Tag Archives: Mexico City

World

Biden, Lopez Obrador open Mexico meetings with brusque talk

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador challenged U.S. President Joe Biden to end an attitude of “abandonment” and “disdain” for Latin America and the Caribbean as the two leaders met on Monday, making for a brusque opening to a summit of North American leaders.

The comments were a stark contrast to the public display of affection between López Obrador and Biden shortly before, as they smiled and embraced and shook hands for the cameras. But once the two sat down in an ornate room at the Palacio Nacional, flanked by delegations of top officials, it didn’t take long for tensions to bubble to the surface.

Most of the summit’s work will be handled on Tuesday, when the two leaders and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are to hold hours of talks. Migration, both legal and illegal, and border security will be key topics.

On Monday, López Obrador challenged Biden to improve life across the region, telling him that “you hold the key in your hand.”

“This is the moment for us to determine to do away with this abandonment, this disdain, and this forgetfulness for Latin America and the Caribbean,” he said.

He also complained that too many imports are coming from Asia instead of being produced in the Americas.

“We ask ourselves, couldn’t we produce in America what we consume?” he said. “Of course.”

Biden responded by defending the billions of dollars that the United States spends in foreign aid around the world, saying “unfortunately our responsibility just doesn’t end in the Western Hemisphere.” And he referenced U.S. deaths from fentanyl, a drug that flows over the border from Mexico.

While both men pledged to work together, it was a noticeably sharp exchange, on full display before reporters. It was unclear if the mood would lighten later in the evening, when Biden and López Obrador were to have dinner with Trudeau and their wives.

The meeting is held most years, although there was a hiatus while Donald Trump was U.S. president. It’s often called the “three amigos summit,” a reference to the deep diplomatic and economic ties between the countries, but new strains have emerged.

All three countries are struggling to handle an influx of people arriving in North America and to crack down on smugglers who profit from persuading migrants to make the dangerous trip to the U.S.

In addition, Canada and the U.S. accuse López Obrador of violating a free trade pact by favoring Mexico’s state-owed utility over power plants built by foreign and private investors. Meanwhile, Trudeau and López Obrador are concerned about Biden’s efforts to boost domestic manufacturing, creating concerns that U.S. neighbors could be left behind.

Biden and López Obrador haven’t been on particularly good terms for the past two years either. The Mexican leader made no secret of his admiration for Trump, and last year he skipped a Los Angeles summit because Biden didn’t invite the authoritarian regimes of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

However, there have been attempts made at thawing the relationship. Biden made a point of flying into the new Felipe Angeles International Airport, a prized project of the Mexican president even though it’s been a source of controversy.

The airport, which is expected to cost $4.1 billion when finished, is more than an hour’s drive north of the city center, has few flights and until recently lacked consistent drinking water. However, it’s one of the keystone projects that López Obrador is racing to finish before his term ends next year, along with an oil refinery, a tourist train in the Yucatan Peninsula and a train linking Gulf coast and Pacific seaports.

The two leaders rode into Mexico City in Biden’s limousine. López Obrador was fascinated by the presidential vehicle known as “the beast,” and he said Biden “showed me how the buttons work.”

In a notably warm comment, the Mexican president described the two leaders’ first encounter of the trip as “very pleasant,” and he said “President Biden is a friendly person.”

The U.S. and Mexico have also reached an agreement on a major shift in migration policy, which Biden announced last week.

Under the plan, the U.S. will send 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela back across the border from among those who entered the U.S. illegally. Migrants who arrive from those four countries are not easily returned to their home countries for a variety of reasons.

In addition, 30,000 people per month from those four nations who get sponsors, background checks and an airline flight to the U.S. will get the ability to work legally in the country for two years.

On Monday, before the summit began, López Obrador said he would consider accepting more migrants than previously announced.

“We don’t want to anticipate things, but this is part of what we are going to talk about at the summit,” López Obrador said. “We support this type of measures, to give people options, alternatives,” he said, adding that “the numbers may be increased.”

Mexico would likely also require an increase in those receiving work authorization in the U.S. in order to take back more migrants who are being expelled.

Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, cautioned that nothing was decided yet.

“What we need is to see how the program announced last week works in practice, what if any adjustments need to be made to that program and then we can talk about taking the next steps,” he said.

