pacífico and (in a recent modification) León and Montejo. It often stops there. A longer liturgy adds the following: Dos Equis, Sol, Bohemia, Superior, Carta Blanca, Indio and Tecate. That’s essentially it. Taken as a whole, the selection may not seem so thin. In fact, for much of the 20th century those Mexican brands were ladder rungs to beer heaven for visitors from the United States, where the beer itself was thin. The problem is that the Mexican beer list has calcified into a rigid orthodoxy. With a few regional and seasonal exceptions, you drink one of the aforementioned products or you don’t drink Mexican beer.

The dearth of choice has taken the discrimination – and most of the pleasure – out of beer drinking, and reduced it to the lowest depth of its own cliché. Beer turned into little more than something to guzzle at parties, quench a thirst, wash down a quick meal or get hammered with. And if you’re over 21, it’s a deal buster on a date. Until now. A parallel beer universe exists in Mexico, with scores of choices that have nothing to do with the established commercial brands. Maybe 99 percent of residents and visitors amble through this universe with no idea that it contains offerings from dozens of proudly Mexican breweries with names like Cucapá, La Chingonería, Calavera, Baja Brewing Company, Revolución, Rámuri, Primus, Cosaco and Artesanal Jack. Nor do they know about the new beer distribution outlets cropping up like shoots through the concrete. The Beer Box and Beer Company have opened up specialty beer shops and tasting taverns in an expanding number of cities across

Mexico, including relatively small ones like San Miguel de Allende. They join independent hangouts like El Depósito and La Belga in Mexico City’s Roma and Condesa neighborhoods as gathering spots for a new breed of beer lovers on the prowl for quality, variety, and a sensual experience. Otherwise, it’s just beer. In these circles, there’s no naming ritual. Since each brewery manufacturers at least two or three beers, often several times that, there are too many for a waiter or bartender or store clerk to get through the list. Attempts at it can approach poetry, however, since those not named after their type (Light Pale Lager, Mexican Imperial Stout, Brava Dunkler Bock and the like) are prone to fanciful nomenclature, like Chupacabras, Amargator and Batri Chonami, or names that translate to Redhead, Black Tears and Black Scorpion. What’s going on? Is a beer revolution raging in Mexico, as some like to say? Well, what’s starting to happen, beerwise, is a delayed version of what happened a decade or two earlier in Europe

and the United States, where the grip of the big breweries was suddenly loosened by hundreds of much smaller ones, at least 1,500 in the U.S. “When only a few breweries dominate the market, people start looking for something else,” says Gilbert Nielsen, one of the new brewers in Mexico. “At some point they find out that there are other beers out there that are maybe more attractive and interesting, or at least different, than what they’ve been getting.” Which means that the first step would be a rise in imports, and that’s exactly what happened in Mexican retail stores, though not so much at restaurants. Supermarket shelves, once exclusively domestic, now often include an ample, though inconsistent, selection of sometimes outrageously priced foreign beers, mostly European. (This development also created the curious situation of the likes of Miller, Coors and Budweiser being marketed as exotic high-quality imports.) The advent of imported beer, the theory goes, opened the door for more variety in homegrown products. “The interest in variety gets some entrepreneurial spirits thinking about starting their own breweries and producing beers independently from the large companies,” Nielsen says. “Mexico is just now entering that phase.” WINE AND BEER

If the emerging microbreweries are a reaction to the dominance of the mega-breweries, it follows logically that the new ones wouldn’t exist if the old ones hadn’t grown so big. Nielsen, who runs the Calavera microbrewery, acknowledges that. “Mexico is a country that is very used to beer, and we can thank two very large breweries for making it that way,” he says. “Without them we might be a wine country, because there is very good wine made in Mexico. But we’re a beer country.” The two very large breweries he’s talking about are Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma, which dates back to the 19th century, and Grupo Modelo, founded in the 1920s. Modelo makes the beers referred to in the first paragraph of this article (Corona, etc). Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma, which is now owned by Heineken International, makes the ones in the second paragraph. Before those two companies started operations, Mexico was not a beer country. Now the annual per-capita consumption 28!MEXICOREVIEW : March 4, 2012

