When it gets hot in Catemaco

Catemaco breakfasts

After being a while in beautiful places like downtown Catemaco, the variety of restaurant breakfast choices in provincial Mexican "burgs" drives me up the wall.

Same old stuff, huevos rancheros, mexicanos, revueltos, omelette, with or without cheese, mushrooms, ham, and occasionally chorizo or longoniza, with maybe green or red sauce. Huevos Motuleños are an abnormal treat.

Damn , I would love a McDonald´s breakfast burrito or a BurgerKing croissanwich.
And I would die for a Waffle house breakfast burger scattered, smothered and covered with hashed browns.

Just before I would kill for:
two+two+two - two eggs, two pancacakes, two bacons or sausages at the IHOP
Lox, creamcheese, tomatoes, and onions on a sesame bagel at any deli
Blueberry pancakes with fresh cream at any pancake house.

Something simple like: Buttermilk Pancakes, Home style Bacon and Sausage,
Creamy Cheddar Potatoes, Country Grits, Biscuits and Butter available at any "greasy spoon".

Steak'n eggs with fried onions, mushrooms and Texas toast served at any hicktown off ramp
Eggs Benedict as served in the Shark and Tarpon Club in North Miami.
And refills! Wonderful free coffee refills!

But, how about some nice homemade tortillas, flecked with chipotle and wrapped around pig innards, or some nicely sauteed shrimp with chorizo in a quesadilla.

At least that would wake up my customary local restaurant breakfast menus which have almost no relation to what people actually seem to eat in their homes.

brrrrrrrrrr

Ok - you are what you eat, or so they say. I guess now I am a tortilla.

Catemaco Submarines

A new transportation route has finally opened for the access starved neighborhood of Catemaco and Los Tuxtlas. After being saddled with second class roads connecting to major cities, an air field preserved as a cow pasture and a port on the edge of destruction, relief seems to be arriving from Colombia.

Apparently Colombian drug lords are mass producing submarines for shipping their merchandise along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, while hugging the coast lines. At present the scheduled itineraries include the Yucatan, from where it is just a short snorkel to Catemaco, and then the Texas coast. Presumably these vessels costing around a million dollars US each will be able to accomodate passengers on their return trip.

Possibly to accomodate this future traffic or at least the stampede of sail boaters from the Texas and Florida gulf coast intent on anchoring in Veracruz, the Governor today announced the building of a marina in the port of Veracruz as part of the nautical ladder supposedly extending to Belize. Catemaco, (that is La Barra) must be next on the list.

And I can't wait for a travel agency to offer submarine trips from Galveston or even Miami to Catemaco. What a way to see the Gulf of Mexico!
Photo: Mexican spoil sports


For more information check out Mexidata.info, one of the finer low key sources for Mexico insights.

Catemaco Puente

Catemaco lives off puentes (bridges).
Puentes are the equivalent of a US long weekend, such as when a holiday falls on a Friday, vacations begin Thursday afternoon.

Mexico adds a little quirk to that system so that when a holiday falls on a Thursday, vacationers head out the door on Wednesday noon till Monday morning. Of course this only applies to government officials above the rank of peon (low level worker), much of the upper educational infrastructure and anyone else who can afford it or get away with it.

So the Mexican federal lawmakers passed another one of their new laws in 2006. Many legal holidays that fall on a weekday are now supposed to be celebrated on the next Monday.

This has been a heaven sent gift for Catemaco, because many of those who previously abused puentes have decided to accomodate the new regulations by holding fast to the original holiday and now adding the new holiday on Mondays to their extended vacations. So now think Wednesday noon to Tuesday morning for the original one day holiday.

Naturally many of the hotels fill up in Catemaco, and of course the weasely hotel owners charge the high season tourist rates.

Did you ever wonder what the productivity statistics are in Mexico?

Catemaco welfare

At times I actually get some rare thought provoking feedback from blog readers. The last one was a curiosity about social welfare programs in Mexico and specifically in Catemaco.

So consulting my notes and a little Googling:

Half of Mexico's federal social welfare funding is concentrated in a program called "Oportunidades"

Most of the state of Veracruz's social welfare programs are concentrated in an agency called DIF - Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (Integral Development of the Family).

In addition, the Veracruz Department of Civil Defense also assumes a large role in doles for the needy.

All municipios have their own DIF departments.

Oportunidades is the most popular program, apparently available to people without political connection (rare in Mexico) and provides stipends related to the educational status of children. In Catemaco 4,368 out of app. 11,000 families (2007) receive benefits of 200 to 2,000 pesos per month.