On his way to Mexico, Biden stopped in El Paso, Texas, for four hours — his first time at the border as president and the longest he’s spent along the U.S-Mexico line. The visit was highly controlled and seemed designed to counter Republican claims of a crisis situation by showcasing a smooth operation to process migrants entering legally, weed out smuggled contraband and humanely treat those who’ve entered illegally.

But the trip was likely to do little to quell critics from both sides, including immigrant advocates who accuse the Democratic president of establishing cruel policies not unlike those of his hardline predecessor, Republican Donald Trump.

The number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has risen dramatically during Biden’s first two years in office. There were more than 2.38 million stops during the year that ended Sept. 30, the first time the number topped 2 million.

On Monday afternoon, López Obrador formally welcomed Biden at the Palacio Nacional, the first time since 2014 that Mexico has hosted a U.S. president.

In a display of solidarity, the first ladies of the U.S. and Mexico delivered the same speech, alternating between Jill Biden in English and Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller in Spanish.

“We believe that poverty is not destined by God, but the product of inequality,” Jill Biden said. “We know that the poor deserve to live better and are working with compassion, every day, to improve lives for everyone.”

Earlier in the day, Jill Biden met with women from the fields of education, art and business, most of them recipients of U.S. cooperation programs or scholarships.

“Do whatever you want but teach others,” she said.

Biden is expected to follow up his first trip to Mexico as president with another to Canada, although it has not yet been scheduled.

A senior Canadian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said Canada is working with Americans on a visit in the near future.

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Associated Press writers Andres Leighton in El Paso, Texas; Anita Snow in Phoenix; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Mark Stevenson and Christopher Sherman in Mexico City; Rob Gillies in Toronto and Chris Megerian and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

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World

Mexico earthquake: 6.8 magnitude earthquake shakes Mexico, 1 dead

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MEXICO CITY — A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 struck Mexico early Thursday, causing buildings to sway and leaving at least one person dead in the nation’s capital.

The earthquake struck shortly after 1 a.m., just three days after a 7.6-magnitude earthquake shook western and central Mexico, killing two.

The U.S. Geological Survey said Thursday’s earthquake, like Monday’s, was centered in the western state of Michoacan near the Pacific coast. The epicenter was about 29 miles (46 kilometers) south-southwest of Aguililla, Michoacan, at a depth of about 15 miles (24.1 kilometers).

Michoacan’s state government said the quake was felt throughout the state. It reported damage to a building in the city of Uruapan and some landslides on the highway that connects Michoacan and Guerrero with the coast.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said via Twitter that it was an aftershock from Monday’s quake and was also felt in the states of Colima, Jalisco and Guerrero.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said via Twitter that one woman died in a central neighborhood when she fell down the stairs of her home. Residents were huddled in streets as seismic alarms blared.

The earthquake rattled an already jittery country. Monday’s more powerful quake was the third major earthquake to strike on Sept. 19 – in 1985, 2017 and now 2022. The 2017 and 2022 Sept. 19 quakes came very shortly after the annual earthquake drill conducted every Sept. 19 to commemorate the devastating 1985 temblor that killed some 9,500 people.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.



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World

Official: 6 of 43 missing Mexican students given to army

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Six of the 43 college students “disappeared” in 2014 were allegedly kept alive in a warehouse for days then turned over to the local army commander who ordered them killed, the Mexican government official leading a Truth Commission said Friday.

Interior Undersecretary Alejandro Encinas made the shocking revelation directly tying the military to one of Mexico’s worst human rights scandals, and it came with little fanfare as he made a lengthy defense of the commission’s report released a week earlier.

Last week, despite declaring the abductions and disappearances a “state crime” and saying that the army watched it happen without intervening, Encinas made no mention of six students being turned over to Col. José Rodríguez Pérez.

On Friday, Encinas said authorities were closely monitoring the students from the radical teachers’ college at Ayotzinapa from the time they left their campus through their abduction by local police in the town of Iguala that night. A soldier who had infiltrated the school was among the abducted students, and Encinas asserted the army did not follow its own protocols and try to rescue him.

“There is also information corroborated with emergency 089 telephone calls where allegedly six of the 43 disappeared students were held during several days and alive in what they call the old warehouse and from there were turned over to the colonel,” Encinas said. “Allegedly the six students were alive for as many as four days after the events and were killed and disappeared on orders of the colonel, allegedly the then Col. José Rodríguez Pérez.”

The defense department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the allegations Friday.

