Mexico Dips In To Fight For Remittances

Mexico is concerned that remittances from the USA might be taxed. 

Yahoo News:  Claudia Sheinbaum denounces proposed US remittance tax as ‘unacceptable’

El Paso Times: "This is worrying": Remittance tax would take money needed to support migrant families

The tax of 3.5% (and it should be more, the originally proposed 5% would have been a decent start) would hit the $64.7 billion sent to Mexico from the USA and raise two and a quarter billion dollars to the treasury, helping defray some of the costs imposed by illegals.

This was one of Trump's failures in his first term - had he pushed for, and imposed a tax on remittances then, Mexico really would have paid for the wall.

The remittance tax needs to become a law. 

Cruise Day 3 Cozumel - The ABCs

On the third day, we arrived in Cozumel.

 And had another time change.   An hour change going forward, back and forward again occurred almost every day on the cruise. 

We disembarked in Cozumel and walked down the pier.

 We had some extra time before the excursion began so we checked out some shops around the port.

The farmacia was doing some brisk business and had some pretty decent prices inside.

 Then we met up with the excursion and boarded a comfy tour bus.

We were headed for a tour of the ABCs - on this case Alcohol (Tequila), Bees and Chocolate.

Our first stop:

 

The Mayan Bee sanctuary, home of the Melipona Bee.  The melipona are small, native to South America, don't sting, shy, and produce less honey than your typical honeybee.

They live in hives inside tree trunks.  

We got to sample the honey and compare it to the standard honeybee honey.  Allegedly in addition to being delicious, Melipona honey has therapeutic effects including bee-ing good for wounds and being applied to your eyes.

That was a neat stop.

Then we stopped for lunch. 

Had some great fish tacos on the beach along with a margarita.

 Absolutely delicious.

We then headed onward to discover Mexican chocolate.

 We saw a presentation on the history of chocolate and got to try some that was made in the traditional manner, with the beans grinded on a stone platter. 

Different from the chocloate you have today for sure, not sweet but very good. We then got to sample and buy some premium chocolates made in the modern and very tasty fashion.

Then on to the A in the ABCs of the day.

Tequila.  As it turns out ,Tequila can only legally come from the Blue Agave plant. If its not the blue agave its not tequila.  If its made with less than 51% agave, it also can't be called Tequlia.  Most types of Jose Cuervo is often referred to in Mexico as 51/49 or mixto as it just makes the cut. Mescal also comes from agave but not blue agave. The more you know I guess.

We got to sample some nice tequilas including 100% agave ones, as well as some flavored liqueurs made from tequila.

 The caramel one was rather exceptional.

 

 

That was the end of the excursion, and we headed back to the ship and soon were underway heading to our next stop.

After dinner, we went to the dueling piano bar.

 Helluva good time. All three of the singers were personable, funny, and really talented. All three could play piano, drums, guitar and sing which is pretty damn impressive. They could work a crowd and everyone was singing along to the many rocking tunes they played.

That was a great day and a great night.

Cenote Dives

I got up early on December 27 and the kids slept in.  I grabbed my dive gear and  walked over to  Pro Dive, located at a resort right beside ours on the beach and  after checking in I then got in a van to Chikin Ha.

No Chicken at Chikin Ha, but there was a cenote.

Time to dive a Cenote for the first time. This would be a guided cavern dive.   A cavern dive means you're in an overhead environment but still within range of seeing the natural light from the entrance in essentially a straight-ish path from the entrance. There were three other divers and the guide for a total of five in the group.

The plan was for the first dive to take the line on the left (starting form the bottom left of the diagram of the diagram to the rainbow cenote, surface in the rainbow centore and come back along the line.  Dive 2 took line 2, the one on the bottom to the right for a longer dive.

This was done on single tanks.  One wrinkle emerged as one of the divers had a full-face mask.  If he had an out-of-air problem, the only one who could donate air to him was his spouse who had a special hose for that purpose.  This presents some problems in terms of redundancy . Worst comes to worst you can always rip the full face mask off, shove a normal regulator in his mouth and then give him your spare mask (you do carry a spare mask in your right pocket, right?).  The problem of course is the fellow had 60 dives to his name and I'm reasonably sure he hadn't done mask removal drills since he was certified and having someone freak out in an overhead environment would suck.

We had a very detailed safety brief and a condensed cavern diving class - keeping the guideline in sight at all times; keeping your fins up and don't kick up the silt; how to use the flashlight for proper signalling; diving thirds (1000 psi out, 1000 psi back and 1000 psi in  reserve); and emergency procedures,  all the stuff I knew but was completely new to the other divers in the group.

