Nov 19, 2011

Catemaco Deads



Catemaco seriously needs more dead people, or maybe a kidnapping. That is when newspaper readership of local rags doubles and triples in exemplars sold. That is according to the only news distributor in Catemaco who claims to average less than 250 sales per day of mostly state newspapers.

UPDATE:
Since I wrote this, two cadavers from the neighboring town of San Andrès were found in Catemaco, promptly fueling a media spike about Catemaco, and sending my readership through the roof.
Update 2
Ok, we had a major kidnapping, of the brother of a previously kidnapped Catemaco hardware store owner in neighboring San Andres. Yikes, what a spike in Spanish readership!

The municipality of roughly 48 thousand inhabitants of Catemaco has No newspaper, No television, and No Radio! Radio arrives from San Andrés Tuxtla, TV from Veracruz City.

News in Catemaco is served by two flyers appearing whenever a juicy crime happens. Any other news arrives from the neighboring city of San Andrès Tuxtla, which is possibly equipped with more news rags and columnists than its relatively few literate inhabitants need.

Usually the only news filtering out of Catemaco is political events, including up to dozens of the names of attendees, and very little about what actually happened..

The only daily is Diario Los Tuxtlas
Possibly the worst newspaper on the internet. Always takes vacations on weekends, appears a day or two after its original publication and often, in the past, runs out of availability on the internet because of failure to buy sufficient bandwidth.

Appearing 2 to 3 times a week is the Diario Eyipantla Milenio.
The oldest new rag in Los Tuxtlas has nothing to do with a Daily, Millenium or Eyipantla, and of course its news worthy stories are somewhat stale. Nevertheless, it is the only local news source that presents an idea of what is going on locally, aside from reprinting political handouts.

There are also several weeklies:

Palestra
This is a weekly that rehashes what happened during the last week, supplanted by political feel goods, and an amazing amount of national columnists having absolutely nothing to do with Los Tuxtlas. To give them credit, they also publish a few musing of local writers, including a columnist from Catemaco.

A five municpality rag, Periodico de San Andres, Catemaco, Hueyapan, etc. also publishes once a week.
Aside from that there are others, that go into print whenever they feel like it: Politica en Los Tuxtlas, Perfil Diario, Renovacion. And then there are internet versions like: Sucesos Los Tuxtlas, Informantes en Red, and political bloggers like:  Francoenlinea, Revista Juicio, El Pregòn de Los Tuxtlas, etc.

See the complete linked  list of news sources:
Catemaco Diario - fuentes de noticias
















Nov 11, 2011

The Colors of Catemaco


At times the lake of Catemaco shimmers with more colors than the famous Laguna Bacalar in Quintanta Roo. At other time, when the strong winds of summer churn strong, beautiful storm waves, the lakes`s waters glitter bright blue between brillant white froth. The rest of the time, the lake vacillates among shades of light brown and weird green. 

I guess green is what the current mayor of Catemaco saw, when he began painting the municipal infrastructure a bright shade of green. 
The mayor before him saw red, and painted anything available to slap paint over, a nice obnoxious red, incluiding the street curbs. 
The mayor before him, obviously a whimp, painted all of the Catemaco Malecón in white.
 That is after his predecessor painted the same structures black. 
Curiously, except for the red mayor, all others, including the current one, paint the curbs of their new streets bright yellow, which only last as long as about a third of their term in office. 

A gallon of paint costs about the equivalent of  4 daily minimal salaries. 

Of course everybody loves the colors of Mexico!

Nov 10, 2011

Say hello to the new Catemaco monkeys


Depiste reservations by any naturalists in their right mind, the powers that be yesterday transferred a troop of 12 Spider moneys, including 2 males to a little bitty island in Lake Catemaco.

The former occupants, remnants of a troop of asiatic Macaque monkeys imported 35 years ago, apparently lost their local birthright and are to be shipped to a nature park in Quintana Roo.

Here are some photos from the transfer:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.296343160390271.77590.252372091454045&type=3

Let`s hope the banana throwing tourists appreciate these extremely endangered monkeys.

Read more about Catemaco monkeys here:
http://www.catemaco.info/catemaco/geo/primates.html



Nov 5, 2011

Catemaco Quetch


Ok, I turned the music off.  
Click on a song to turn it on .
There are 12 songs and they will play continuously while you stay on this page.

Nov 4, 2011

Catemaco Medicine Man

The 1992 film "Medicine Man", known in Mexico as "Curandero de la Selva", put Catemaco on the map for nature tourism. 

Starring Sean Connery and a mega million budget, with much of it spent in Catemaco, the film was mostly shot in Nanciyaga, and  left many of its stage sets behind, forming the basis for the future success of that nature park.


Nov 2, 2011

New York Time's Catemaco

Mexico's richest man keeps buying chunks of the New York Times, Maybe that has something to do with this strange article about one aspect of Catemaco's brujo tourism.


CATEMACO JOURNAL

Driven to Cast Charms Against Drug Lords’ Darker Forces


more about brujos, here