The role of the army in the students’ disappearance has long been a source of tension between the families and the government. From the beginning, there were questions about the military’s knowledge of what happened and its possible involvement. The students’ parents demanded for years that they be allowed to search the army base in Iguala. It was not until 2019 that they were given access along with Encinas and the Truth Commission.

The commission report says the army registered an anonymous emergency call on Sept. 30, 2014, four days after the students’ abduction. The caller reportedly said the students were being held in a large concrete warehouse in a location described as “Pueblo Viejo.” The caller proceeded to describe the location.

That entry was followed by several pages of redacted material, but that section of the report concluded with the following: “As can be seen, obvious collusion existed between agents of the Mexican state with the criminal group Guerreros Unidos that tolerated, allowed and participated in events of violence and disappearance of the students, as well as the government’s attempt to hide the truth about the events.”

Later, in a summary of how the commission’s report differed from the original investigation’s conclusions, there is mention of a colonel.

“On Sept. 30 ‘the colonel’ mentions that they will take care of cleaning everything up and that they had already taken charge of the six students who had remained alive,” the report said.

In a witness statement provided to federal investigators in December 2014, Capt. José Martínez Crespo, who was stationed at the base in Iguala, said the base commander for the 27th Infantry Battalion at the time was Col. José Rodriguez Pérez.

Through a driving rain later Friday, the families of the 43 missing students marched in Mexico City with a couple hundred other people as they have on the 26th of every month for years.

Parents carried posters of their children’s faces and rows of current students from the teachers’ college marched, shouted calls for justice and counted off to 43. Their signs proclaimed that the fight for justice continued and asserted: “It was the State.”

Clemente Rodríguez marched for his son Christian Alfonso Rodríguez Telumbre, who was a second student identified by a tiny burned bone fragment.

Rodríguez said the families had been told last week before the report was released about the coronel and the six students.

“It’s not by omission anymore. It’s that they participated,” he said of the military. “It was the state, the three levels of government participated.”

He said the families had not been told that any of the arrest orders announced last week for members of armed forces had been carried out yet.

On Sept. 26, 2014, local police took the students off buses they had commandeered in Iguala. The motive for the police action remains unclear eight years later. Their bodies have never been found, though fragments of burned bone have been matched to three of the students.

Last week, federal agents arrested former Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam, who oversaw the original investigation. On Wednesday, a judge ordered that he stand trial for forced disappearance, not reporting torture and official misconduct. Prosecutors allege Murillo Karam created a false narrative about what happened to the students to quickly appear to resolve the case.

Authorities also said last week that arrest warrants were issued for 20 soldiers and officers, five local officials, 33 local police officers and 11 state police officers as well as 14 gang members. Neither the army nor prosecutors have said how many of those suspects are in custody.

It was also not immediately clear if Rodríguez Pérez was among those sought.

Rodríguez, the student’s father, said Murillo Karam’s arrest was a positive step.

Murillo Karam “was the one who told us the soldiers couldn’t be touched,” Rodríguez said. “And now it’s being discovered that it was the state that participated.”

In a joint statement, the families said the Truth Commission’s confirmation that it was a “state crime” was significant after elements suggesting that over the years.

However, they said the report still did not satisfactorily answer their most important question.

“Mothers and fathers need indubitable scientific evidence as to the fate of our children,” the statement said. “We can’t go home with preliminary signs that don’t fully clear up where they are and what happened to them.”

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has given Mexico’s military enormous responsibility. The armed forces are not only at the center of his security strategy, but they have taken over administration of the seaports and been given responsibility for building a new airport for the capital and a tourist train on the Yucatan Peninsula.

The president has said often that the army and navy are the least corrupt institutions and have his confidence.

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US

Mexico’s capture of drug kingpin could be signal to US

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — The United States’ motivation to find infamous drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero was never in doubt — hence the $20 million reward for information leading to his capture — there was less certainty about the commitment of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had made clear his lack of interest in pursuing drug lords.

Yet on Friday, three days after López Obrador and U.S. President Joe Biden met in the White House, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s most wanted target was in Mexican custody.

The man allegedly responsible for the murder of a DEA agent more than three decades ago was rousted from the undergrowth by a bloodhound as Mexican marines closed in deep in the mountains of his native state of Sinaloa.