We dove in a single straight line. The guide led, and I got to be tail-end charlie for having the most experience in an overhead environment, and the guide could tell I knew what I was doing.

We all showered as required, and then kitted up and headed to the entrance.

Going into the cavern was neat. Heck it was otherworldly. The water was crystal clear and the flashlights gave some good illumination.

 

Some areas were a bit of a tight fit but nothing too serious.

We then reached the Rainbow Cenote:

We surfaced in the Rainbow Cenote

Simply breathtaking.  We looked around for a bit and then descended back down to return to the cavern entrance.

We then changed tanks, had a snack, and got ready for Line 2, which would be a longer dive.

Line 2 rocked.

Lots of rocks.

We also got to experience the halocline.  A halocline is what happens when fresh and salt water meet.

It looks like this when you go through it:

Do  not adjust your set.  The picture is actually in focus,  but the mix of the salt and fresh water makes for really interesting distortion. Rather neat making our way through it.  Crystal clear on either side of the layer and then this cloudy mess in between.

We then headed back towards the entrance.

 It was an amazing experience,  a first taste of Caverns Measureless to Man. I want to get cave certified to be able to experience this some more, which is going to be a heckuva lot of work. Apparently Mexico is a great place to get cave certified,

Mexico has some awesome cenotes for diving, and ProDive offers a great cenote diving experience.

Mexico in addition to great Cenote diving also has cute Cenote dogs.

Lots of stray dogs around Mexico, and a bunch hung around this cenote.  This little fella was pretty skittish but eventually came to get a snack from me as I donated some meat from my sandwich to him. Poor fella didn't look like he was getting regular meals.

It was a great day,  met some great fellow divers, and it was well worth it.

Cenote Line 1 Dive: 39 feet max depth, average of 23 feet and 39 minutes in 77 degree water.

Cenote Line 2 Dive: 42 feet max depth, average of 24 feet, and 49 minutes.

Playa Del Carmen

The next day we decided to go shopping in Playa del Carmen and went to the main shopping drag, 5th Avenue. 

Basically your standard Grade A tourist trap.

But still fun.

It had it all, from shlock to Sephora and  everything in between.

Lots of browsing occurred and some gifts and trinkets were purchased. 

The streets of Playa del Carmen had a lot of law enforcement around - policia, Mexican National Guard, Mexican Marines and even a full on Federale Gun Truck. Still, it had a pretty safe touristy vibe and no problems were experienced.

After that we took a taxi back to the resort and went to the pool and checked at the sports desk and booked two adventures. More on that in the next couple posts.

Chichen Itza

The next morning on December 25, we got up nice and early, had a quick breakfast and got on the shuttle.

The shuttle drove us to the Xel-Ha waterpark where we then switched to a nice larger bus for the trip to Chichen Itza.

This turned into one heckuva long bus ride.  Upside we got to learn a lot from our tour guide on the way.

Chichen Itza was settled, built, and developed by the Mayans and Toltecs and there's apparently a lot of scholarly fracas over who built it and what the relations were between the Mayans and Toltecs at the site.

Occupied from 500-1200 AD the city site was an important center and was later mostly abandoned by the 16th century. Archaeological research is ongoing. Only 12 of approximately 300 buildings have been uncovered so far. What has been uncovered is rather impressive.

On the bus, we learned about the Mayan numbers system and Leah solved a Mayan math puzzle, and earned a Coca-Cola as a prize.  The bus happily had A/C and complimentary drinks including water, soft drinks and beer which made for a civilized ride and we got a nice snack on the bus as well.

We then got to the site and there was quite a line to get into the archaeological park.  There's an additional fee if you have a video camera, but they don't charge for iPhones or standard cameras even if they can shot video. Kinda strange but that wasn't the only place we found in Mexico that had that additional fee for video-specific cameras.

After entering, you walk along a path with lots of trinket sellers.

You then enter and see the pyramid dedicated to Kukulkan which certainly grabs your attention.

Its rather impressive and there's an interesitng acoustical effect if you have a group of people clapping in unison in front of the entrance.

There is likely a cenote (a water-filled sinkhole, often part of an underground cave system - more on that later) below it were sacrificial victims, including children, were thrown in.   Other sacred cenotes in the area have been explored with lots of child skeletons within.

There's no taking the stairs on the pyramid anymore - both due to preservation and prevention of wear and tear and because people have been hurt or even killed falling off of it. The stairs are rather narrow.