is more than 50 liters. That puts it well below the top-quaffing countries (the United States drinks more than Mexico and the Czech Republic leads the pack), but it’s still a lot of beer. And close to every drop of it is produced by the Big Two. A few of those drops, however, come from the microbreweries. And the microbrewers assume more drops are coming their way as time goes by. They think that will happen because they consider their product superior. It tastes better. The difference is in how they’re made. Their particular niche in the specialty beer market is often referred to as craft beer – cerveza artesanal – which implies creativity in the recipes, experimentation with ingredients and a certain loving care in the actual brewing process. The way the microbrewers see it, they’re creating Picassos while Modelo and Cuauhtémoc are mass-producing motel art. “The consumers who drink craft beer are very similar to the consumers who drink wine, and they’re often the same people,” Nielsen says. “They like quality products, they like good wine and they like good beer.” In a certain sense, the craft beer makers and the commercial brewers aren’t even engaged in the same pursuit. Modelo and Cuauhtémoc produce lagers, almost exclusively. Lager is a fine beer type, but it’s only one. A craft beer is more likely to be a pale ale, a stout or a wheat beer, among others. Within those types there’s plenty of play, because craft brewers don’t always limit themselves to barley and hops. Tasting notes for wine will talk about fruits and spices, but those are metaphors to describe subtle tastes that there are no words for. These beer makers often put the real stuff right in there. Not overwhelmingly so, to be sure, but you can taste it. Raramuri’s Batari Turio, for example, is a wheat beer with honey and dry chipotle added. Cervecería Jack and many others include chocolate in some stouts. La Chingonería adds powdered avocado leaf to its Amargator pale ale to evoke the flavors of the pueblos of Morelos. Nielsen adds the traditional sugar skulls to Calavera’s seasonal Day of the Dead beer, each skull inscribed with the name of his fellow craft brewers, “to get the good vibes in there.” Minerva, based in the tequila state of Jalisco, ages one of its beers in tequila barrels, and thus is born the ITA, or Imperial Tequila Ale.

Some Craft Beers: A Mexican Sampler La Chingonería Isaac Aroche runs this quite new “nano-brewery” out of a small office in the family medical services business, farming out the actual production of his recipes to the Minerva brewery. He considers beer drinking as a memoryevoking experience, and his design of the bitter IPA (India Pale Ale) Amargator achieves that in a very personal way; it’s based on the flavors of the pipián (a green mole) sauces he remembers as a child in his father’s pueblo in the state of Morelos. Házmela Rusa is an Imperial Stout with chocolate flavorings (Tabascan cacao) and chile. The name of the brewery is a mildly off-color mexicanismo that might be politely translated as “very, very good.” www.lachingoneria.com.mx

Cucapá Named for the indigenous people in the Mexicali area where it’s based and has a brew pub, this is one of the older Mexican microbreweries (since 2002), with a good reputation and an ample selection of beers (about 15, though not necessarily all at the same time). Some of the names suggest the border culture it’s part of, including Green Card (a barleywine) and Lowrider (a rye beer). Some Cucapá beers are available in the United States. www.cucapa.com Minerva Guadalajara-based and one of the more successful Mexican microbreweries. Selling since 2003. The Malverde is a continental style Pilsener. The Viena is dark and meant to be

March 4, 2012 : MEXICOREVIEW"29

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FOOD & DRINK

served very cold. The Colonial is in the Kolsch style. The Imperial Stout has touches of coffee and chocolate. The Minerva Pale Ale won a gold medal in its category at the prestigious World Beer Cup in 2010. www.cerveceriaminerva.com

The Beer Factory It’s hard to think of these guys as micro-anything, given their spacious restaurants at five major shopping malls in Mexico City (as well as one in Puebla and another in Tlaquepaque), each with huge beer tanks prominently displayed. But their six year-round beers, fruity and exotic, are clearly of craft quality. For years available only in the restaurants, Beer Factory products are now being bottled for retail. www.beerfactory.com Artesanal Jack A highly creative momand-pop Mexico City nano-brewery specializing in darker beers, like the chocolatey sweet stout Jack Chocolate, but also a mango-laced, honey-kissed yellow wheat beer named Alebrije after the tiny folk art sculptures of fantastical animals. www.cerveceriajack.com

