<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227</id><updated>2009-11-22T18:13:07.244-06:00</updated><title type='text'>Catemaco News</title><subtitle type='html'>the catemaco.info blog</subtitle><link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/feeds/posts/default'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/'/><link rel='hub' href='http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/'/><link rel='next' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default?start-index=26&amp;max-results=25'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email></author><generator version='7.00' uri='http://www.blogger.com'>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>337</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-8485805041979074638</id><published>2009-11-22T18:09:00.002-06:00</published><updated>2009-11-22T18:13:07.263-06:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='business'/><title type='text'>Catemaco.com</title><content type='html'>Beautiful downtown Catemaco is a hotbed of internet manipulations. One would think that this godforsaken paradise in Los Tuxtlas would not generate enough interest to internet warriors.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #990000;"&gt;The usual domains:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: black;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;catemaco.com&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt; - owned by an internet domain trader, refused a US 1000 dollar offer.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;catemaco.info&lt;/strong&gt; - I own it, whoopeedo!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;catemaco.org&lt;/strong&gt; - owned by a shoestring resort operator, against&amp;nbsp; all .org domain&amp;nbsp;rules.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;catemaco.net&lt;/strong&gt; - owned by someone in Xalapa Veracruz without&amp;nbsp; website.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #990000;"&gt;The Mexican Domains&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;catemaco.com.mx&lt;/strong&gt; - now owned by a domain trader. The original Catemaco&amp;nbsp;owner was&amp;nbsp;too pissed off at me for starting a competing page and rejected my $ 1000 for the domain name, and when he was too broke to pay for the renewal, I missed out on the new registration.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;catemaco.mx&lt;/strong&gt; - became available in October&amp;nbsp; 09 and is now owned by a domain trader.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #990000;"&gt;Other names in use&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;hotelcatemaco.com&lt;/strong&gt; - I bought the domain to screw Hotel Catemaco.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;hotelcatemaco.net&lt;/strong&gt; - Hotel Catemaco&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #990000;"&gt;I also own&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;catemaconoticias.com&lt;/strong&gt; and&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;catemaconews.com&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;hotelcatemaco.com&lt;/strong&gt; - I registered it because I was and am diseenchated with them, to put it mildly.&amp;nbsp; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Google lately has been changinging its search algorithms and&amp;nbsp; seems to be very much preferential to searches in Spanish for sites with a &lt;strong&gt;.mx&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;nbsp; or any latin country&amp;nbsp;domain suffix instead of&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;the language used on the web site. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #990000;"&gt;So I looked to register a few quicky .mx or .com.mx names.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It turns out Mexico is the most expensive place in the world to register a domain name! Instead of the usual $4.99 cost to register most international domains, I am now quoted US $ 50.00 by the &lt;a href="http://www.nic.mx/static/nic-html/dominios04.html"&gt;Mexican registration agency. &lt;/a&gt;(They are so illiterate they still do not publicize the .mx costs).&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-8485805041979074638?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/8485805041979074638'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/8485805041979074638'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/11/catemacocom.html' title='Catemaco.com'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-1189001573755677656</id><published>2009-11-11T10:03:00.001-06:00</published><updated>2009-11-11T10:04:56.425-06:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='places'/><title type='text'>Nanciyaga, Catemaco</title><content type='html'>&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SvrgRQ04f8I/AAAAAAAAMg8/266iDID4ftc/s1600-h/nanci.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" sr="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SvrgRQ04f8I/AAAAAAAAMg8/266iDID4ftc/s400/nanci.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;A drive to Nanciyaga was my first venture out of beautiful downtown Catemaco many years ago. I paid my entrance fee and thought I would take a nice solitary walk around the park and therefore rejected the entreaties of guides to accompany me. Trying to cross the hanging bridge, the owner dressed in a suit, chased me down and forbade me to go any further without a guide. I turned around and left.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Four years later, I mellowed down and actually took a guided tour. A few more years later I discovered the owner was actually a nice human being. So now, after a few more years and a few hundred pages about most anything in existence in Catemaco and Los Tuxtlas, I finally devoted a page to:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: large;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.catemaco.info/3/nanciyaga.html"&gt;catemaco.info - Nanciyaga&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-1189001573755677656?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/1189001573755677656'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/1189001573755677656'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/11/nanciyaga-catemaco.html' title='Nanciyaga, Catemaco'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SvrgRQ04f8I/AAAAAAAAMg8/266iDID4ftc/s72-c/nanci.JPG' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-6976453608696804905</id><published>2009-10-24T07:21:00.007-05:00</published><updated>2009-10-24T09:14:59.629-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='culture'/><title type='text'>Catemaco Ears</title><content type='html'>While my kids were growing up I probably&amp;nbsp;became a major contributor to&amp;nbsp;the financial wellbeing of whoever manufactured the drug Amoxicillin which supposedly cured ear infections.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now in my "golden" years, in beautiful downtown Catemaco, I have been battling my own recurrent ear problems. So I went to see a 350 peso specialist in San Andres, who after prescribing one of each medication available in local drug stores calmly told me to stay away from Catemaco water. I tried to abide&amp;nbsp;by that, but after a week, my Popoluca requested that I&amp;nbsp;sleep on the roof&amp;nbsp; to protect her&amp;nbsp;air quality.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now I am stuck with a local doctor who proudly displays his sheepskin of being a graduate of the Swiss Institute of Tropical Medicine. He recommended I see his buddy, the local Belgian chiropractor, to have my neck adjusted, and told me that ear infections are very common in tropical climates.&amp;nbsp;Do you want to know what I think of Swiss medicine?