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

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

Catemaco as a second language

Language schools are a flourishing business in Mexico in two versions, teaching English and learning Spanish.

Beautiful downtown Catemaco, Veracruz would be an ideal place for an SASL (Spanish as a second language) location. It is beautiful enough, (some even say magical) and has enough barely used hotel rooms and restaurants, and enough friendly people to victimize with broken Spanish language phrases.

Those seeking to learn Spanish should also be eagerly welcomed by those teaching English in Catemaco. I unfortunately met a "maestra" in charge of teaching English at a local high school, whose command of English was equivalent to my command of Croatian of which I know two words.

As for those wanting to learn Spanish, I know several graduates of two week immersion courses that have been able to say "taco" in Spanish. Now that may be different in some of the more advanced learning centers in Mexico, where degreed students actually learn how to say "enchilada".

The last Spanish language school in Catemaco folded a few years ago, possibly because the Austrian owner's students kept confusing strudels with tortillas.

This should be a wake up call to an enterprising English teacher, wanting to learn Spanish, and looking to spend the rest of his life in one of Mexico's most marvelous locations, contribute to the economy of a third world pueblo, and hopefully earn enough money to occasionally eat giant shrimp (mayacastes) in the foothills of the volcanoes of the Sierra Santa Marta.

Reference: The truth about ESL

Shocking Catemaco

Most small grocery stores, use an electric cooler as their cashier counter. Since they are usally fairly tall, Catemaco store owners try to hire tall people to man them, but often the person attending the counter is so short that only their nose reaches above the counter.

This happened to me today when leaning on a counter.

hey - I just got a shock
yes, I know.
Whaddayou mean you know?
I reported it to the one in charge.
Whaddayou mean the one in charge? You've been running this store for 3 years.
Yes, but it is not my problem.


Hey, Lady, don´t touch the pinche counter!
Please don´t insult my customers!

Catemaco paper towel holders

I introduced my Popoluca to paper towels.
Big mistake!

Now, everywhere I look, shelf surfaces are covered with paper towels.

Paper towels are almost unavailable in Catemaco. Until the invasion of Walmart/Aurrera and Soriana I made monthly trips to Veracruz to purchase humongous quantities of paper towels and toilet tissue that appeared to not disintegrate within sight of water.

Purchase opportunities near Catemaco have improved, and I now feel the soft touch of whatever on my butt, BUT I still cannot find one of those 1.99 dollar paper towel holders.

I realize I could easily make one with 3 pieces of wood, two nails, less than a pint of paint, concrete anchors, assorted screws and nails, etc.,
-- instead our "in use" roll of paper towels slumbers upon the massive knife holder I purchased at Sam's Club 5 years ago, which still has instruments that I or possibly a coroner would never use.

Obviously this a market niche that the Chinese have not yet exploited. Possibly one of the social benefit agencies in Mexico could declare a paper towel holiday, similar to other agriculturual festivities which have almost as much application, and provide everyone with free towel holders, and as usually forgetting that "it's between that counts."

Los Tuxtlas moving up in the world

With earth shattering speed the Mexican department store chain Coppel, mostly famous for selling shoes, has raised the first commercial elevator in San Andrés Tuxtla, surrounded by 3 floors of merchandise and a 12 car parking garage in place of a former old hotel in the city center.

Even faster was the arrival of the first international fast food chain "Italian Coffee Company", destroying a historic building on the central plaza, and filling mugs with lattes brewed with coffee from anywhere but Los Tuxtlas.

I am looking forward to the arrival of Taco Bell.

Catemaco - The longest small town bar in the world

The longest bar in the world seems to be a 208 meter monster in Rock island, Illinois, USA.

Runner up is the the agglomeration of almost 300 bars and pubs in the Altstadt of the town where I was raised, Düsseldorf, Germany.

I now waste away in Margaritaville, also known as beautiful downtown Catemaco, Veracruz, Mexico. With a city population of less than 30,000 and an average daily income of about 3 Happy Meals from McDonald, the town boasts of almost 200 cantinas, bars, nightclubs, beer dispensories, etc.

Most of these bars are furnished by beer companies and the city dump, and I would estimate, the number of chairs used, could easily fill in parts of Laguna Catemaco to create a causeway to Isla Agaltepec to really get to know monkeys in their own habitat.