DIF of Veracruz, a sub-agency of the Veracruz Department of Health is the main provider on a state level. The agency is run by the wife of the Veracruz governor.
Although studded with many worthwhile programs, apparently none are uniformly applied and depend on political influence to be accessed. Nevertheless there are free milk, free breakfast, aid to the infirm and the aged and other typical relief programs. Their cost is nebulous.

The Civil Defense Agency typically provides help to the needy in disaster areas. And annual heavy rains, storms and flooding make this a very busy agency. Unfortunately just as annually there are news stories of politicians hoarding and hiding supplies provided by the agency to be used for political favors.

On a county/muncipal level, DIF again is the provider of local social programs, usually funded by state resources but presented as funds coming from the local administration. And that is about as transparent as a moonless night on Laguna Catemaco.
Catemaco's entire federally assigned budget for 2008 is 74.8 million pesos, about 1,600 pesos per person per year. Oviously few municipal funds are available for social welfare programs. Anecdotally, a last resort for many locals is a direct plea to the mayor for cash help to defray costs of surgery, burial or just possibly starvation.

Local benefits bestowed from who knows whose funds include free boats and motors, cement to replace dirt floors (program called Piso Firme in conjuction with CEMEX, a giant Mexican cement conglomerate), scholarships for needy children, raffles of refrigerators, candy and presents for Christmas, free seed for farmers, sheet metal roofing and dozens of others.

Health care is technically free and people are dying to get some of it. Clinics are understaffed, ill equipped and lack medications.

Electricity costs are heavily subsidized by the federal government on a staggered usage scale. Water, too, is inexpensive in its basic category.

The most popular welfare item is a despensa, a plastic sack filled with about 100 pesos of basic groceries often available to most anyone expected to attend the hundreds of annual political events.

Basically - (considering the minimum wage of less than 35 dollars a week)- social welfare programs often almost double the magnificent income of many of the most impoverished provincial Veracruz inhabitants.

References:
Short description of Oportunidades
DIF of Veracruz

Krishnas en Catemaco

A coterie of Krsna devotees have settled near Las Margaritas on the south shore of Laguna Catemaco and


"...I think it will be called simply Catemaco Ayurveda Institute, or Instituto Ayurveda de Catemaco in Spanish. We will offer healing water from Las Margaritas Spring through Internet stores on Amazon, Yahoo and eBay. We also will plant a lot of Tulasi, and offer the leaves and extracts as products...


The Lake Camp and Retreat Center are now ready to receive visitors.

Catemaco Ayurveda Institute -Esoteric Teaching of the Vedas

Germans invading Catemaco

For the last few weeks my internet visitor espionage system has shown a disproportionate number of visitors from Germany. I found no underlying link to explain the surge and I presume a charter tour operator is sponsoring a trip to Catemaco, Veracruz.

I hope the operator knows he needs a seaplane to land in the Catemaco Laguna, and maybe a gracious Deutsche will bring me a lederhosen to suffer the slips and slides of the volcanoes of Los Tuxtlas.

Nichtsdestoweniger, Herzlich Willkommen!

Back to the cave in Catemaco

A pair of Italians finally showed Catemaco what do with one of the most beautiful spots in the pueblo. They dug out a cave, introduced the only draft beer cooler in town and turned the cave into a wine cellar.

Tapa style snacks are served along with flamenco flavored music.

Finally a pleasant place to while away an evening in beautiful downtown Catemaco, Veracruz.

More details: La Ostería - Enoteca y Cervecería

Rumbo a Catemaco

"Drive through Catemaco, but don´t slow down".

Inside Mexico Magazine reporters wasted 10 hours driving to Catemaco, apparently never left their hotel, and now relieve their frustrations with an article.

Source: Inside Mexico, page 15

Catemaco Sister City

Apparently unknown to most residents of Catemaco, Veracruz, the city of Catemaco has a sister city in Texas, namely South Padre Island.

Since no international organization lists this unique pairing, I suspect it was instigated by a local RV park operator from South Padre island who snuck in here to marry a local señorita.

Since Catemaco is land locked, and South Padre is an island, it would have made more sense to mate Catemaco's beach La Barra with that other beachtown. So I guess that's why we have not received any used fire trucks, junketing politicians or other treasures that US sisters frequently provide their impoverished hermanas.

South Padre Island - sister city of Catemaco

Sister Cities International

US Mexico Sister Cities