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My good local friend, fondly known as the Fool on the Hill,&amp;nbsp; recommended his Zapotec wife's&amp;nbsp;cure of their children's ear problems&amp;nbsp;consisting of inserting a funnel of paper in the ear and setting it afire. I tried that,&amp;nbsp;and the newspaper I used burned off much of my remaining hair, but it did diminish the ear problem, probably because I had to concentrate on third degree burns.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SuLxw6-kVQI/AAAAAAAAMTw/k57UdSe2rGw/s1600-h/earchili.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SuLxw6-kVQI/AAAAAAAAMTw/k57UdSe2rGw/s200/earchili.JPG" vr="true" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;My native maid recommended I stick chilis in my ear, so I went to the street market and asked for ear chili. I never knew these damn things came in hundreds of shapes up to the size of bananas. The little ones she gave me came with instructions to moisten them before plugging into the ear. That didn´t work either.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I had already tried my grandmother´s ineffective remedy of cotton balls with hot&amp;nbsp;oil, so I went on the internet to seek relief.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I found a recommendation for vinegar and alcohol! Aha! finally a concoction to my taste. In consultation with my Swiss tropical medicine graduate I blended those two ingredients with liquid athlete's foot medication and some other ingredients and&amp;nbsp;repeatedly dribbled the potion in my ear. I expected a miracle. WRONG!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I decided to apply lots of alcohol internally. Now I have absolutely no problem.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-6976453608696804905?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/6976453608696804905'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/6976453608696804905'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/10/catemaco-ears.html' title='Catemaco Ears'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SuLxw6-kVQI/AAAAAAAAMTw/k57UdSe2rGw/s72-c/earchili.JPG' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-7628063573892457157</id><published>2009-10-15T20:49:00.000-05:00</published><updated>2009-10-15T20:49:16.017-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='OT - off topic'/><title type='text'>Mexico jokes</title><content type='html'>What do you call a Mexican with a rubber toe?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Roberto&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ironically there is no Spanish page of gringo jokes. They would probably be a lot more funnier than this collecton of largely racist Mexican jokes at &lt;a href="http://www.mexicanjokes.net/"&gt;Mexico Jokes.&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;I'm glad I'm not Polish.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-7628063573892457157?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/7628063573892457157'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/7628063573892457157'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/10/mexico-jokes.html' title='Mexico jokes'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-5150678891737086664</id><published>2009-10-15T01:35:00.003-05:00</published><updated>2009-10-15T08:47:04.125-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='draft'/><title type='text'>Catemaco Subdivisions</title><content type='html'>Selling tiny bits of Catemaco is BIG business. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Aside from the dozens of established colonias (neighborhoods) in Catemaco, there are also dozens of newer colonias in the hills of Catemaco that are sparsely populated, generally lack city water, electricity and paved roads. Almost monthly newer colonias are being promoted, and sold, without any municipal services.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Veracruz has a substantial, reasonable set of laws on the books that are supposed to control subdivisions (colonias). These laws require water, drainage, sewage and adequate roads. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All these laws in Catemaco and elsewhere in Mexico are circumvented by receiving permission from a municipal mayor to subdivide a terrain. Usually this involves a strawman purchase of up to 10 % of the lots involved in the subdiivision in favor of the mayor.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A current political aspirant of Catemaco announced a new colonia to house 156 families, offering the lots at 4500 pesos with a 2000 pesos downpayment, designed for extremely low income habitants in a federally protected reserve. Naturally none of the lots have any municipal facilities.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On a daily basis, inhabitants of the previously established colonias with a few built homes, demand that the municipal government provide them with water, electricity and drainage. And, as political expediency permits, rudimentary facilities are extended to these areas, primarily in order for the current mayor to garner good will and steal at least 10% of the cost of the projects.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The built out costs of these older and new colonias is enormous and an extraordinary hardship on municipal finances, primarily because of extraordinarily low property taxes in Catemaco and most of Mexico.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;draft&lt;br /&gt;target="_blank"&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-5150678891737086664?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/5150678891737086664'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/5150678891737086664'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/10/catemaco-subdivisions.html' title='Catemaco Subdivisions'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-22415297653068268</id><published>2009-09-23T09:22:00.007-05:00</published><updated>2009-10-31T11:30:43.289-06:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='musings'/><title type='text'>Down 1 in Catemaco</title><content type='html'>The latest arrival of the few handfuls of Gringo residents&amp;nbsp;of Catemaco just bit the dust.&lt;br /&gt;The single, 60+, former schoolmarm&amp;nbsp; lived in&amp;nbsp;the one and only&amp;nbsp;gringo ghetto on the outskirts of beautiful downtown Catemaco, wrote umpteen pages of an enthusiastic blog about possibly making it here on $900 a month without a car and the lack of local friends, took &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yaxchibonam/" target="_blank"&gt;hundreds of photos&lt;/a&gt; and lasted for 2 months, before hightailing to the more civilized haunts of Oaxaca.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is no moral to the story.&lt;br /&gt;NEXT!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: red;"&gt;Update Oct 3&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As usual it is not over until the fat lady sings.&lt;br /&gt;She did!&lt;br /&gt;This Lorena Bobbit&amp;nbsp; from the vaunted California educational system has now vented her opinion on settling in her self chosen one and only&amp;nbsp;trailer trash enclave in Catemaco, and dependent&amp;nbsp;on the input of a local taxi driver because of her inability to waddle, explored a few miles of Catemaco and promptly became an expert on local historical, sociological and creepy crawly stuff .&lt;br /&gt;I regret ever having mentioned her name, website, and buying her breakfast..&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-22415297653068268?