Otomi & San Miguel In 2005, a Mexican team of researchers excavated one of the richest and most important archeological sites in Mexico, La Canada De La Virgin near San Miguel. Replete with pyramidal structures that rival those of Teotihuacan and Maya civilizations, the purpose of the ancient site was to align with, and to [...]
Blog
Otomi & San Miguel
Under the Spell of San Miguel de Allende
In 1937, after several months spent traveling through Mexico, a gangly, 27-year-old Chicago native named Stirling Dickinson, who had been somewhat at loose ends since graduating from Princeton, got off a train in San Miguel de Allende, an arid, down-on-its-luck mountain town 166 miles northwest of Mexico City. Taken from the ramshackle train station by [...]
Is It Safe To Travel To Mexico?
30 August 2011 Christine Delsol of the San Francisco Chronicle asked recently, “Quick – which national capital has the higher murder rate: Mexico City or Washington, D.C.?” If you happen to base your answer on recent headlines and news coverage, your answer will probably be Mexico City. But in fact, Mexico City’s drug-related-homicide rate per [...]
Violence Figures in Mexico Compared to Other Countries
1 April 2011 Comments (2) The Catalist’s statistics-driven analysis of violence in Mexico provides a more accurate assessment of Mexico than many of the sensationalistic and non-contextualized news reports. A website created to “empower the Mexican-American relationship,” the Catalist used international indicators for measuring violence in a country – the number of violent deaths per [...]
The 5 Safest Places to Travel in Mexico
26 April 2011 Last week’s article in the San Francisco Chronicle named the top five safest places in Mexico to travel to, based on homicide rates: 1. Tlaxcala (1.1 deaths per 100,000) – the safest state of Mexico, an agricultural state with archaeological and historical sites as the main attractions 2. Yucatán (1.3) – famous [...]
Sunset Magazine’s 5 Best Mexican Escapes
10 May 2011 The colorful streets of San Miguel (Photo by Marco Antonio Torres) Sunset Magazine recently published their list of the 5 best places to visit in Mexico, titled “5 (Safe) Mexican Escapes.” Their list is as follows: 1. Puerto Vallarta/Sayulita: Popular beach city, and a little north, another beautiful beach city popular with [...]
A Sobering but Fair Take on the Safety Debate
28 June 2011 Former Mexican resident and educator Allan Wall gives a fair take on the Mexican safety debate at Mexidata, acknowledging Mexico’s violence problem and the sobering statistics of deaths in border towns like Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana. He also acknowledges that more Americans were killed in cartel related violence in 2010 (reportedly 108) [...]
Investigation shows U.S. – Mexico Border is Safer than Critics Say
18 July 2011 Despite the bloody picture that many U.S. politicians have painted – a USA Today special analysis found that rates of violent crime along the U.S.-Mexico border have been falling for years, even prior to the U.S. security buildup. It looks like those famous quotes from U.S. politicians, such as Arizona Gov. Jan [...]
Is It Safe To Travel To Mexico?
30 August 2011 Christine Delsol of the San Francisco Chronicle asked recently, “Quick – which national capital has the higher murder rate: Mexico City or Washington, D.C.?” If you happen to base your answer on recent headlines and news coverage, your answer will probably be Mexico City. But in fact, Mexico City’s drug-related-homicide rate per [...]
President Calderon Names San Miguel Top Retirement Community
President Felipe Calderon recently spoke with AARP Viva, the American Association of Retired People’s bilingual publication for Hispanics. In the interview, Calderon addressed violence in Mexico, stressing that tourists should not worry because the violence is limited to certain places. Calderon spoke also of Mexico’s large retirement community, a community that doesn’t get a lot [...]