New Ojos Negros Resort

Looks nice

www.ojosnegroshacienda.com

City changes ticket and fine process

By Sandra Dibble (Contact) Union-Tribune Staff Writer

2:00 a.m. January 10, 2009

ROSARITO BEACH — U.S. visitors who commit infractions such as speeding, running a red light or parking by a fire hydrant in the tourist-oriented city of Rosarito Beach now receive tickets printed in English and Spanish.

The city also now allows drivers to pay fines by mail to a U.S. postal box rather than follow the officer to the police station and face a municipal judge.

Mayor Hugo Torres said the measures are intended as a convenience for foreign visitors, but also to decrease the possibility of an encounter with a dishonest police officer who demands payment on the spot.

The tickets list 23 common infractions and the fines they entail, in both pesos and dollars. Driving without headlights, $17.50; parking in a taxi zone, $21.90; rolling through a stop sign, $43.85. The city cuts the fines in half for visitors who pay within 15 days.

The fines are the same for Mexican drivers. Only members of Rosarito's 25-member tourist police force have been authorized to issue tickets to foreign drivers, said the city's secretary of public safety, Jorge Eduardo Montero Alvarez.

When a foreigner is stopped away from tourist areas, “the policeman has to call a tourism officer to issue the ticket,” Montero said. Drivers can appear before a judge if they want to contest the ticket.

The measures come as Rosarito Beach has been reaching out for tourists. Reports of violence, the U.S. economic downturn and clogged border crossings have left Baja California tourist destinations struggling economically in recent months.

Baja California's deputy tourism secretary, Ives Lelevier, said other municipalities in the state have instituted bilingual ticket programs, namely Tijuana, Mexicali and Ensenada.

Rosarito Beach's previous mayoral administration had started a bilingual ticket program, but it had been abandoned for months by the time Torres took office in December 2007, Montero said. Torres launched the new program last month.

Tijuana does not have a separate bilingual ticket, but part of its regular tickets are translated into English.

Alfonso Saenz, Tijuana's transit chief, said all ticketed drivers in his city are required to appear in person before a municipal judge who sets the fine. Especially with tourism down, Saenz said, officers have been encouraged to use their judgment and issue a warning to foreign drivers who may be unfamiliar with the area.

Mexico welcomes the US from the 70s.

To me it sounds much like the gas shortage in he US in the 70s or even the Alleged fake Gas shortage in Phoenix in 2005(ish).

If you have gas for almost 50% of what we pay here you had better expect a big increase in customers.


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By Omar Millán González
UNION-TRIBUNE

July 3, 2008

TIJUANA – Hundreds of truck and bus drivers in Tijuana spent six to eight hours in line for diesel fuel yesterday after being promised by station supervisors that Pemex, the Mexican government's oil monopoly, would make deliveries.

However, slow distribution frustrated drivers.

Joaquín Aviña, president of the Association of Gas Station Owners in Tijuana, said some transit drivers pushed station employees and screamed at them after they were unable to buy fuel. Diesel fuel is in high demand in Tijuana because its low price is attractive to buyers who might normally fill up in the United States.

“We are getting supplied (with diesel), and we are selling it without even doing inventory,” said Juan Jose García, supervisor of a Pemex station. “But we cannot keep up with the number of customers, even though they have been waiting for several hours.”

Héctor Campa of the federal consumer protection agency in Baja California said it had received two complaints about gas stations selling diesel to only certain customers.

He said if a station has diesel, it is required by law to sell it to whomever wants to buy it.

Baja expecting 200,000 spring break visitors

By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

8:00 p.m. March 6, 2008

By the numbers

Dial these numbers for help when in Baja California:

078: For tourist assistance. The state of Baja California has staffed its tourist hotline with English speakers.

066 or 911: Dial these numbers from most cell phones to reach the state police communications center. Ask to be connected to an English-speaking operator.

