Taco Bell runs south of the border

File this in the strange, but true category: Taco Bell just opened its first outlet in Mexico. Not surprisingly, Taco Bell went first to Monterrey, a city in Northern Mexico and one that lacks an abundance of good taco stands - or so I'm told.

If you read Spanish, this Expansion blog entry under the title: "Taco Bell and how to sell ice to Eskimos," explains it all: http://www.cnnexpansion.com/blogs/barbarismos/archive/2007/09/01/taco-bell-o-cmo-venderle-hielo-a-los-esquimales

One interesting point in this blog, Taco Bell sales dropped by seven percent during the last trimester. Is Mexico the answer? Taco Bell apparently studied the market and, yes, Mexicans are familiar with the brand.

This isn't Taco Bell's first venture into Latin America. I recall being invited to a Taco Bell in Guatemala City by several local friends. We instead opted for Pollo Campero, a wildly-popular KFC knockoff.

Adios a Guadalajara

The low-rent correspondent is becoming a little less low-rent these days. I recently accepted a senior reporting position in another part of the Republic. I'll divulge all of the details at the appropriate time.

I also left Guadalajara after nearly three years in La Perla Tapatia. Locals brand it El Rancho Grande, but the city is moving beyond its reputation as a provincial backwater. Just give it a few more years. I've only been gone a week and I already miss it.

Remittance rate slows down

According to the Bank of Mexico, the rate of remittances sent home by Mexican migrants slowed down during the first six months of 2006 even though the number of migrants living in the United States increased. The Washington Post described the suspected reasons for the decline in a story last week: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/08/AR2007080802241.html


I recently went to Mezcala, Jalisco, a sad sacked town on the north shore of Lake Chapala that bleeds migrants, for the annual patron saint holiday. The saint is a pretext for hundreds of migrants to return home for two weeks every August. Most of those arriving brought money for their families and gifts for community institutions. As one person there told me, "It's tough to imagine life in Mezcala without remittances."

Remittances in Mezcala seemed to be flowing home like always.

Lake Chapala improves

According to a story in today's Publico (Milenio in Guadalajara), Lake Chapala's water level jumped by 30 centimeters during the first 10 days of August - the best rate since 1992. With at least six weeks left until the end of the rainy season, the water level stands at 58 percent capacity, just shy of the high point of 59 percent reached last fall. The upstream dams are also hoarding more water than usual.

Since Lake Chapala supplies some 70 percent of Guadalajara's water needs, the news sounds good. Unfortunately, Jalisco's dam-building brigade - previously led by both former PAN governor Francisco "Paco" Ramirez Acuna and state water commissioner Enrique Dau, the former PRI mayor of Guadalajara that left office in disgrace after the 22 de abril de 1992 explosion - are still championing the Arcediano Dam on the Santiago River near Guadalajara as the solution to the city's pending water problems.

Cleaning up Lake Chapala, which is fed by the toxic Rio Lerma, instead of trapping and distributing highly-contaminated water from behind the proposed Arcediano Dam might be more logical - but logic has never driven this agenda. As an example, the Arcediano Dam is being built near the convergence of the Rio Santiago and Rio Verde. It will be much lower than Guadalajara, meaning any power generated will go toward pumping the water out of the Huentitan Canyon and presumably cleaning it too.

Additionally, the original plans called for a second dam to also be built in the Los Altos region that would supply Leon, Guanajuato, a thirsty industrial city near former president Vicente Fox's San Cristobal Ranch. The original location would have flooded out San Gaspar de los Reyes. The plans were changed in 2005, though, after locals and migrants from the town living in the San Francisco Bay area raised a fuss.

Besides cleaning up the lake and ensuring a stable supply of water in a full Lake Chapala - instead of say, depleting the lake by allowing farmers in Guanajuato to irresponsibly draw so much from the Rio Lerma in order to grow strawberries for export - SIAPA, the Guadalajara area waterworks, could try fixing its leaky pipes, although with so many customers refusing to pay their water bills - customers can't be cut off - the utility is often lacking resources to repair all it's infrastructure.

And now: Malverde beer

Jesus Malverde inspires an odd following; he's better known as the patron saint of narcos. He's also fairly popular in Sinaloa, a state notorious for narcotics trafficking, but lately he's been creeping into the country's broader popular culture. In Mexico City's trendy Condesa neighborhood, a bar named for the unofficial saint opened recently. And now Cerveceria Minerva, a Zapopan-based microbrewery just registered the label: Malverde. There's nothing like cashing in on the cachet of a notorious figure, something Minerva's head brewer acknowledged in an interview with the Mural newspaper.

Cerveceria Minervia makes great craft beer - something rare in Mexico, where the big two breweries have a stranglehold on the market and hawk rather watery suds. Thus, this offering should be good - even if the name is a bit naco.

Los extranjeros invaden Jalisco/Foreigners invade Jalisco

The National Immigration Institute (INM) released figures earlier this week showing that Jalisco has more foreign-born residents than any other Mexican state except for Baja California. (Chihuahua, which like Baja California is also on the border, placed third in the survey. It wasn't mentioned if data from the Federal District were included.)

With booming expat enclaves in the Chapala Riviera and Puerto Vallarta - the latter area spills into neighboring Nayarit state - this news about foreigners in Jalisco shouldn't come as a surprise. The INM said 56,065 foreign-born residents live in the state, a figure that's probably low as many people arriving in Jalisco simply obtain a tourist card - if anything - and stay for less than six months.

Somewhat curiously, a story announcing the INM findings in the Mural newspaper (subscription required) stated:

"La Perla Tapatia [as Guadalajara is referred to] is now considered one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world."

Not so fast. Yes, Guadalajara is much less provincial than before, but locals still call it El Rancho Grande, in English: The Big Ranch. Many of the foreigners here, according to the INM, are studying in one of the seven local universities. But the city doesn't attract many expats that work and/or run businesses - spare some tech industry workers. (The average age of the foreign-born population is supposedly younger than the average Mexican, but this must simply reflect children born to Mexicans in the U.S. that now live down here.)

Foreign retirees now opt in much larger numbers to settle in the Lake Chapala area. (Take a look at the dwindling membership at the American Society of Jalisco if you don't believe me.) Adding to Chapala's appeal, it has an even better climate and less pollution than Guadalajara. Still, Guadalajara is one of the most livable big cities anywhere and tastes are becoming less conservative - even if the politics and social mores still tilt in that direction.

Guerrilla group sabotages pipelines

The Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) claimed responsibility for two pipeline attacks near Salamanca and Celeya in Guanajuato state that cut the supply of natural gas into the Guadalajara area. Another attack in Queretaro happened earlier today.

EPR, reportedly a group that was active in southern Mexico in the 1990s, demanded that Oaxaca governor Ulises Ruiz and President Felipe Calderon release two members detained on May 25 in Oaxaca. The group promised that the attacks would continue until their demands are met.

Ulises Ruiz's resignation is long overdue, but groups like EPR hurt that cause with these attacks. Perhaps the Oaxaca conflict will blow up again, deepening the misery for the beleaguered residents being hurt by a lack of tourism.

Meanwhile, the pipeline explosion shut down many factories in Guadalajara and Western Mexico. Residential customers were spared since not many homes are hooked up to the natural gas network. Interestingly, the municipality of Guadalajara has no residential natural gas service as the prospect of combustibles running under the city unsettles quite a few residents, who no doubt vividly remember the April 22, 1992 explosion, which was caused by gasoline that leaked into the sewer system.

Update: As per usual the Mexfiles blog has a thorough analysis of this issue and even presents some of the contrarian opinions voiced in the Mexican media.