The arrest came at a heavy cost: Fourteen Mexican marines died and another was injured when a navy Blackhawk helicopter crashed during the operation. The navy said it appeared to have been an accident, with the cause under investigation.

Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office said in a statement late Friday that Caro Quintero was arrested for extradition to the U.S. and would be held at the maximum security Altiplano prison about 50 miles west of Mexico City.

DEA Administrator Anne Milgram celebrated the capture of a man especially despised by U.S. officials for the torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in 1985. “Our incredible DEA team in Mexico worked in partnership with Mexican authorities to capture and arrest Rafael Caro Quintero”, she said in a message to the agency late Friday. “Today’s arrest is the result of years of your blood, sweat, and tears.”

Cooperation between the DEA and Mexico’s marines had led to some of the highest-profile captures during previous administrations, but not under López Obrador, noted security analyst David Saucedo.

“It seems to me that in the private talks between President Joe Biden and Andrés Manuel (López Obrador) they surely agreed to turning over high-profile drug traffickers again, which had been suspended,” Saucedo said.

Both presidents face domestic pressure to do more against drug traffickers. With Caro Quintero’s arrest, “Narcos are being captured again and I believe that clearly it was what was in fact needed,” Saucedo said.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said in a statement Saturday that no U.S. personnel participated directly in the tactical operation that led to the capture of the drug lord. “The apprehension of Caro Quintero was exclusively conducted by the Mexican government.”

Samuel González, who founded the organized crime office in Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office and now is a security analyst, said the capture may not have a major effect on the map of organized crime in Mexico, as Caro Quintero was not as powerful as decades ago, and it might even generate more violence in territories such as Sonora, at the US border.

But he said that to López Obrador’s benefit, the arrest “shows evidence that there’s no protection of capos” by his administration.

González believes Caro Quintero has long been a thorn in the bilateral relationship, but said that “without doubt” his capture was fruit of the recent negotiations in Washington.

“The Americans never stopped pressing for his arrest,” González said.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Salazar expressed gratitude for Mexico’s capture of the man blamed for killing Camarena — a case that brought a low point in U.S.-Mexico relations.

“This achievement is a testament to Mexico’s determination to bring to justice someone who terrorized and destabilized Mexico during his time in the Guadalajara Cartel; and is implicated in the kidnapping, torture and murder of DEA agent Kiki Camarena,” Salazar said in a statement late Friday.

Garland said the U.S. government would seek his immediate extradition.

“My hope is that with the capture of Caro Quintero, that that will mend a lot of tensions between the DEA and Mexico”, said Mike Vigil, the DEA’s former chief of international operations.

Mexico’s navy and Attorney’s General Office led the operation deep in the mountains that straddle the border between Sinaloa and Chihuahua states, many miles from any paved road. They found Caro Quintero, with help of “Max,” hiding in brush in a place in Sinaloa called San Simon.

López Obrador said that the helicopter that crashed in the coastal city of Los Mochis had been supporting the operation against Caro Quintero. U.S. officials expressed condolences for the marines who died.

Caro Quintero came from Badiraguato, Sinaloa, the same township as Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, which formed later. Caro Quintero was one of the founders of the Guadalajara cartel and according to the DEA was one of the primary suppliers of heroin, cocaine and marijuana to the United States in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Caro Quintero had blamed Camarena for a raid on a huge marijuana plantation in 1984. The next year, Camarena was kidnapped in Guadalajara, allegedly on orders from Caro Quintero. His tortured body was found a month later.

Caro Quintero was captured in Costa Rica in 1985 and was serving a 40-year sentence in Mexico when an appeals court overturned his verdict in 2013. The Supreme Court upheld the sentence, but it was too late — Caro Quintero had been spirited off in a waiting vehicle.

Caro Quintero was added to FBI’s 10 most wanted list in 2018 with a $20 million reward for his capture.

López Obrador had previously seemed ambivalent about his case.

Last year, the president said the legal appeal that led to Caro Quintero’s release was “justified” because supposedly no verdict had been handed down against the drug lord after 27 years in jail. López Obrador also depicted a later warrant for his re-arrest as an example of U.S. pressure.

“Once he was out, they had to look for him again, because the United States demanded he shouldn’t have been released, but legally the appeal was justified,” López Obrador said.

Presidential spokesman Jesús Ramírez said at the time, “The president was just saying that it was a legal aberration that the judge had not issued a verdict on Mr. Caro Quintero after 27 years … but he was not defending his release.”