SOURCE: State of Baja California
TIJUANA – Baja California officials said Thursday they are expecting close to 200,000 Mexican and foreign tourists to visit their state during the upcoming three-week spring break and Holy Week period.

“For us, it's going to be a vacation period like we haven't seen for the past two years,” Oscar Escobedo Carignan, Baja California's tourism secretary, said at a news conference in Tijuana. “We believe we have an opportunity in our hands.”

Reports of violence and police extortion in Baja California took a heavy toll on tourism, and were a factor in reducing the numbers of U.S. visitors to the state by close to 2 million last year. Lengthy waits at the border also have discouraged visits, officials say.


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Escobedo on Thursday stressed the measures that have been taken to make the state safer for visitors, including the restructuring of tourist police units, increasing federal patrols on the toll road between Tijuana and Ensenada and staffing the state's emergency response center with English-speakers.

Escobedo said police extortions have dropped dramatically in recent months following a series of measures by the state and municipal governments.

The Tourism Secretariat is anticipating that vacationers will spend close to $20 million in the state during the period that starts Monday and ends March 24. In addition to spring break and the Christian Holy Week, the state anticipates visitors for the SCORE San Felipe 250 Road Race on March 14 and 15.

The state is adding staff to man tourist information booths in all five municipalities. Rosarito Beach authorities swore in 238 citizen watchdogs this week to assist tourists. The Baja California Attorney General's Office has added English-speaking staff to take tourists' crime reports.

source: signonsandiego.com

Mexico and the Sharks of Ecotourism

http://www.mexidata.info/id1718.html

February 11, 2008

Mexico and the Sharks of Ecotourism

Frontera NorteSur

In Baja California and other Mexican coastal states, ecotourism is promoted as an answer to declining resource-based economies and old school sun and surf-style visitation packages. Within the ecotourism sector, extreme sports activities are one variation of attractions designed to lure the dollars of affluent foreigners and Mexicans. But one form of extreme ecotourism, cage diving with sharks, is raising questions about the management of Mexico's natural resources as well as the safety and integrity of both humans and animals.

A remote chunk of land off the Pacific Coast of Baja California, Guadalupe Island is a hot spot for shark cage diving. Every year one hundred or more great white sharks gather near the island, likely drawn by Guadalupe's tasty seals. In April 2005, Guadalupe Island was declared a protected biosphere reserve by the federal Mexican government. However, the reserve lacks governmental or medical facilities.

Guadalupe Island's lack of infrastructure hasn't stopped several San Diego-based tour operators from offering adrenaline-spiked encounters with the magnificent if potentially deadly great white sharks. Running expeditions from the port of Ensenada, Baja California, tour boats ferry as many as 22 people on shark-seeing adventures. Advertised on the Internet, five or seven-day Guadalupe Island packages range from $2,750 to $4,295 in price. Once near the island, tourists don diving gear and are then put into cages from where they observe great whites swimming near the enclosures. The circling sharks are attracted by bait, usually tuna, dangled from a line.

According to Mexican environmentalist and columnist Ivan Restrepo, a November 4 trip crossed the line in keeping sharks and people at safe distances. Restrepo reported in a recent column that a great white shark snagged itself on a cage which contained two tourists, ripping apart an entire section of the "barrier." Luckily, the two thrill-seeking tourists, who presumably got their money's worth, escaped harm.

Restrepo said a previous pilot study conducted by Dr. Jose L. Castillo Geniz, a researcher with Mexico's Regional Fisheries Research Center of Ensenada, resulted in recommendations to tour operators about where to place the bait and how to keep a prudent distance from the sharks.

"(Tour operators) promised to do it, but nothing more," Restrepo charged. "The lives of tourists and sharks continue being at risk."

The incident reported by Restrepo once again raised questions about the possible impacts of ecotourism on wild animals. Whale-watching, for instance, is an economic plus for coastal residents in Baja California, Banderas Bay and other areas, but the popular activity poses important questions. When does the number of boats viewing animals reach a saturation level? How close is a safe distance from an animal? How do human-animal interactions alter the natural breeding, migratory and other patterns of wild species?