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/22415297653068268'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/22415297653068268'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/09/down-1-in-catemaco.html' title='Down 1 in Catemaco'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-5128616275311302433</id><published>2009-09-22T11:02:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2009-09-22T13:33:53.333-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='tourism'/><title type='text'>Cheap Catemaco Hotels</title><content type='html'>&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/Srj0hfYjHlI/AAAAAAAALuI/MvMeNl9K4EM/s1600-h/hots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" iq="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/Srj0hfYjHlI/AAAAAAAALuI/MvMeNl9K4EM/s400/hots.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Many hotel owners in beautiful downtown Catemaco are mistakenly under the impresssion that tourists should pay through the nose for spending a day or two along one of the most beautiful lakes in Mexico.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Fortunately the peso devaluation has somewhat mitigated the local frenzy of rate hikes that, in many instance,&amp;nbsp;have doubled room rates in the last 5 years. Mexican peso earners and spenders, though,&amp;nbsp;are still subject to blood letting.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Along came some local neoliberal capitalists and within the last year opened three resonably priced hotelitos, along&amp;nbsp; bed and breakfast lines. Rates are as low as 179 pesos per double, in clean, newly equipped rooms. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At those rates you can spend an extra month here, and skip Cancun.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.catemaco.info/hotels/catemaco.html"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;See all the Catemaco Hotels here&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-5128616275311302433?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/5128616275311302433'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/5128616275311302433'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/09/cheap-catemaco-hotels.html' title='Cheap Catemaco Hotels'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/Srj0hfYjHlI/AAAAAAAALuI/MvMeNl9K4EM/s72-c/hots.jpg' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-4528390704251637925</id><published>2009-09-10T07:11:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2009-10-23T09:34:23.730-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='places'/><title type='text'>The Lakes of Catemaco</title><content type='html'>&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SqjrdOvFwDI/AAAAAAAALmQ/nB103EmH-rc/s1600-h/chalchoapan02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;img border="0" mq="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SqjrdOvFwDI/AAAAAAAALmQ/nB103EmH-rc/s400/chalchoapan02.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;If Laguna Catemaco would dry up a few meters there would be another lake in Los Tuxtlas. The laguna averages&amp;nbsp;23 feet&amp;nbsp;in depth and at its deepest central point measures about&amp;nbsp;34&amp;nbsp;feet.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;But there is a hole between the city of Catemaco and Agaltepec island that is&amp;nbsp;70 feet deep. Since that island was a ceremonial center for pre-colombian inhabitants, it would be interesting to to see what's lying on the bottom of its&amp;nbsp;murky waters.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;There are a total of 6 marvelous lakes and lagunas in the Catemaco Municipio. The most famous and largest is Laguna Catemaco, followed by Laguna Sontecomapan. Catemaco City is surrounded by lagunas Chalchoapan, Nixtamalapan and Amaloapan. On the Sierra Santa Marta side, near Miguel Hidalgo is the small Apompal lake. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;All of the smaller lakes are of volcanic origin, are filled with ground water, and are described in &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maar" target="_blank"&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt; as follows: &lt;em&gt;A maar is a broad, low-relief volcanic crater that is caused by a phreatomagmatic eruption, an explosion caused by groundwater coming into contact with hot lava or magma. A maar characteristically fills with water to form a relatively shallow crater lake.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;Laguna Catemaco is a true lake, created by volcanic activity blocking off a valley that accepted streams from the surrounding hills. Laguna Sontecomapan is a true lagoon connected to the Gulf of Mexico.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.catemaco.info/catemaco/geo/lakes.html" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: large;"&gt;See all the Catemaco lakes and lagunas.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-4528390704251637925?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/4528390704251637925'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/4528390704251637925'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/09/lakes-of-catemaco.html' title='The Lakes of Catemaco'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SqjrdOvFwDI/AAAAAAAALmQ/nB103EmH-rc/s72-c/chalchoapan02.jpg' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-6748467538997614312</id><published>2009-08-27T23:50:00.000-05:00</published><updated>2009-10-03T19:20:26.143-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='places'/><title type='text'>Catemaco Bay</title><content type='html'>&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.catemaco.info/9/bay.html"&gt;&lt;img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5375908980497102946" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SpsQvCdcuGI/AAAAAAAALhQ/1kaKt2ELFQg/s400/bay1.JPG" style="display: block; height: 267px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Listen to &lt;a href="http://catemaco.info/9/bay.html"&gt;Sittin on the dock of the bay...&lt;/a&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SpsQiKq2EmI/AAAAAAAALhI/tS80hT-mkrs/s1600-h/bay1.JPG"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-6748467538997614312?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/6748467538997614312'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/6748467538997614312'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/08/catemaco-bay.html' title='Catemaco Bay'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SpsQvCdcuGI/AAAAAAAALhQ/1kaKt2ELFQg/s72-c/bay1.JPG' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-1939028072096064877</id><published>2009-08-26T04:39:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2009-08-26T04:41:14.014-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='events'/><title type='text'>Catemaco Rapture</title><content type='html'>&lt;em&gt;"...At the northernmost point of the American tropics lies the beautiful Los Tuxtlas Mountains of southern Veracruz. This lush flora supports individual species of several tropical bird families, such as tinamous, woodcreepers, parrots, tropical flycatchers, and foliage-gleaners. Our stay here will include visits to a variety of habitats, with easy walks amongst spectacular lowland rainforest and cloud forest, and a boat trip on a scenic coastal lagoon.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;a&gt;&lt;img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 226px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374203059402397058" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SpUBNXJ_VYI/AAAAAAAALdE/sSGmFbsHVI8/s320/raptors.