Conaculo

CONACULO
There´s a saying in Los Tuxtlas which loosely translates and sort of rhymes in Spanish: Santiago has the culture, San Andres has the money and Catemaco has the garbage. It stems from Catemaco´s long ago ownership of a major dumpsite for Los Tuxtlas.

Apparently CONACULTA, Mexico´s major government cultural agency, and its chain of national bookstores “Libros y Arte” still consider Los Tuxtlas on par with garbage.On a recent visit to Veracruz city, the closest place to Los Tuxtlas and Catemaco, the two had absolutely “nada” on either subject.What a shame! Especially after listening to speech after project after proposal to promote Tuxtlas tourism.

In Veracruz CONACULO is not alone, neither the largest bookstore chain in Mexico, “Libreria Cristal”, nor Veracruz´s alleged best book store “The Spynx” (espinge?, I can´t recall how the store spelled it), has anything available on Los Tuxtlas.
If you´re interested in Catemaco books, check the tuxtlas.com Books unfinished web section on that subject.

Catemaco Milagro Tree

I was not that long ago when someone saw the face of the “holy catholic virgin mother” in a tortilla in Caleria, near Catemaco. That tortilla is now enshrined after having been visited by 1000´s of faithful.

Hurricane Stan produced a new miracle.

The storm knocked down a fairly massive mango tree in a real pretty area of Catemaco, in the suburb of Tepetapan, on the shores of the Rio Grande de Catemaco.
So, as is usual, the neighborhood busied itself with the Tuxtlas favorite tool, a chainsaw!, chopping the tree to fire wood size pieces and leaving a 15 foot stump.

Then the tree, which had been lying on its side, allegedly “miraculously” raised itself.

So all the tortilla people started a new pilgrimage. If you want to see the tree, you better hurry. Apparently many visitors want to take a piece of the tree home with them.