Mexican reporter Anabel Hernandez twice interviewed the fugitive Caro Quintero in the mountains of northern Mexico without revealing the location. Caro Quintero claimed in those interviews that he was no longer involved in the drug trade.

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World

Fernando González, AP head of Caribbean news, dies in Cuba

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Fernando González, who spent decades covering and directing major stories for The Associated Press across Latin America, from papal visits to border skirmishes, hurricanes and hostage standoffs, has died in Havana.

González, 60, died at his home early Monday after suffering a heart attack, Cuba’s forensic medicine director said.

Gregarious and seemingly inexhaustible, González, known for his trademark long gray ponytail, was especially strong and compassionate in crisis situations, both covering the news and tirelessly organizing help when colleagues were ill or injured.

“Fernando represented the best of AP. He was a terrific journalist and loved the big stories,” said AP Executive Editor Julie Pace. “He was also a warm and caring colleague, someone whose impact was felt across all corners of the organization. He will be dearly missed.”

Born in Uruguay, González graduated from high school in Santiago, Chile, and then attended the University of Miami. He worked for a local radio station before eventually moving into news production, often freelancing for The Associated Press in Latin America.

González joined the AP full time in 2002 as senior producer for television news in Havana. He moved to Washington, D.C., in 2014 as regional video editor for Latin America and the Caribbean and then to Mexico City as the AP’s deputy news director for the region in 2016. González returned to Cuba in 2020 as news director for the Caribbean and Andes.

Among the major stories he covered were the 1996 hostage siege at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Peru, Hurricane Mitch’s devastating impact on Central America in 1998, and the 2004 coup that overthrew Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

In 2007 González reported from Antarctica on the visit of U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

González also covered three papal trips to Cuba by St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, as well as President Barack Obama’s historic visit in 2016 and the death of former Cuban President Fidel Castro later that year.

Anita Snow, who reopened AP’s Havana bureau in 1999 after a nearly 30-year absence, praised González as “a great journalist,” calling him, “an even better human being: warm, generous and consistently kind.”

“And he probably knew Latin America better than anyone,” said Snow, who worked with González in Cuba and Mexico. She is currently an AP writer in Phoenix.

Chris Gillette, senior video producer for the AP in Brazil and a high school classmate of González, agreed.

“He was a really good people person, and very charming, so he was able to get into places others might find challenging — a true raconteur, amiable and smart,” Gillette said.

Nico Maounis, head of special news events for AP’s broadcast services, recalled Gonzalez as the consummate deal broker, gaining the AP access to everyone from presidents and other high officials to the simple man on the street.

“What was he like as a person? He was outgoing, he was cosmopolitan, he was funny, he was a diplomat, he was serious, a comic and a joker. He was everything,” Maounis said.

Longtime AP photographer Enric Marti summed up González’s compassion for those less fortunate, noting how he continued to patronize his favorite Mexico City restaurant, Lucille, even during the pandemic when others stayed away, tipping the waiters handsomely.

“He kept going and raised money for the waiters. … They basically had no tips and no money,” said Marti, AP’s deputy director of photography/global enterprise. “Whenever I was in town we would meet in Lucille. It was Fernando’s bar.”

González is survived by his wife Lisa, children Maria Linda and Nicolas, and three grandchildren, as well as his parents.

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World

Mexico City marks fall of Aztec capital 500 years ago

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Walking for hours through the gritty streets in the center of Mexico City, you can hear the daily urban soundtrack: Car engines, the call of the man who buys scrap metal and the handbells that announce the passing of a garbage truck.

It’s hard to imagine that some of these streets trace the outline of what was, five centuries ago, Tenochtitlan, a sophisticated city on an island in a bridge-studded lake where a great civilization flourished.

The Aztec emperors who ruled much of the land that became Mexico were defeated by a Spanish-led force that seized the city on August 13, 1521.

Despite all that was lost in the epic event 500 years ago — an empire and countless Indigenous lives — much remains of that civilization on the anniversary of its collapse. Vestiges lie beneath the streets, in the minds of the people, and on their plates.

Then, as now, the city’s center was dedicated to commerce, with vendors laying out wares on blankets or in improvised stalls, much as they would have done in 1521.

Artists, intellectuals and the government are trying to show what it was all like and what remains, in novel forms: they plan to paint a line on the streets of the city of 9 million to show where the boundaries of the ancient city of Tenochtitlan ended. The drying up of lakes that once surrounded the city long ago erased that line.

