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.

See 7 minutes of the film on YouTube, which does not allow embedding here.

La Victoria, Catemaco

La Victoria is the third largest town in the Catemaco county, and features a bucolic atmosphere without tourists. Curiously the town may be related to a British monarch.

Visit La Victoria

60+ photos, maps and a few hundred words.

La Punta of Catemaco

Take a look at the side of Catemaco City that most tourists never see:

La Punta de Catemaco

from the bus station north to the Gorel restaurant (not the one on the Malecon)

The North Shore of Laguna Catemaco

Take a one way trip to the north and east of Laguna Catemaco

and see Nanciyaga, Amayaga, Coyame, Tebanca, Cuetzalapan, Ahuacapan and Las Margaritas

Catemaco´s Ghost Waterfall

This it what some crazy amigos do in beautiful uptown Catemaco while the rest of Veracruz was getting flooded:

The South Shore of Laguna Catemaco

Personally, I know of more than 200 places that are worth visiting in Catemaco and Los Tuxtlas. The area to the south of Catemaco, along the Laguna is one of the most overlooked ones.

Features range from a luxury resort for Mexican juniors, a very cheap 2 room hotel with great food, a daytime resort that used to exhibit snakes, a backpacker's paradise complete with a dormitory and a great hill with magnificent views for trail walkers.

I assembled a slideshow to see some of the beauties worth visiting:

The South Shore of Laguna de Catemaco.

Once upon a time in the Wild West of Catemaco

Most of Catemaco's northeast is inaccessible except by cattle trails and a haphazard one car ferry. All of the area is part of the vaunted Biosphere Reserve of Los Tuxtlas. In actuality this is gorgeous cattle country with infrastructure for settlers from the 19th century, and environmental disregard of the 21st.

Watch a slideshow of 50 photos.

If it is slow - switch to Google Chrome

When the sun starts getting hot in Catemaco....

Cuando calienta el sol en Catemaco

a musical slideshow

Movies of Catemaco

There is no reason to come visit us in beautiful downtown Catemaco. Just stay home and enjoy the local scenery portrayed in dozens of films, TV shows, and documentaries.

Here is a sample of some of them:

Apocalypto (2006)

USA, director: Mel Gibson, star: Rudy Youngblood.

Piedras verdes (2001)

México, director: Ángel Flores Torres, star: Osvaldo Benavides.

Hijos del viento (2000)

Spain, director:José Miguel Juárez, star: José Sancho.

Nanciyaga (1998)

México, director: Julio Fons, star: Felipe Fulop.

Ámbar (1994)

México, director: Luis Estrada, star: Martin Altomaro.

Enfermeras en la Linea: El accidente del vuelo 7 (1993)

USA (TV), director: Larry Shaw, star: Lindsey Wagner, Jennifer Lopez.

Medicine Man  (1992)

USA, director: John McTiernan, star: Sean Connery.

Mina, viento de libertad (1977)

Cuba / México, director: Antonio Eceiza, star: Pedro Armendáriz Jr.. 

Muerte en el jardin,  (1956)

France / México, director: Luis Buñuel, star: Simone Signoret.

Sombra Verde, (1954)

México, director Roberto Galvadon, star: Ricardo Montalban

See More: Movies of Catemaco 

Photos, Slideshows and Videos of Catemaco and Los Tuxtlas

Photo Pages

A fast look at what is the best in Catemaco.

Usually a dozen photos with a short description, also includes links to slideshows.

Videos

Links to our and many other good videos of Catemaco and Los Tuxtlas

These links will take you to http://www.catemaco.info/ pages.

Catemaco Trees & Bushes

published by the Field Museum of Chicago, IL - 6.9mb pdf file

Mystic Catemaco

Today was one of the annual 10 to 15 magnificent photographic days in beautiful downtown Catemaco.

Usually the laguna and surrounding hills are clothed in what visitors call mysticism, and local photographers call anything else when on their best behavior.

A friend, foolishly living on the side of one of the latent volcanoes, called me this morning to advise me he could actually see clearly to the other side of the laguna.
Previously we had made arrangements to hire a 75 miles away pilot to fly us over the area, but unfortunately his phone had the usual TELMEX message of "afuera de servicio (out of service)".
So I trucked to some of the places which the Veracruz government should declare state treasured views and loaded my digital camera, which promptly went CLONCK in multiple languages.

To see more of Catemaco, visit http://www.catemaco.info/media/: and to fly over it. Keep digging! There really is a slideshow of a flight over the Santa Marta's.