There's quite a few impressive buildings to see such as the Platform of Eagles and Jaguars:

 If you click to embiggen you can see the carvings of the eagles on the buildings. Rather impressive.

There's also the Tzompantli a platform emblazoned with carvings of skulls -- back in the day, there were apparently multiple racks of real skulls on display to show their enemies' heads.

We also visited the famous ball game field where the acoustics are rather amazing - you can hear whispers from one end to the other and there's a neat echo as well.

Rather cool.

Quite a neat place to explore.

We then headed to a cenote to take a dip. Since the cenotes are part of Mexico's groundwater, you have to shower before entering. 

In this Cenote, after showering you had to get a life jacket as life jackets were required to be worn, lest you become a unintentional sacrifice to Kulkulkan. 

You had to walk into an underground cavern to enter.

 

 The entrance opened up into the Cenote, which  had a collapse in the cave ceiling so light streamed in, as did tree roots and vegetation searching for water It was a neat experience.

We had a very nice swim around the cenote.

After the cenote, we changed and headed to Valladolid, a town that looks like Spain was transplanted to Mexico.

We had an amazing lunch in Valladolid at a Mexican buffet that was quite simply incredible.

After that we took the long bus ride back.  Caught a few Zzzzss along the way.  

Certainly a great, full and tiring day, no problem sleeping that night at all.

December Kid Trip

In the last week of Decmeebr, I took the kids to Playa del Carmen in Mexico. A  nice holiday trip for them to de-stress, and a reward for the  both of them  doing so well at school.

A nice flight to Cancun was followed by the longest wait ever to get our luggage.  They processed it at a speed of about 1 piece of luggage ever five minutes. Seriously, it was the slowest luggage processing  I've ever seen. Took over 2 hours to get our luggage and get out of the terminal.

We got to the resort and checked in a bit later than we had hoped as it was dark when we arrived.

 

 So we had dinner, which was a great Mexican buffet, and they mixed a nice Margarita. We got our rooms in order and went to sleep.

The next day we got up and hit the beach, but before we reached it, we got to check out some wildlife.

Of course there were iguanas.

 And there was the cutest rodent known to man, the Agouti:

There were even Agouti babies for more cuteness:

They're cute, and they were all over the place.

The beach was spectacular.

We got a lot of sun, swam, had lunch at the beach, and took it easy the rest of the day.

Kids got a little too much sun, especially Leah.  Luckily I had brought aloe along and it was sorely needed.

Heckuva great day.

The next day, we were off to get some culture and see one of the newly proclaimed modern wonders of the world.

Travel From Mexico To The USA With Covid If You're A Mexican? Si. If American, No.

Compare and contrast:

NBC News: After Border Patrol release, asylum-seekers test positive for Covid in Brownsville, Texas

The Detroit Free Press: 'I can't believe this is happening': Travelers recount tales of getting stuck in Mexico after positive COVID-19 tests

So to summarize: Americans in  Mexico can't come back to America without a negative Covid test.  But, Mexicans and every other nationality other than American will be accepted after crossing the border illegally even with active and contagious cases of Covid.

Good job there Biden.

Mexico Cartel Attacks Continue To Get Closer To The US Border

The Detroit News: Death toll put at 20 after Mexico cartel attack near U.S. border

A Mexican drug cartel, the Cartel of the Northeast, attacked and shot up the city hall of Villa Union, killing some government workers, in an hour-long assault including a battle with state and federal responding forces.

In reading the article, you can see the cartels aren't exactly keeping a low profile - the convoy of trucks the attackers rode in on for their assault had C.D.N. markings very nicely applied to the sides of their trucks. Not exactly a covert action by any means.

The attack took place all of 35 miles south-southwest of Eagle Pass, Texas.

Any bets on how long it takes before these large-scale attacks spill over to the American side of the border and we need to send forth responding punitive expeditions led by a new Black Jack Pershing?

Anarcho-Tyranny Mexican-Style

Disarming drug cartels is hard and dangerous work.

So, instead of the hard work involved, the Mexican Army and Police is focusing on disarming citizens who have taken up arms for self-protection from the cartels in frustration as the police and army have failed to enforce the law in Michoacan province.

Note the lovely Freep biased headline: Renegade Mexicans refuse orders to give up. Nope, no bias there guys.

Armed vigilantes who have taken control of territory in lawless Michoacan state to keep out vicious drug cartels are refusing to give up their guns in a standoff with government soldiers.

