Catemaco News

Nanciyaga is possibly the only place around Catemaco, Veracruz that retains a commercialized version of the mystery of the Los Tuxtlas magic. Founded in the early 1980’s, this small Laguna Catemaco enclave gained publicity and funds with the filming in its reserve of the movie Medicine Man with Sean Connery. Since then Nanciyaga has turned itself into an ecology reserve and a small Disney World of magic.

The owner was recently interviewed in a Mexican newspaper. Unfortunately that link has disappeared, but was stored on an older blog. Here is GOOGLE garbled translated version.
to read the original Spanish - click here.

Here are asleep to the music of the jungle.
Carlos Rodriguez 'Caco' environmentalist: "He lived the destruction of forests in Latin America and eventually became a pioneer of eco-tourism. Black Sheep from a family of tobacco, Carlos Rodriguez, known as Caco, 62 years old, bought a 40 to the marsh area on Lake Catemaco (Veracruz) and created the ecological reserve of Nanciyaga, park and living a kind of spa prehispánico with baths temascal (with the red volcanic rocks), mud, massage and fair brujeriles.

Its cabins are among the most coveted rooms of Mexico .Always thought that one day would have a jungle, and when I was niño. So everything was beautiful, everything was bush and jungle. Although my grandfather told me that there was so many animals as before.

Ibas by the sea and everything was jungle arroyitos crystalline, there was no garbage or plastic. Nanciyaga was a need to always, I could make tarde.-His tenacity born of a kind of youthful trauma, right?-Studied veterinary and came back. The government began to distribute land, until there was a national commission for clearance and a law that you could accuse of having vacant land if there were jungle on your ranch. Not measured the consequences. Some lands used for agriculture, for other livestock, but the minute the quality of livestock was bad and corn no longer functioned.

The land failed to survive and what was left was jungle. He saw the mountain-born mechanical… - I see that touched click invention of the chainsaw, that sawmill tátil by allowing end everything. Progress was to finish on Sunday with the last group of mountain and organize matazón of animals who had taken refuge allí.-So left the guild ganadero.-Vendí my ranchito and with that I bought this place. They had to do something productive and show that the forest serves more than topple trees and make a pasture. And the idea worked, but everyone told me I was crazy and that it was not feasible. --

Have you helped the Government?-Rather resisted accepting that this was a reserve, saying it was too chiquito. After thousand red tape was recorded as educational ecological reserve. But we are showing that there are options productive in the jungle .-

And education?-We have important environmental education. They come to discover many children in the jungle areas that I knew both jungles enormous. Now living in the midst of ill meadows, cattle bad, bad agriculture. There are many animals prinicipio feared that the man, and now we see them moving out, we are not afraid, you can portray almost tocar.-

Nanciyaga also gives trabajo.-We have recruited 60 people, a payroll frightening, particularly at this time of storms and cyclones, which we must continue gándoles jam. In holiday hire students as guides. --

What does Nanciyaga?-Welcome tourists and make them a tour of the jungle, which are reproductions of antiquities, our work. They are going to a spring of mineral water and drink a glass pocito using as a piece of the plant apiche. They made a mask of mud mineral… - has a theater inside the selva.-We have come to Mozart or Beethoven, and percussion music from Senegal or Cuba. We have also represented Cervantes. The musicians gave them fear meter instruments in the humidity of the jungle, but now everyone wants to come to play .- "If you can enter the temascal sail with the wind," writes Laura Esquivel in his novel Malinche.-is a bath steam, culture of ancient Mexico. Every house had its temascal and had a ritual, another to make decisions for the tribe… tried to approach the tradition. You can not describe, we must get into it. Yes, I can say that it is very healthy: remove toxins, cochambre one, and far, there is a growth-born espiritual. a river water-carbónica. Upon leaving the temascal, you sink into a spring of mineral water, a gift special we have here. We do not sell mineral water: we dip into ella.-

The gem is the 10-cabañas. It is incredible that people coming from Spain, or Israel, only to the cabins. The magazine Mexicana we cited as one of the 10 rooms most quoted of Mexico. And, yes, we have gotten many times in distress because, although they are more expensive than those of hotels, are always filled and reserved months in advance. Rooms are privileged because it sleeps cradled by the music of the night-selva.-chamán. They do not want problems, and our only makes a shaman swept aura with herbs from the forest. There is engaged, as Catemaco, ills loves brujerías or black. The magic is not given by witchcraft, but by the natural magnetism of the region Los Tuxtlas.