According to Restrepo, Guadalupe Island's shark tourism brings in about $3 million per year for the tour operators, who pay nominal permit fees to Mexico's Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment.

"The business of taking tourists to watch white sharks on Guadalupe Island is an excellent one for a small group from the neighboring country," Restrepo wrote, "but not for the natural reserve, which lacks resources to establish a management plan, sponsor research or pay its personnel better…."

On the other hand, tour operators maintain that their Guadalupe Island excursions help shield protected great white sharks from poachers, who hunt the endangered creatures for the lucrative global fin market. Recent reports estimate that the worldwide population of great white sharks has declined by as much as 70-90 percent. A group of San Diego shark-watching tour operators has established the non-profit Guadalupe Island Conservation Fund to raise money for the preservation of the local shark population.

"Great whites are listed as endangered in Mexico; however there are no resources to dispatch park rangers in small enforcement vessels to protect them," said a statement from the Fund posted on its website.

Experts regard closer US-Mexico collaboration as essential for preserving the great white shark, which is an international traveler of excellence. After tagging a male great white shark with an electronic tracking device in early 2007, a cross-border team of researchers released the young predator into the ocean from the privately-owned Monterey Bay Aquarium in north-central California. Months later, the shark surfaced off the southern coast of Baja California near Cabo San Lucas.

"It clearly shows that like many migratory animals, sharks don't recognize international boundaries," said Dr. Salvador Jorgensen, a researcher with the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Hopkins Marine Station. "It underscores how important it is to work closely with our Mexican colleagues to make sure we have adequate protection for the species," Jorgensen told a California newspaper.

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Sources: La Jornada, February 4, 2008. Article by Ivan Restrepo. Monterey County Herald (California), May 23, 2007. Article by Kevin Howe. Guadalupefund.org

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Frontera NorteSur (FNS)
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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(Reprinted with authorization from Frontera NorteSur, a free, on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news source. FNS can be found at http://frontera.nmsu.edu/)

Translation FNS

Second Quake in 3 Days Rocks Baja California

A moderate earthquake struck Baja California Monday morning.

The United States Geologicial Survey has a preliminary 5.1 magnitude for the quake which struck at 10:29 west, northwest of Guadalupe Victoria. That is 21 miles southeast of Mexicali and 101 miles east of Tijuana.

There were no immediate reports of injury or damage.

The temblor came three days after the Mexicali area was rocked by a magnitude 5.4 quake that shut down factories and left 400,000 people without power.

Moderate Quake Rattles Baja California

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A moderate earthquake rocked Baja California in Mexico, shutting down factories near the U.S. border and leaving about 400,000 people without power, authorities said Saturday. No major damage or injuries were immediately reported.

The quake that struck around 11:15 p.m. Friday had a preliminary magnitude of 5.4, said Jessica Sigala, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Co. It was centered 16 miles southeast of the border town of Mexicali and about 100 miles east of Tijuana.

"It has been felt pretty widely in Southern California, southwestern Arizona and probably northern Mexico," Sigala said.

It was followed by at least 15 aftershocks, including four with preliminary magnitudes of 3.8, 3.6, 3.5 and 3.0.

The quake left about 400,000 people without electricity and 1.2 million without cellular telephone service, said Fire Capt. Rene Rosado, director of civil defense in Mexicali.

About 80,000 workers were evacuated or were unable to enter factories for Sony Corp., Honeywell International Inc. and other major corporations that typically run 24 hours a day until the buildings could be checked for damage, he said.

Two bridges showed 2- to 3-inch cracks and were closed until engineers could determine they were safe, he said.

The Baja peninsula is a geologically active region. In 2006, a magnitude-5.4 temblor struck the Mexicali area, but there were no injuries or damage.

source: AP Google