Officials have also built a near life-size replica of the Aztecs’ twin temples in the capital’s vast main plaza.

It is part of a project to rescue the memory of the world-changing event, which for too long has been mired in the old and largely inaccurate vision of Indigenous groups conquered by the victorious Spaniards.

“What really was the Conquest? What have we been told about it? Who were the victors, and who were the defeated?” asks Margarita Cossich, a Guatemalan archaeologist who is working with a team from the National Autonomous University. “It is much more complex than simply talking of the good versus the bad, the Spaniards against the Indigenous groups.”

For example, expedition leader Hernán Cortés and his 900 Spaniards made up only about one percent of the army of thousands of allies from Indigenous groups oppressed by the Aztecs.

But the official projects pale in comparison to the real-life surviving elements of Aztec life. The line delimiting the old city boundaries will run near where women sell corn tortillas, whose ingredients have varied not at all since the Aztecs.

Other stands sell amaranth sweets mixed with honey or nuts; in Aztec times, the amaranth seeds were mixed with blood of sacrificed warriors and molded into the shapes of gods. And then eaten, as historian Hugo García Capistrán, explains, but with a sense of ritual.

Not everything ended on Aug. 13, 1521, when the last leader of the Aztec resistance, the Emperor Cuauhtemoc, was taken prisoner by the Spaniards.

There is only a simple plaque marking the spot, in the tough neighborhood of Tepito.

“Tequipeuhcan: ‘The place where slavery began.’ Here the Emperor Cuauhtemotzin was taken prisoner on the afternoon of Aug. 13, 1521,” reads the plaque on a church wall.

A few blocks away, Oswaldo González sells figurines made of obsidian, the dark, glass-like stone prized by the Aztecs.

“Everything the Spaniards couldn’t see and couldn’t destroy, remains alive,” González says.

There also remain traces of Cortés, though they’re neither very public or prominent; Mexicans have learned at school for generations to view him as the enemy. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promoted telling the Indigenous side if the story, and has asked Spain to apologize for the murder, disease and exploitation of the Conquest. Spain hasn’t, and the Spanish ambassador was not invited to the 500th anniversary ceremonies scheduled for Friday.

Archaeologist Esteban Mirón notes that there isn’t a single statue to Moctezuma — the emperor who welcomed Cortés — in the city.

Nor are there any statues of Cortés. As Mirón traces the route that the Spaniard took into the city in 1519 — welcomed at first, the Conquistadores were later expelled — there is a stone plaque commemorating the first meeting between Cortés and the Aztec emperor.

Inside a nearby church, another plaque marks the niche where Cortés’ bones are believed to lie.

It was said he wanted to be buried here, near the site of his greatest victory, made possible by feats like constructing a fleet of wooden warships to assault the lake-ringed island city.

Tenochtitlan was completely surrounded by a shallow lake crossed by narrow causeways, so the Spaniards built attack ships known as bergantines — something akin to floating battle platforms — to fight the Aztecs in their canoes

A street nearby marks the place where Cortés docked those ships, but again, there is no monument.

Tenochtitlan also marked some terrible defeats for the Spaniards. They had entered the city in 1519, but had been chased out with great losses a few months later, leaving most of their plundered gold behind.

On June 30, 1520, the so-called “Sad Night,” now re-dubbed “The Victorious Night,” Cortés was forced to flee, leaving many dead Spaniards behind. “The historical record say that they left walking through the lake, which was not very deep, on top of the bodies of their own comrades,” Mirón notes.

In 1981, a public works project in the area unearthed a bar of melted Aztec gold — a small part of the loot that the Spanish soldiers dropped in their retreat.

But it’s not just artifacts; the spirit of ancient Mexico remains very much alive.

Mary Gloria, 41, works making embroidery in a squatter’s settlement near where the edge of the old city.

Gloria just finished embroidering a figure of “Mictlantecuhtli,” the Aztec god of death, to mark the city’s huge toll in the coronavirus pandemic.

Similar plagues — smallpox, measles and later cholera — nearly wiped out the city’s Indigenous population after the conquest. Survival, above all, was the main Indigenous victory from 1521.

Now, Gloria wants to redeem Malinche, the indigenous woman who helped the Spaniards as a translator. Long considered a traitor, Malinche ensured the survival of her line.