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;em&gt;The lowland forest reserves of the UNAM Biological Station and Nanciyaga hold Red-lored Parrot, Bat Falcon, Keel-billed Toucan, Slaty-tailed Trogon, White-bellied Emerald, Stripe-throated Hermit, Golden-olive Woodpecker, Bright-rumped Attila, White-breasted and Spot-breasted Wren, Red-crowned and Red-throated Ant-Tanager, Ruddy Crake, and the spectacular White Hawk. In the cloud forests, we should see Emerald Toucanet, the endemic Long-tailed Sabrewing, Scaly-throated and Buff-throated Foliage-gleaners, Eye-ringed Flatbill, Common Bush- Tanager, Golden-crowned and Golden-browed Warblers, White-winged Tanager, and a local subspecies of Chestnut-capped Brush-Finch. This lovely forest is also home to the endemic Tuxtla Quail-Dove. During our boat trip on the Sontecomapan Lagoon, we hope to see Bare-throated Tiger-Heron, Violet Sabrewing, up to 5 kingfisher species, and perhaps the elusive Sungrebe and Gray-necked Wood-Rail. Additionally, en route to Catemaco, we will explore an extensive natural savannah at Las Barrancas to look for Pinnated Bittern, Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture, Aplomado Falcon, Double-striped Thick-knee, and Fork-tailed and Scissor-tailed Flycatchers. Our evening owling trip might yield Mottled, Spectacled, and Black-and-white Owl."&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;/em&gt;OK, had enough birds? Here is the link:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.aba.org/mtgs/2009riverofraptors/index.html" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;River of Raptors - Veracruz Conference 4-10 Oct. 2009&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-1939028072096064877?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/1939028072096064877'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/1939028072096064877'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/08/catemaco-rapture.html' title='Catemaco Rapture'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SpUBNXJ_VYI/AAAAAAAALdE/sSGmFbsHVI8/s72-c/raptors.jpg' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-5546034421785733555</id><published>2009-08-24T12:52:00.008-05:00</published><updated>2009-08-24T13:25:15.520-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='places'/><title type='text'>Dying to Visit Catemaco?</title><content type='html'>&lt;div align="left"&gt;We went to visit my Popoluca's father on his first anniversary in the local cemetery.&lt;br /&gt;While there I kicked a few rocks at my first local friend and a number of acquaintances I have known here during the last 7 years.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Aside from a few dozen fellow warriors I have never known so many dead people in my life. Life expectancy in Mexico stands at an average of 76.2 years, which is pretty amazing when compared to the 78.2 years in the US with its vaunted marvels of scientific medicine. So, perhaps it is just that I associate with people that die quicker in beautiful downtown Catemaco.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My Popoluca suggests that I should embroider my golf shirts with a warning message. Danger: Proximity may result in premature death. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 267px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373596169893620418" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SpLZPvjoqsI/AAAAAAAALak/wGqFtngf8kw/s400/cemetary.JPG" /&gt; &lt;p align="center"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.catemaco.info/catemaco/city/cemetery.html" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size:130%;"&gt;Come see a video of the Panteón (cemetery)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-5546034421785733555?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/5546034421785733555'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/5546034421785733555'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/08/dying-to-visit-catemaco.html' title='Dying to Visit Catemaco?'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SpLZPvjoqsI/AAAAAAAALak/wGqFtngf8kw/s72-c/cemetary.JPG' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-3207039600491950482</id><published>2009-08-14T10:15:00.008-05:00</published><updated>2009-08-14T14:18:44.954-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='OT - off topic'/><title type='text'>Cheap Thrills in Catemaco</title><content type='html'>The bishop of Cordoba, not far from beautiful downtown Catemaco, yesterday &lt;a href="http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=341368&amp;amp;CategoryId=14091"&gt;mowed down six pedestrians with his SUV&lt;/a&gt;, and the old adage "you go to jail if you have an accident in Mexico" held true.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SoW3YIVTZ_I/AAAAAAAALVE/vxq6EQpCRq0/s1600-h/cross2.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 218px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 291px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369899755890763762" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SoW3YIVTZ_I/AAAAAAAALVE/vxq6EQpCRq0/s320/cross2.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The holy man spend the afternoon in jail and 90,000 pesos for the privilege of killi&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SoWSc3FucKI/AAAAAAAALU8/pHn66qxuXbw/s1600-h/KOZ107_300.jpg"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;ng a little old lady and hurting 5 younger ones, incuding a few kids.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So how much is your dead grandmother (or granddaughter) worth in Mexico?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;About 37,000 pesos!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The sum is fixed by the Mexican &lt;a href="http://www.cddhcu.gob.mx/LeyesBiblio/pdf/125.pdf"&gt;Ley Federal de Trabajo&lt;/a&gt;, which pegs the fine at 700 times the minimum wage in Mexico City.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Heck, that's cheaper than buying car insurance in New York City.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Although Mexico probably has as many lawyers per population as the US, it is not blessed with the tort system of multimillion dollar verdicts. Instead most lawyers are employed by the government to use their legal expertise in political offices like departments of agriculture, road building, welfare and similar feeding grounds. I don´t know which system is worse.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-3207039600491950482?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/3207039600491950482'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/3207039600491950482'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/08/cheap-thrills-in-catemaco.html' title='Cheap Thrills in Catemaco'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SoW3YIVTZ_I/AAAAAAAALVE/vxq6EQpCRq0/s72-c/cross2.jpg' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-1454405089480849762</id><published>2009-08-05T07:20:00.004-05:00</published><updated>2009-08-05T07:32:22.251-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='environment'/><title type='text'>Los Tuxtlas Deforestation</title><content type='html'>Treehuggers are a rarity in beautiful downtown Catemaco. Instead the pueblo is the historic center of the most voracious lumberjacks in Los Tuxtlas.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Greenpeace recently touted Los Tuxtlas as 90% deforested. I don't understand why they are picking on us. So is the rest of Veracruz, Mexico, and most of the world.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway I put together a slideshow of the actual situation in Los Tuxtlas. Lots of pretty pictures and hair raising statistics. In Spanish, of course. But I think you'll get the drift.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p align="center"&gt;&lt;img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 510px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 463px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366455519112785042" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/Snl63Kem7JI/AAAAAAAALMg/DNZd28upCjg/s400/escondida1.jpg" /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="font-size:130%;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.catemaco.info/9/deforestation.html"&gt;Los Tuxtlas Deforestation -a musical slideshow&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-1454405089480849762?