Residents said a tense calm prevailed on Friday as federal police and soldiers were fanned out over region ranches and lemon groves following a standoff between the vigilantes and police that left four people dead in this region 300 miles west of Mexico City.

. . .

This region has been bedeviled by cartels committing crimes against residents who've been caught between gun wars with no help from law enforcement.

Self-defense groups have marched on at least 15 communities over the past 11 months to run off cartel henchmen and kick out corrupt police officers taking bribes to look the other way. People here say the Mexico government has abandoned them and they had no choice but to arm and fight.

The federal government, however, says it will protect the area and is demanding that the so-called community police forces disarm. Mexico has sent soldiers and the federal police into the region to disarm the groups.....

The Mexican army has in fact fired on unarmed villagers and killed four of them in a stand-off on Monday, read the whole article for all the interesting details.

Interestingly, even with Mexico's very strict gun control laws, the citizens are able to get quite a few items on the country's banned list like 9mm ammunition and as pictured AR-15 rifles, one wonders if some of them are Fast and Furious weapons, or did those solely go to drug cartels?

So the government fails to control criminals and lets them rum amok extorting and killing the citizenry, and then cracks down on the citizenry for the effrontery to dare protect themselves.

Oh, and if you don't know what Anarcho-Tyranny is, go check out Borepatch for a succinct explanation, complete with a plethora of examples.

Hopefully It's Just A Dishonest Mistake

Fox News: Truck carrying radioactive material stolen in Mexico

A cargo truck hauling extremely dangerous radioactive material from used medical equipment was stolen from a gas station in central Mexico, and authorities sent out an alert in six central states and the capital to find it, Mexican officials said Wednesday.

The truck was carrying a metal container of cobalt-60 headed to a nuclear waste facility in the state of Mexico, said Juan Eibenschutz, director general of the National Commission of Nuclear Safety and Safeguards. Though the container is heavily sealed in lead, designed to be difficult to break and to survive accidents intact, he said it contains an amount of radioactive material that could do serious damage if opened.

One would think they would provide more security on such a shipment than a sleepy driver, but that's all they had protecting the cargo.

Apparently, it is the largest amount of cobalt-60 stolen in Mexico in quite some time. Radioactive material has been stolen before by thieves in Mexico who mistakenly thought it was valuable rather than for nefarious purposes.

Hopefully this is no different, and not a part of a terrorist's dirty bomb plot. If not, this could get ugly, especially as our southern border is rather porous to say the least.

So That's Obama's Big Idea?

Obama's big idea: Mexican student exchanges

If that's big idea Obama can come up with to capture the imagination of the lap dog media, he must be tired. Of course, the media laps it up.

Forget all the headlines about immigration, security and drug issues during President Barack Obama's visit to Mexico last week. The most important (and least noticed) result of his trip may have dealt with an entirely different topic — student exchanges.

Sounds boring, but it's potentially the most exciting thing that came out of Obama's visit. If the bilateral plan to dramatically increase student exchanges becomes a reality, it could mark a turning point in the history of U.S.-Mexico relations, and promote the development of a vibrant North American economic bloc.

Despite the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement among the United States, Mexico and Canada, the level of U.S.-Mexico academic exchanges is pathetic.

Only 13,700 Mexican students are enrolled in U.S. colleges, compared with 194,000 from China, 100,000 from India and 72,000 from South Korea, according to the "Open Doors" study of the Institute of International Education.

I somehow suspect they're deliberately excluding all the Mexican illegals who are already attending our educational institutions from their sad panda total.

Perhaps more importantly, Mexican officials say Mexico will unilaterally launch a plan before the end of the year to quadruple its current number of students in U.S. colleges over the next five years.

Mexico's under-secretary of Upper Education Fernando Serrano told me in a telephone interview that the planned publicly and privately funded scholarship program will raise to "between 40,000 and 50,000" the number of Mexican students in U.S. universities by 2017.

Note the "unilaterally double phrase". I wonder if that means they'll just point their students toward the border and tell them to claim they were here for five years and want to file under the Obama Dream executive order scheme or the new Gang of Eight immigration giveaway.

Vacation 2013 - Disney Cruise Day 4 - An Educational Costa Maya Excursion

On Day 4 we would arrive at the Mexican port of Costa Maya at 13:00.

The kids were up at the crack of dawn, so I took them up to Goofy's Sports deck at the top of the ship so Tash could sleep in. We played foosball, table tennis, and mini-golf and built up an appetite on a beautiful sunny morning.