“It is up to us rewrite the script,” Gloria says.

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Business

How to travel abroad while working remotely

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New travel companies are making it easier for remote workers to live and work abroad without the long-term commitment.

So-called “workcations” are on the rise, with 74% of Americans who are working from home saying they would consider taking one, according to a report published in March by The Harris Poll.

But rather than booking a hotel room at the nearest beach, travel companies are enticing workers to venture farther from home with international itineraries and accommodations that are suited to their work schedules.

Work by day, explore by night

Sojrn (pronounced “sojourn”) designs month-long trips that allow remote workers to work abroad while learning about a topic related to the location. Travelers can explore philosophy in Greece, wine in Italy, wellness in Bali or Spanish skills in Colombia — all while maintaining their regular work hours.

The company arranges lodging and workspaces, as well as logistical items such as SIM cards and airport transfers, the company’s founder and CEO Tara Cappel told CNBC. Every trip includes one theme-based activity per week, with optional activities that can be added if work schedules permit, she said.

Trips of a month or more aren’t just for full-time remote workers, said Cappel. They also work for office workers who are negotiating annual periods of remote work.

“People aren’t going to be happy just going back to where it was before,” said Cappel, adding that they “are going to be more open to traveling differently and bringing their work with them if they can.”

Prices for Sojrn’s month-long Tuscany wine trip range from around $3,900 to $5,800, depending on accommodations.

Anna Richey

Sojrn opened bookings in April. The Tuscany wine trip sold out in six hours, while the Bali wellness trip was fully booked in one weekend, she said. Now, around 4,500 people are on the waitlist for 2022 trips, said Cappel.

To keep up with demand, the company is organizing new trips for 2022 with themes such as conservation in South Africa, cuisine in Mexico City, fashion in Paris and history in Rome, she said. The U.S. company is also launching its first domestic trip next year — jazz in New Orleans.

Flexible stays in Europe

If a month is too long — or too little — to stay in one place, remote workers can organize their own trips through companies like Floasis, a website with accommodations that are vetted for remote work.

“Being remote workers ourselves, we knew how frustrating it was to get bad surprises when it comes to booking a stay,” said co-founder and CEO Kristina Kutan. “That’s why we make sure that each of our [locations] is tested and approved by a remote worker.

Lola Casamitjana, the firm’s co-founder and chief commercial officer, said the remote work lifestyle was inevitable.

“The pandemic was only an accelerator,” she said. “It was the kick that brought down the last walls, making it clear … we were now in dire need for new, more fulfilling ways to live and work.”

Remote work stays in this castle in Manche, France start at 350 euros ($420) per week.

Courtesy of Floasis

After a year of planning, the website launched last week, said Casamitjana, with listings that have workspaces, inspiring surroundings and communities for workers to connect with.

Accommodations are in Europe and Morocco and vary from village houses and seaside apartments to a Portuguese winery, French castle and Greek eco-farm. Most places can be booked by the night, week or month, and some include breakfast and yoga classes in the rate.  

“This year we are focusing on Europe and want to reach 1,000 listings by the end of 2021,” she said.

More options for work-travel trips

Companies such as Remote Year have been catering to remote workers long before the pandemic. Launched in 2014, the company has retreats as short as one week as well as its namesake 12-month programs that traverse four continents.

Unsettled organizes semi-structured work-travel trips that focus on connecting like-minded people together. Trips range from one to four weeks.

For people who want to combine work, travel and social good into one trip, there’s Venture with Impact. Its week- and month-long trips are small — about four to 10 people — and the company matches participants’ skills and interests with needs in places, such as Mexico and Thailand. The 2021 itinerary includes trips to Medellin, Colombia and Lisbon, Portugal, though the exact dates haven’t been announced online.

Read more about remote work

For those who aspire to the “digital nomad” lifestyle, WiFly Nomads is a training program that teaches people how to become a remote worker, while simultaneously getting a small taste of the lifestyle. Five-day programs are held in Bali and cost around $4,000, according to the company’s website.

Due to uncertainty surrounding Covid restrictions, the next program is anticipated to launch in early 2022, said Kate Smith, WiFly Nomads’ founder and CEO. In the meantime, the company is running 12-week online programs that teach people how to land a remote job.

“This has been of particular interest to those who don’t want to return back to the office after working from home,” she said.

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