The Catemaco municipio government probably spends considerably more money on drunk disturbances than it receives from licensing fees, yet tolerates an almost daily increase in drinking places.

Go ahead, have a cold one on me!

Drunk in Catemaco

Below the belt of most Mexican rural towns, including beautiful Catemaco, Veracruz, dangles a pair of culture threatening problems, drunkenness and spouse abuse. The two are closely related to each other and form a basis for the extraordinarily high incidence of murders, mutilations and roadkills in the country.

At present federal Mexico does not tax alcohol, aside from the 15% tax added to most consumer products. The concept of sin taxes is not absent in Mexico. The booze manufacturers have just been able to excert their political prowess more than the tobacco companies which are heavily taxed.

Especially at night, the prevalence of public drunks is pernicious in most of downtown Catemaco, as well as many other communities, especially on the weekends and on the highways, despite the efforts of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) which is hyperactive here as well as in the rest of Mexico, providing 9 local refuges in this town of 20,000, and more than 22 in neighboring San Andrés Tuxtla.
Not helping is the cheap availability of rot gut "aguardiente" (firewater, distilled from sugarcane) at the equivalent of a short quart (26oz) of 72 proof liquor for 12 pesos. Even cheaper is the purchase of distilled alcohol from many grocery stores in any amount as long as you bring your own container. If you see a "wino" waving along the street clutching a plastic bag, containing what seems to be water, that will not be his goldfish, but a "churrito" or "boli" of brandless alcohol.
Firewater is the preferred choice of hard core drunks. The most problematic choice, though, is beer.
Mexico has a well deserved reputation for excellent beer quality and was able to fool the US public by exporting a third rate beer to the US market, where it rapidly cornered the "most imported " beer status and drove up the price of limes, Corona.

Corona and a few other breweries in the tightly controlled Mexican economy offer their most popular serving in "caguama" size bottles, (940ml, roughly a quart) for 14 pesos which compares to a similar bottle of Miller's "low life" for US 1.65 which is after the alleged 44% taxes which US alcohol consumes. Obviously Mexican drinkers are being ripped off by their compatriots controlling distribution channels.

The beer companies, aside from almost monopolistic Coca Cola, and Nestle are possibly the best marketers in Mexico and make it possible for any Jose or Juana to open a cantina on shoe strings, receiving free chairs, tables, refrigerators, decor and paint as long as they stick to selling one brewery's products.

The partial benefactors are the county governments (municipios) which charge a relatively high rate for liquor licenses, but not anywhere the huge sums that these licenses cost in the US.
The mayhem, roadkill and spouse abuse are additional benefits which are not included in the license fees and usually get picked up by state and federal funds.

The Mexican government, which is statistics happy, has made substantial studies of the drinking problem in urban areas, but seems to be avoiding the rural areas, where the problem is much more prevalent.

One final comment, which is not an endorsement, is to say that I have remarkably found those public drunks in Catemaco to be generally courteous and non-intrusive compared to many others I have encountered in my travels in other countries.
Cheers.

Catemaco Mail

Ok, so today I got nailed for a propina (tip) by the same mailman who has been delivering 66.66% of my mail for the last few years. The other 33.33% never arrived here. Must be a problem in AmeriKa, said the local postmistress.

In 1931 the Mexican government instituted the Dia del Cartero (Mail carrier day) allegedly to honor 2 Mexican postmen who used their uniforms to cover their mail to protect it from rain, after some revolutionaries dynamited the train they were riding.

Curiously, in my first Mexican sojourn in the mid 1960's I received all my mail, including my subsistence check. In the 2000's in beautiful downtown Catemaco, Veracruz I get maybe 6 out of 10 pieces of mail, and fortunately do not depend on subsistence checks anymore.

I don´t want to be too critical of the Catemaco mail, because I might only get 2 out of 10 pieces. Fortunately most of my local bills arrive by private carrier.

For more or less guaranteed delivery, several international carrriers, including FEDEX, UPS and DHL, plus Mexican companies like ESTAFETA and Multipack are nibbling on Mexico's delivery system.

Unfortunately their postage stamps only come in 100 peso and much higher sizes.

Reference: Filatelia en Mexico

Catemaco Handicap

Political correctness has still not invaded Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz.