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/1454405089480849762'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/1454405089480849762'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/08/los-tuxtlas-deforestation.html' title='Los Tuxtlas Deforestation'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/Snl63Kem7JI/AAAAAAAALMg/DNZd28upCjg/s72-c/escondida1.jpg' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-8638865182551292480</id><published>2009-08-01T09:17:00.000-05:00</published><updated>2009-08-01T09:17:23.748-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='for sale'/><title type='text'>Catemaco hotel for sale</title><content type='html'>Chicken Charley was one of the gringo princes of Catemaco. He arrived at a relatively young age, married a local señorita, raised kids and involved himself in dozens of businesses in Catemaco, ranging from chicken farming to card board recycling.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SnQhbeAdZaI/AAAAAAAALBY/iQxq_S65yyY/s1600-h/monster1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SnQhbeAdZaI/AAAAAAAALBY/iQxq_S65yyY/s320/monster1.JPG" vj="true" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;He recently died, leaving unfinished his last venture of the construction of a massive concrete miscarriage on the Malecon across from the Catemaco lake.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;The term prince comes into play here, because the building needed considerable political finesse to bypass the regulations affecting common people such as federal zone, height requirement and parking facilities.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;So now, the proposed 6 story hotel, stands at an unfinished 4 stories and graces its corner on Catemaco's busiest tourist street with unsightly construction debris.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;The surviving owners, which at one point were alleged to include a local Catemaco mayor are now offering the property for sale.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Got&amp;nbsp;25 million pesos to spare?&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-8638865182551292480?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/8638865182551292480'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/8638865182551292480'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/08/catemaco-hotel-for-sale.html' title='Catemaco hotel for sale'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SnQhbeAdZaI/AAAAAAAALBY/iQxq_S65yyY/s72-c/monster1.JPG' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-6390621381814591048</id><published>2009-08-01T04:55:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2009-08-01T05:38:09.309-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='for sale'/><title type='text'>Catemaco Rentals</title><content type='html'>&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SnQOrQNVu8I/AAAAAAAALBQ/16Ghjf4QSk4/s1600-h/cat161.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SnQOrQNVu8I/AAAAAAAALBQ/16Ghjf4QSk4/s320/cat161.jpg" vj="true" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Catemaco.info and its forerunners have been around since 2003, but it is only in the last year that I have seen a strong upsurge in inquiries about living in beautiful downtown Catemaco. Of course I conceitedly attribute that to a greatly expanded tourism section in the info pages.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I first arrived in 2001, I almost left because I could not find a comfortable place to rent. Since then, dozens of new apartments have been built. Many older&amp;nbsp;units are also available.&amp;nbsp;Unfurnished apartments range from 1200 to 1800 Pesos and do not include appliances. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A few dozen unfurnished houses are also available, usually in poor conditions, and renting between 2 and 5000 Pesos to primarily Mexicans. There are a handful of houses that are usually occupied by gringos on their first venture here and include two bungalows in the hills with great views&amp;nbsp;plus 2 modern houses on the Malecon , ranging from 3500 to 6000 pesos. In addition there is a trailer park that has converted 6 or 7 furnished one bedrooms starting at 400 Dollars.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is no real estate market or advertising medium for rentals or even sales. "For Rent by Owner" via word of mouth&amp;nbsp;is the local mantra. Most rentals are month to month, although some will demand the customary deposits plus a Guarantor.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I've put together an overview of what living or retiring in Catemaco entails, so I can just send a link to this page to the next person that does not read the fine print of "We do not handle rentals, because they pay no commissions" on the real estate email pages.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.catemaco.info/bienes_raices/e/living.html"&gt;&lt;span style="color: red;"&gt;Living or Retiring in Catemaco&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;a survival guide&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-6390621381814591048?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/6390621381814591048'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/6390621381814591048'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/08/catemaco-rentals.html' title='Catemaco Rentals'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SnQOrQNVu8I/AAAAAAAALBQ/16Ghjf4QSk4/s72-c/cat161.jpg' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-7000457899666662984</id><published>2009-07-18T04:32:00.000-05:00</published><updated>2009-07-18T04:32:50.567-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='transportation'/><title type='text'>Stay another week in Catemaco</title><content type='html'>&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SmGWX4jyz3I/AAAAAAAAKrE/8BbBmZdXSKw/s1600-h/puente.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SmGWX4jyz3I/AAAAAAAAKrE/8BbBmZdXSKw/s400/puente.jpg" zj="true" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;The major bridge connecting Veracruz to Tabasco and the south of Mexico collapsed and killed a few drivers. The one remaining bridge is a nightmare of delays. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Photo: &lt;a href="http://www.oem.com.mx/elheraldodetabasco/"&gt;El Heraldo&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-7000457899666662984?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/7000457899666662984'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/7000457899666662984'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/07/stay-another-week-in-catemaco.html' title='Stay another week in Catemaco'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SmGWX4jyz3I/AAAAAAAAKrE/8BbBmZdXSKw/s72-c/puente.jpg' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-5306137351150858701</id><published>2009-07-14T19:32:00.076-05:00</published><updated>2009-07-16T11:24:59.507-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='events'/><title type='text'>Catemaco Pilgrims</title><content type='html'>&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/Sl0qIFRTKII/AAAAAAAAKj0/bHyhHU2gLuo/s1600-h/del_carmen12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/Sl0qIFRTKII/AAAAAAAAKj0/bHyhHU2gLuo/s400/del_carmen12.jpg" zj="true" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In a more than 300 year old tradition, pilgrims from deep within the mountainous Sierra Santa Marta began arriving in Catemaco today.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thousands make the yearly trek, walking up to 60 miles, in the hot sun or pouring rain, crossing rugged mountains and, depending on the rain, torrid rivers. Most will stay in Catemaco till July 16th to worship the catholic Holy Mary in its local version of&amp;nbsp; "la Virgen del Carmel", alleged to have appeared here to a fisherman in a cave in the 1600's. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The pilgrims are accompanied by more than a hundred horse riders bearing the standards of their faith, while hundreds of bicycle riding pilgrims and road runners&amp;nbsp;will brave the treacherous Los Tuxtlas roads from as far away as Oaxaca and Chiapas.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Dozens of tour buses, plus a downtown fair, choke beautiful downtown Catemaco and joyous singing and the smell of a plethora of dozens of open air food stalls permeates the evening. while&amp;nbsp;in the nights every nook and cranny will be jammed with pilgrims overnighting on cold concrete.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.catemaco.info/5a/catemaco/basilica.html"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: large;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Visit the Catemaco Basilica, Home of the Virgin&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-5306137351150858701?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/5306137351150858701'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/5306137351150858701'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/07/catemaco-pilgrims.html' title='Catemaco Pilgrims'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/Sl0qIFRTKII/AAAAAAAAKj0/bHyhHU2gLuo/s72-c/del_carmen12.jpg' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-6428391754183088531</id><published>2009-07-08T06:54:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2009-07-08T08:24:53.586-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='food'/><title type='text'>Catemaco Eggs</title><content type='html'>Growing up 60 years ago I was fascinated by the market stalls selling eggs sitting atop contraptions lit from underneath to see the condition of the eggs.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The memory crossed my mind after cracking my umpteenth rotten egg in beautiful downtown Catemaco, which is part of chicken country with 10 times as many chickens as people.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SlSG729Gs0I/AAAAAAAAKEw/UltFUST3MT4/s1600-h/huevo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SlSG729Gs0I/AAAAAAAAKEw/UltFUST3MT4/s200/huevo.jpg" xj="true" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;The last time I saw eggs for sale, which were maintained in a cooler, was&amp;nbsp;years ago. Local eggs are kept for sale a room temperature which regularly reaches above 90 degrees in unventilated stores. And as for quality I regularly get eggs in sizes ranging from pigeons to small ostriches. And I have also learned to love fertilized eggs. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Egg flavors also come in surprises because of the food choices by free ranging chickens, and on occasion an egg will smell like a good fart, or almost as bad as the smell of Baluts (dead embryonic duck eggs) favored by many in South East Asia.&amp;nbsp;But I have learned to appreciate my Popoluca teaching me to never crack eggs directly into a pan.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My dependable local quality egg provider was unfortunately put out of business by a&amp;nbsp;snake feasting on his hens, and since then my soft boiled and eggs over easy consumption has dropped drastically, especially after considering that Mexico is a haven for salmonella induced diarreah, and wondering how much of it stems from eggs.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Photo: &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="http://weblogs.madrimasd.org/biocienciatecnologia/archive/2007/07/19/70246.aspx"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;BioSciencia&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-6428391754183088531?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/6428391754183088531'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/6428391754183088531'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/07/catemaco-eggs.html' title='Catemaco Eggs'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SlSG729Gs0I/AAAAAAAAKEw/UltFUST3MT4/s72-c/huevo.jpg' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-1479448481344470994</id><published>2009-07-05T07:13:00.003-05:00</published><updated>2009-07-05T15:55:18.915-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='events'/><title type='text'>Today is Torta day in Catemaco</title><content type='html'>&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SlCa1QkabRI/AAAAAAAAI4I/ut5shWAtsMM/s1600-h/Tortas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SlCa1QkabRI/AAAAAAAAI4I/ut5shWAtsMM/s200/Tortas.jpg" xj="true" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Ever since the French invasions of Mexico, tortas have been making inroads on tacos. Tortas are sandwiches of the submarine genre, served on small sizes of French bread, often called "bolillos". Lately foreign fast food joints are competing with them and to protect the Mexican tradition there are now several state torta festivals to celebrate&amp;nbsp;and promote the second best fast food&amp;nbsp;group in Mexico. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tortas&amp;nbsp;are served both hot&amp;nbsp;and cold and ingredients range from beef tongues to stuffed chiles, fried fish, chunks of pork and the staple of sliced ham. Usually sold in mom'n pop stands, the owners name their tortas after whatevever suits them, so don't expect a&amp;nbsp; "Tejano" torta to&amp;nbsp;taste the same in&amp;nbsp;Xalapa and Acayucan.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Today only, beautiful downtown Catemaco along with the rest of Mexico serves a unique version of a so called torta. It is an imaginary bread roll stuffed with a 500 peso bill and swallowed by zillions of impoverished peasants and workers ready to sell their vote to the torta giver. Of course the process is illegal, but election officials nationwide are deaf, dumb and blind to the entrenched custom.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The rest of July is a great month to be in Los Tuxtlas. Giant parties, street festivals, dances, lots of beer and loud music roil&amp;nbsp; the three major cities. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SlCXq4NEykI/AAAAAAAAI4A/-afw4JtR9I4/s1600-h/verafest2009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SlCXq4NEykI/AAAAAAAAI4A/-afw4JtR9I4/s320/verafest2009.jpg" xj="true" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;July 9-12&lt;br /&gt;Verafest 2009&lt;br /&gt;San Andres Tuxtla&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;July 12-9&lt;br /&gt;Celebration of the Virgin del Carmen and county fair&lt;br /&gt;Catemaco&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;July 18 &amp;amp; 19&lt;br /&gt;Climbing around Volcano San Martin Tuxtla&lt;br /&gt;reserved for 200 by &lt;a href="http://www.dematac.org/Hike-2009.html"&gt;DEMATAC&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;July 18-26&lt;br /&gt;Celebration of Saint James&lt;br /&gt;Patron Saint of Santiago Tuxtla&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: x-small;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Photo of Torta - &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.elasador.com/"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;El Asador&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-1479448481344470994?