Rámuri The name evokes the indigenous Rarámuri people of Chihuahua, also known as the Tarahumaras, and indeed the name of their London brown, Batari Chonami, is Tarahumaran for dark beer. But this microbrewery is in Tijuana, and is known for its chocolatey oatmeal stout Lágrimas Negras, a Russian-style Imperial stout named after Alexander the Great’s horse, Bucéfalo, and a laguer called Diablo Blanco. wwww.cervezaramuri.com Primus A Mexico City brewer and wellknown name among craft beer aficionados since

30!MEXICOREVIEW : March 4, 2012

ABOUT THOSE PRICES ...

BEER CULTURE

Another difference between the big and the small is not as fortunate for the microbrewers. It’s the price. A 355-millliter bottle of Mexican craft beer usually runs from 20 to 45 pesos in the stores, which is less than many imported beers but two to five times what you’ll pay for a commercial domestic beer. There are a number of reasons for this. Most are intrinsic to the nature of the business, and they’re not likely to go away in the foreseeable future. A Che Guevara beer from the Revolución microbrewery will probably always cost more than a Dos Equis. It comes down to economy of scale, or a lack of it. These people don’t make a lot of beer at a time, so they’re not buying ingredients in big enough quantities to get the price down. “I purchase maybe a couple of pallets of malt, whereas the big companies are purchasing hundreds of tons at a time,” Nielsen says. “They get theirs by the truckload. Mine you can get into a van.” Moreover, the microbrewers buy most of their ingredients from abroad. Sometimes it’s by choice, but often not. “We can’t even buy malt here in Mexico because all the barley is bought up by the big malting facilities that are controlled by Cuauhtémoc and Modelo,” Nielsen says. “I import everything, and that alone costs twice as much.” And then there’s logistics. “It’s not easy to distribute in a country that’s so big,” Nielsen says. Of course, Mexico’s the same size for Modelo as it is for Calavera, but on a per-bottle or per-barrel basis, the delivery trips are costlier for the little guys. The microbrewers aren’t catching any breaks with Mexican taxation policy either. They’re selling alcoholic beverages, so they’re subject to a 26.5 percent tax. That adds 2.65 pesos to the price of a commercial bottle otherwise worth 10 pesos, but maybe five or eight pesos to a craft beer. The microbrewers say their prices could come down some if the tax were based on alcohol content, as it is in other countries, rather than product price. What the craft brewers don’t do, according to Nielsen, is jack up the price of an individual beer because they think it’s good enough to bring in more, as wineries might do. “We can’t do that,” he says. “Beer is a democratic product.”

The Calavera brewery occupies a former water processing plant in a traffic-choked slice of the Valley of Mexico megalopolis, just outside the Federal District in the city of Tlalnepantla, State of Mexico. It has five employees – five more than many Mexican microbreweries – and as many tanks that play their respective roles in the brewing process, which basically involves soaking and steeping the malt (germinated barley) to convert its starches into fermentable sugars, and adding hops (and whatever else) for flavor. Gilbert Nielsen was born in Denmark, but grew up in Mexico, attending elementary and secondary schools here before returning to Denmark, getting an engineering degree, mastering the brewery trade and returning to Mexico three years ago to set up Calavera. He’s big, blonde and blue-eyed, with the amiable, unstressed demeanor of a man doing exactly what he wants to do, exactly where he wants to do it. Recently, he sat in his modest office and, over the din of the machinery, spoke in flawless English (his third language after Spanish and Danish) about a changing beer culture in Mexico. “With these beers, you spend more but you drink less, so it balances out,” he said. “Plus you enjoy it more. It’s a special experience.” Drinking less and enjoying it more sounds like a win-win, not to mention its benefits for health, weight control, dignified behavior and the handling of automobiles. But the microbrewers are aware that old habits die hard, especially when they have to do with the consumption of alcoholic beverages. When it comes to drinking beer, Dr. House’s dictum is paramount: People don’t change. But Nielsen thinks they can. “We knew from the beginning that very few people would know much about the different styles of beer,” he said, noting that in the world of commercial Mexican beer, there are only two types – clara and oscura, light and dark – which aren’t really beer types at all. “We attempted to remedy this by giving our beers names that more or less correspond to their actual styles.” He went to a shelf and started pulling down 750-milliliter bottles – the size you can share with your dining partner. One was an American pale ale called American Pale Ale. Another was an Imperial Stout called Mexican Imperial Stout.