The most common term for handicapped people used by locals here is menosvalidos, which literally describes a handicapped person as “less valid”. The Mexican government has moved up a step and is focusing on only the word incapacitados, “incapable ones” which still sounds like an insult to many handicapped people. Puerto Rico at least calls a handicapped person, persona impedida, which loosely translates to “person with impediments”.

Well, at least some building codes have been adjusted to accommodate the “incapable” ones. The new Aurera Walmart franchise in San Andres Tuxtla is a succinct example.
A very modern steel and concrete two story shell features several oversize handicapped parking spaces, and 25 steps to climb to the second floor where the store is located, and a long heavily sloped ramp for shopping cart traffic.

Personally, I have trouble controlling a full shopping cart when rolling down hill. And I sympathize with any “incapable” or “less valid person” trying to either climb the steps, or roll up that slope on a crutch, walker or wheelchair!

Obviously Walmart considers the handicapped and probably the elderly as less valid and less welcome shoppers, otherwise they would have built an elevator!

Fortunately Walmart does not discriminate, they use the same insulting store design in other cities besides San Andres Tuxtla.

But here, in beautiful downtown Catemaco, I hate to say, my 10 miles shopping trip along insulting roads leads me directly to the one floor Soriana store in San Andres.

Catemaco Water

I am probably paranoid because I think the current water wars in beautiful downtown Catemaco occured after I moved next to the water company and embarrased them them to clean up their act.

Or maybe not, because:
1. The water is not fit for human consumption
2. The water pressure is less than than a prostate´s inflamed outflow.
3. Water pressure in the uphill communities of beautiful uptown Catemaco is so low that holding tanks get filled maybe once or twice a week.
4. The flavor of the water is so obnoxious, even my dogs prefer to drink out of rain gutters.

Catemaco depends on deep water wells to provide municipal water. The city lost one of its major wells because the city permitted the still dysfunctional sewage system to penetrate the well area. Aside from that, the city could probably drill a dozen wells to capture the surrounding hill aquifers.

A quirk in Mexican law allows people not to pay their water bills, (obviously Carlos Slim of Telmex never heard of this). Aside from that, the water lines are so broken that who knows what percentage actually dribbles out of the pipes after being pumped into them.

So to make up for all that, there are now 8 companies in Catemaco, racing around the city and competing to sell bottled water at 12-14 pesos per 5 gallon (19l) jug. Meanwhile, someone in Xalapa promised to install a municipal water tower in the hills to provide pressured water.

Considering the rain quantities in Los Tuxtlas, it may seem to be ridiculous to complain about water shortages. Shortages actually exist in most communities surrounding Los Tuxtlas. Primarily because everyone shits in their water supply.

Meanwhile, I dug a 3.5 meter well and I get to sprinkle my neighborhood or anyone that walks along. That probably caused the rash of water abuse comments to Xalapa that obligated (4 inspectors, so far), to consider my water abuse, or maybe that goes under the rubric DWG (driving while Gringo).

Catemaco lavapatas

I recently had the distinct displeasure of remodeling a kitchen in beautiful downtown Catemaco.

I was fortunate to find most plumbing connections, stainless steel sink, faucet, etc., but my wish for a "dish washer" (lava platos) returned me to the 1950´s. None available in the Catemaco area. Next shop would be in Veracruz, Mexico.

Now my experience with buying electrical items in Veracruz has mostly been bad. Each item requires three 220 mile round trips. One to buy it, one to return to fix it, and one to pick it up a few weeks later.

So I mentioned my disappointment to my partner, and her response was: "Why do we need a dish washer?". The maid does the dishes! So I mentioned the benefits of sanitized dish cleaning, clean looking sinks, and labor saving opportunities when the maid does not show up. She remained obstinate, claiming a "lava platos" was a waste of money.

So I tried to compromise. I wear sockless sandals, and my feet are frequently decorated with remnants of Catemaco. I would like a "lavapatas" (foot washer)" I said. The maid does not wash my feet, my gardener will not touch them, and even my car washer rejects them. She said ok. So I hired this nubile young woman at a ridiculouly low Mexican wage to visit twice a day and be my "lavapatas". So now my partner wants a guy to visit twice a day to be a dish washer (lavaplatos). Remodeling is no fun in beautiful downtown Catemaco.