Even after playing around for a bit we still were left with plenty of time to burn. So we not only went o the cabin, got Tash and had a delicious breakfast on the ship, but caught the morning showing of Wreck it Ralph in 3D in the Buena Vista theater. Yep, we were in a full-size, stereo sound and 3D capable theater watching a movie in the Caribbean Sea.

We then arrived at Costa Maya and began our tour. Originally we were going to tour the Chacchoben ruins, but we felt it would pose too much on the kids to walk around all of them under the hot sun. The day proved us correct. So instead we changed our plans and booked a May Tour that gave a history of the Maya, let us visit a single classical Mayan temple and have a Mayan lunch.

Our guide was a friendly and very personable person named Gerardo. Quite an accent but very knowledgeable and lots of impressive detail on Mayan history life, culture and the modern descendants of the Maya in the region. Tons of info delivered in a warm and engaging style. He showed us the chicle trees from which chewing gum originated, a block of unrefined chicle, and the many other interesting trees in the region that are or were important to its development and economy.

On the way to the ruin we passed a Mexican Army checkpoint. Notice the G3 rifle. The soldiers at the checkpoint had G3s, while the soldiers at the port were carrying M-16s (I didn't get a chance to take their picture).

We were headed to the ruins of the Mayan Temple of Ixhel in the small town of Limones

Clearing the checkpoint, we then entered the town of Limones.

To say we had entered the Third World was an understatement. This wasn't some dressed up tourist town. The nearest high school is in a town 45 minutes away and any serious medical treatment including a lady giving birth is typically done in the city rather than in Limones.

The town medical clinic:

A shop where tortillas are made from corn. That machine takes the soaked corn and mashes it down into flour for tortillas with the end result a block of corn flour.

Some other scenes of the town, including the field where kids were playing:

People were quite friendly. Poor but proud you might say. Indeed most welfare recipients in the US would flip if they had to live in conditions these people considered normal. It was also Abby and Leah's introduction to such an environment and it left an impression regarding appreciation and gratitude for what you have, and the importance of charity and helping out the less fortunate.

We then left the visited the Maya Temple in the village that was dedicated to Ixhel, the Mayan fertility goddess.

The ruin is quite large and the steps are about twice the size of a typical step you might encounter today. When discovered and excavated, three teenage female skeletons were found buried under it. The three were most likely virgins sacrificed to Ixhel to promote fertility.

Interestingly enough, sites considered holy by one religion are often re-purposed by the next religion on the scene. Right beside the ruin of the Mayan Temple is Limones' Catholic church.

We then went to a Mexican ranch for lunch. We met the Don and Dona who ran the ranch. The lunch was indeed special. We went to an area that appeared to just be a circle of dirt.

But the Don cleared the dirt away, and a cover of green banana leaves appeared, which were pulled away to reveal a hole with a clay pot inside and coals beneath.

Chicken Pibil is a Mayan traditional dish of chicken mixed with spices then slow-cooked underground for hours. Removed and shredded and served with avocado salsa and in my case some habanero salsa, the meal was pure awesomeness on a plate.

We then had a tour of the ranch, most of the buildings have palapa roofs. A palapa roof can be quickly made and lasts for up to 25 years.

We saw the kitchen, it had a cobblestone and dirt floor. Remember, this was a comparative well-to-do ranch for the region:

The basin where washing is done:

And the well:

Then we had a demonstration of how rope is made from sisal.

The sisal is placed on a board and rubbed until the outer part of the leaf is stripped off and the interior splits into separate fibers

The fibers are then twisted around and around until a very strong rope is formed.

The sisal rope industry is in decline due to the prevalence of polypropylene and nylon ropes that are both cheaper and quicker to make.

Then we took the bus back to port, falling asleep on the way, to mark the end of a very educational day.

After some rest we went to the evening's entertainment, a family magic show put on by Magical Dave Williamson, who put on a great show. Like most entertainers on the ship during a family show, he was able to run it at two levels: one that the kids would enjoy, and the second full of innuendo and humor that went right over their heads but the parents all understood and appreciated. Magical Dave is seriously talented with impressive sleight of hand illusions that left the audience both awed and amazed. A great show.

We then had dinner at the Animator's palate restaurant. The walls are covered in changing animated pictures and for this dinner Crush, the turtle from Finding Nemo appeared on the wall and interacted with the diners. Very cool how if could chat with the kids.

After that, we passed out and looked forward to the nest day's adventure.