There was a wheat beer (made form malted wheat instead of malted barley) called Witbier. And a Belgian-style dubbel called Dubbel de Abadia. There are others, but you get the idea. The point of learning the styles isn’t snob appeal but flavor recognition, which in turn helps with a beer drinking strategy that few are aware of – food pairings. “Wines have positioned themselves as superior to beer with meals, but the craft beers produced in Mexico marry very well with the national food, like chiles en nogada,” said Nielsen. “If you remember the styles, you’ll recognize that wheat beer goes well with seafood, If you’re going to eat mole, you’ll go for the Imperial Stout.” The microbrewers are aware that getting people to even think about pairing beers with foods, let alone actually doing it, calls for education. They do a lot of that online in the social media, and through talks, courses and beer festivals. On the day we chatted, Nielsen was scheduled to speak to the Mexican Association of Sommeliers to promote the idea of beer as an accompaniment to Mexican food. Restaurants have been a hard sell for the craft beer makers. Many have contracts with one or both of the Big Two that demand exclusivity, and even those who don’t often only buy in amounts that are beyond the small brewers’ capacities. The few restaurants that do give craft beer a try don’t really push it, the microbrewers say, so they soon drop it altogether. But that, too, is starting to change, according to Siemens, because restaurants in Mexico are changing. “Gastronomy schools are showing up everywhere and some are very big,” he said. “The education has improved so the students learn a lot about the chemistry of food, not just how to cook it. So the restaurants are more professional and the owners are looking now for choice.” The beer market in Mexico is big enough that the craft beer business should be able to get a foothold without making a dent in Big Two sales. But the microbrewers are aware that one of the best craft beers, Casta, was recently bought up by Cuauhtémoc and is now nowhere to be found. They wonder if more such sniper fire is in the works. (Minerva, one of the few craft beers sometimes found in supermarkets, is often mentioned as the most likely next target). More likely, the Big Two will respond by introducing their own specialty beers. That has already happened with Cuauhtémoc’s

Bohemia brand, which introduced a wheat beer a few years ago and recently brought out a chocolate stout, though it tastes more like beer-flavored chocolate than the other way around. Commercial craft beer may be a contradiction in terms, but it’s indicative of the dawn of a new era in Mexican beer. Craft beer by definition is a grassroots movement – “democratic” in Nielsen’s words – so the near future is unpredictable; it could take off overnight or take years to penetrate the consciousness of beer drinkers in Mexico. Nielsen tells an anecdote, which he insists is true, that illustrates the challenge. A friend asked for a Calavera at a beach resort bar. The confused bartender hesitated, walked away, came back, and said, “I don’t think we have it. But if you tell me the ingredients and how to prepare it, I’ll make one for you.”

2007, Primus is active in promoting the emerging craft beer market. Its beers are called Tempus, and include Tempus Doble Malta in the Altbier Imperial style, the Altbier-inspired Tempus Alt and a golden ale called Tempus Dorada. www.primus.com.mx

Baja Brewing Company Started by Americans, it’s in Los Cabos and it’s all about the Margaritaville lifestyle there, with a brew pub, its own cantinas, a beachy image, a line of t-shirts, a burro as a mascot and a nice variety of excellent, not overly-daring beers. The Baja Blonde is just what it sounds like, Baja Black is a non-bitter dark ale, Baja Stout is a bitter oatmeal stout, and Baja Razz is a light-bodied fruit beer. www.bajabrewingcompany.com Hacienda The epitome of a home-grown, independent microbrewery, Hacienda brews its own recipes out of the old Hacienda San Juan Pueblilla in the municipality of Zempoala, near the Hidalgo state capital of Pachuca. The Hidalgo is a light-bodied stout, Jaguar is a pale ale and Catrina is a red ale with a fruity aroma. http://cerveceriahsjp.blogspot.com