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/1479448481344470994'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/1479448481344470994'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/07/today-is-torta-day-in-catemaco.html' title='Today is Torta day in Catemaco'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SlCa1QkabRI/AAAAAAAAI4I/ut5shWAtsMM/s72-c/Tortas.jpg' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-1354421771051638922</id><published>2009-06-30T11:10:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2009-06-30T11:12:52.192-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='transportation'/><title type='text'>Catemaco License</title><content type='html'>&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;I'm becoming more Mexican every day. A friendly officer at a recent police stop away from beautiful downtown Catemaco reminded me that my license was about to expire. So one day I set off to battle the fiercesome Mexican bureaucrcy.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;Surprise! 30 minutes later, not including 90 minutes of playing musical chairs at Hacienda (the&amp;nbsp;Federal cash register), I walked out&amp;nbsp; with a 3 year permit for 746 pesos. That's a lot of pesos!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/Sko4TVvHb3I/AAAAAAAAI2k/qkVR3vQadDY/s1600-h/trafico.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/Sko4TVvHb3I/AAAAAAAAI2k/qkVR3vQadDY/s200/trafico.gif" xj="true" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;Other requirements were originals plus copies of passport, FM2 visa, proof of residency. The doctor was not around, so no eye test was administered, which I would have flunked. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;The written exam was 12 or so computerized questions&amp;nbsp; about traffic signs and general driving, which I often guessed at, especially the one about which side should you drive on in a narrow street with cars parked on both sides? The driving test was administered by a traffic police officer in his&amp;nbsp; half ton pickup truck and involved driving around the block once. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-1354421771051638922?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/1354421771051638922'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/1354421771051638922'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/06/catemaco-license.html' title='Catemaco License'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/Sko4TVvHb3I/AAAAAAAAI2k/qkVR3vQadDY/s72-c/trafico.gif' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-8394900271191076814</id><published>2009-06-28T12:32:00.004-05:00</published><updated>2009-06-28T14:09:45.723-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='OT - off topic'/><title type='text'>Mexico 1934</title><content type='html'>&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;..&amp;nbsp;Mexican worker doesn't live like a tourist and he wouldn't want to. In Mexican products, which provide him with all he needs, a peso has the buying power of a pre-inflation dollar. Oranges cost three centavos (less than one penny). Avocado pears cost the same. The staples, black beans and pink rice, cost usually 20 centavos a kilo, which is more than two pounds. That's 2½¢ a pound. And if you've eaten black bean paste with chili sauce and Mexican pink rice, you know you don't have to feel sorry for anyone who makes it his daily fare...&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,747020-4,00.html"&gt;A Time magazine quetch from 1934&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;If your time to you&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/Ske5GnM3YpI/AAAAAAAAIwE/SQ6phb2f19E/s1600-h/time1934.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/Ske5GnM3YpI/AAAAAAAAIwE/SQ6phb2f19E/s200/time1934.jpg" tj="true" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Is worth savin'&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Then you better start swimmin'&lt;br /&gt;Or you'll sink like a stone&lt;br /&gt;For the times they are a-changin'.&lt;br /&gt;Bob Dylan should have sung that in Spanish 75 years ago&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://search.time.com/results.html?Ntt=veracruz&amp;amp;Nf=p_date_range%7cBTWN+19290101+19400131"&gt;Historic Time magazine articles mentioning Veracruz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-8394900271191076814?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/8394900271191076814'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/8394900271191076814'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/06/mexico-1934.html' title='Mexico 1934'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/Ske5GnM3YpI/AAAAAAAAIwE/SQ6phb2f19E/s72-c/time1934.jpg' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-2481770939156115730</id><published>2009-06-24T16:02:00.002-05:00</published><updated>2009-06-24T16:09:42.096-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='utilities'/><title type='text'>Catemaco Call Home</title><content type='html'>&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SkKSp1Ey5OI/AAAAAAAAIu8/eOAFNqipzxY/s1600-h/et1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SkKSp1Ey5OI/AAAAAAAAIu8/eOAFNqipzxY/s200/et1.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Today beautiful &amp;nbsp;downtown Catemaco received new phone books.&amp;nbsp;Actually it is the phone book for 83 cities in Veracruz, including Veracruz City. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is a shame that no entrepreneur in Los Tuxtlas has the desire to produce a Los Tuxtlas directory with both white and yellow pages. Considering the junky advertising sheets and magazines that are constantly published here, this could be a profitable business for someone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The phone book delivery man said they would distribute about 1600 books in Catemaco. My page count of numbers shows about 1700 (I counted one row and mulitplied it by 16).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I did &amp;nbsp;the same count last year, and it looks like there is a little growth in Catemaco.&amp;nbsp;(La Victoria and Sontecomapan were split off the Catemaco phone book this year, about 100 combined)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Of &amp;nbsp;those 1800 I would guess no more than 15% (270) have internet access at home, plus a 100 or more machines in internet cafes primarily devoted to hotmail and pornography.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Catemaco Noticias (not Catemaco News) averages a measly 600 returning readers per month, &amp;nbsp;plus another 20,000 fly bys and I would guess most everyone in Catemaco reads the Noticias at least twice before upchucking.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The local monopoly of TELMEX which delivered the book against a 10 peso propina, considers its white pages a military secret. &lt;a href="https://www.online.telmex.com/mitelmex/inicio.jsp?p=/servlet/acceso_contra_mt?T=778"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #38761d;"&gt;Idiotically, only Telmex subscribers have access to the pages.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The yellow pages, also of course, &lt;span style="color: #274e13;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.seccionamarilla.com.mx/LocalDirectoryPages_AllStates.aspx"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #38761d;"&gt;have no listing for Catemaco&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;/span&gt;until you figure out that the section listings are ordered by by cities.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And also "off" course the current and previous mayor have no listing, and the roll of last names sounds like any small town in southern Spain, with a focus on Dominguez, Hernandez and Perez, the equivalents of Smith and Brown.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;TELMEX (owned by the second richest man in the world, depending on the dollar exchange) has some of the highest rates in the world, but I have no complaints about either its quality or service.