Sileno Run by beer gurus in the state of Jalisco who organize beermaking courses when they’re not busy brewing, Cervecería Sileno is unabashedly named after a Greek god of inebriation (Silenus in English). www.cerveceriasileno.com

March 4, 2012 : MEXICOREVIEW"31

MARCH

life& leisure

www.mexico-review.com EVENTS

March Madness ... THE STRAWBERRY FAIR March 2-21 in Irapuato, Guanajuato

Under its more pleasingly alliterative Spanish title Feria de las Fresas, this annual affair takes place in the garden city of Irapuato, where the strawberry fields are, if not forever, at least abundant. A quarter of a million visitors are expected to help the locals celebrate everybody’s favorite fruit, two of those visitors being Paquita la del Barrio and Joan Sebastián, two of the biggest stars in the ranchera music genre.

THE ZIHUATANEJO INTERNATIONAL GUITAR FESTIVAL March 15-18 in IxtapaZihuatanejo, Guerrero

A week of guitar music in paradise is how this non-profit music jam bills itself. They’ll be playing in town and on the beach, and the emphasis is not on commercial names but on superb guitar picking and accompanying song, and that includes blues, classical, flamenco, rock, rockabilly, Gypsy jazz and swing guitarists from Brazil, Turkey, United States, Canada and Mexico.

MANOS DEL MUNDO March 15-18 in Mexico City

The name means Hands of the World, and they do mean hands and they do mean world. It’s the third edition of an annual artisans’ fair that brings together the work of artisans from all over the world. It’s not a street fair; the event takes place in the spacious Expo Reforma exhibition hall. But there will be plenty of supporting cultural activity, including dancers from India and the Middle East, Scottish bagpipes, Argentine tango music and dance, and mariachis, among much else.

CUMBRE EL TAJÍN March 17-21 El Tajín, Papantla and Parque Takilhsukut, Veracruz

It’s a five-day festival culminating in the Spring Equinox and taking place in and around the mindblowing pre-Columbian ruins of El Tajín. The main attraction is the music, and the line-up this year includes the two biggest bands in Mexico – Caifanes and Café Tacvba – as well as international stars Bjork and Sinead O’Connor, among many others.

OLYMPIC QUALIFYING SOCCER March 22-27 in Nashville, Tennessee, and Carson, California

The penultimate stage of the qualifying tournament that will determine which two teams from the Concacaf region will compete at the London Olympics will take place in Nashville, Tennessee, and Carson, California. The Mexican team will face Trinidad & Tobago on March 23, Honduras on March 25 and Panama on March 27. The U.S. plays against Cuba on March 22, Canada on March 24 and El Salvador on March 26. The top two teams from each of those groups will play in a semifinal round on March 31 in Kansas City. Those two winners get a ticket to London, but a final game to determine the tournament champion (and the seeding at the Olympics) will be played on April 2, also in Kansas City.

THE PAPAL VISIT March 23-26 in León, Guanajuato, and Silao, Guanajuato

Pope Benedict XVI will be in Guanajuato, a state known for its religious conservatism, before moving on to Cuba. He is scheduled to arrive in the city of León on the 23rd, a Friday, where he will be received by President Calderón, and then will meet with him again on Saturday in the city of Guanajuato before appearing publicly. Sunday’s events will include a Mass in the new Bicentennial Park in Silao and Vespers in the cathedral in León, where he will address bishops and other representatives of the Bishops Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean.

FESTIVAL VIVE LATINO March 23-25 in Mexico City

The premier rock festival in Latin America will take place over three days and nights at the Foro Sol, a Mexico City stadium. The musical performers include Bunbury, Madness, Café Tacvba, Jaime López, Molotov and 100 others.

32!MEXICOREVIEW : March 4, 2012

Now in Cancun!