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Catemaco info made a very small effort to list some of the basic phone numbers in the soon to be finished (2015):&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.catemaco.info/info/telephone.html"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: x-large;"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #38761d;"&gt;Los Tuxtlas Directory&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #274e13;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 32px;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-2481770939156115730?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/2481770939156115730'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/2481770939156115730'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/06/catemaco-call-home.html' title='Catemaco Call Home'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SkKSp1Ey5OI/AAAAAAAAIu8/eOAFNqipzxY/s72-c/et1.jpg' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-7773315866910848019</id><published>2009-06-24T08:01:00.001-05:00</published><updated>2009-06-24T08:23:54.518-05:00</updated><title type='text'>Dive Catemaco</title><content type='html'>&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SkIjHMZR2WI/AAAAAAAAIr4/qezLegDL8A4/s1600-h/buceo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SkIjHMZR2WI/AAAAAAAAIr4/qezLegDL8A4/s320/buceo.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Next time you drop in to beautiful downtown Catemaco, bring your snorkel!&amp;nbsp;It will come in handy during the rainy season which is just about to start and you can also use it on the surprising number of dive sites along the Los Tuxtlas coast.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The state of Veracruz recently published a dive guide for Veracruz in English and Spanish, &amp;nbsp;which is curiously titled Submarine Tourism.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It was designed for myopic internet users. To read it download the whole guide to your computer.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://portal.veracruz.gob.mx/portal/page?_pageid=313,4486059&amp;amp;_dad=portal&amp;amp;_schema=PORTAL"&gt;Veracruz Dive Guide&amp;nbsp;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-7773315866910848019?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/7773315866910848019'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/7773315866910848019'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/06/dive-catemaco.html' title='Dive Catemaco'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SkIjHMZR2WI/AAAAAAAAIr4/qezLegDL8A4/s72-c/buceo.jpg' height='72' width='72'/></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-3740354790396945831</id><published>2009-06-19T16:47:00.006-05:00</published><updated>2009-06-20T08:09:52.026-05:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='crime'/><title type='text'>Catemaco Homos</title><content type='html'>In beautiful downtown Catemaco the news is primarily&amp;nbsp;spread by word of mouth, followed by dilapidated vehicles announcing whatever a publisher thinks will get people to pay 5 pesos for a copy of their drivel.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The most reliable news seems to be&amp;nbsp;an FM radio station that&amp;nbsp;knows which&amp;nbsp;of its sides is politically buttered.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Today's 120 decibel news announcement was of a&lt;a href="http://www.diarioeyipantla.com/?p=1681"&gt; homosexual killed&amp;nbsp;on the&amp;nbsp;passing federal highway,&lt;/a&gt; allegedly after enjoying himself on the Malecon. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Mexico, aside from having&amp;nbsp; the propensity of killing reporters, also has&amp;nbsp;has some of the most perverse laws on the books for defamation and libel&amp;nbsp;and regularly jails reporters for&amp;nbsp;investigatory comments.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The most recent local perversion is &lt;a href="http://enlace.vazquezchagoya.com/?p=6515"&gt;jailing a legless reporter&lt;/a&gt;, Victor Luna, &amp;nbsp;for alleging improprieties in the lottery system of the nearby city of San Andrés Tuxtla. The most recent national notoriety is an ongoing battle of a reporter alleging a governor to be a child pornographer and drug dealer.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The really annoying aspect is that newspapers are afraid of mentioning anything or anyone with political pull, when describing an accident or crime scene. Usually those occured in a "lugar conocido"&amp;nbsp; by an "empresario conocido" ( known place and known businessman).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That does not stop them from publishing&amp;nbsp;gruesome photos of crime victims, including their names and data, but, curiously, when I published one, Google yanked it off my blog.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Lesbian ran over while reading Catemao News&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tomorrow I am awaiting full photo coverage and personal details of a&amp;nbsp;bisexual, transsexual, or oh shucks, a lesbian, who got run over by a heterosexual while reading Catemaco News on&amp;nbsp;a, whatever sex, &amp;nbsp;lap top.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-3740354790396945831?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/3740354790396945831'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/3740354790396945831'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/06/catemaco-homos.html' title='Catemaco Homos'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5124026524472807227.post-8140671285767299841</id><published>2009-06-15T09:48:00.003-05:00</published><updated>2009-06-19T22:55:39.025-05:00</updated><title type='text'>Catemaco Noah</title><content type='html'>&lt;div style="margin: 0px;"&gt;Anyone driving up to beautiful downtown Catemaco must have noticed the giant wooden ship being constructed in Alvarado. I once tried to enter the boat yard to take some photos but had the gate closed in my face. Finally there is news on what it is about.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="margin: 0px;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="margin: 0px;"&gt;Apparently a millionaire is building a trimaran hulled sailing ship to sail the seas and spread the word of peace in the Mayan language. He previously built a replica of &amp;nbsp;the Columbus vessel, Santa Maria, which is now used as a&amp;nbsp;tourist cruiser in Puerto Vallarta.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="margin: 0px;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://translate.google.com.mx/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Flanigua.com%2Findex.php%3Fm%3D06%26y%3D09%26entry%3Dentry090608-212645&amp;amp;sl=es&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;hl=es&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8"&gt;Here is a Google translated link to the story&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SjZeoq_kIeI/AAAAAAAAIl0/WfMHieo53XY/s1600-h/MarigalanteIID.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SjZeoq_kIeI/AAAAAAAAIl0/WfMHieo53XY/s400/MarigalanteIID.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5124026524472807227-8140671285767299841?l=www.catemaconews.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/8140671285767299841'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/5124026524472807227/posts/default/8140671285767299841'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.catemaconews.com/2009/06/catemaco-noah.html' title='Catemaco Noah'/><author><name>Don Gringo</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00183608434653958105</uri><email>catemaco@gmail.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='16215481860019458690'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nX9Q_HwyMKo/SjZeoq_kIeI/AAAAAAAAIl0/WfMHieo53XY/s72-c/MarigalanteIID.jpg' height='72' width='72'/></entry></feed>