Baja’s Wine and Food Festival Season is Here

Great wine and savory food are two staples of proper luxury travel. Baja California has both (in abundance) and from April to October, the region showcases the best it has to offer in over 60 events. Last year, more than 50,000 people attended the festival, and this year’s events are already booking quickly.

Fiestas de la Vendimia (Pro Vino) and the CANIRAC restaurant association are presenting most of this year’s activities, most taking place around the wine country of Valle de Guadalupe and the neighboring seaport of Ensenada. “This diverse collection of festivities holds something for everyone, including wine seminars, award presentations, golf tournaments, vineyard concerts, bullfights, tango dancing, food and wine pairings, country picnics, fiestas, a winery inauguration, wine and lobster festival, paella competition, and more,” as reported by Mexidata, who has a great write up of this year’s festival on their site.

The official list of events can be found at Fiestas de la Vendimia. Note, the site is only in Spanish. Be sure to check out their photo gallery, though, for an idea of how much fun was had at the 2009 festival.

Mexico’s New Minister of Tourism Ready to Go

Just weeks after being appointed Mexico’s new Minister of Tourism, Gloria Guevara spoke at Tianguis about how Mexico has not been taking advantage of what the country has to offer in the way of historical and cultural tourism.

We all know that Mexico is geographically diverse and incredibly beautiful, but Guevara reiterated a great fact when she pointed out that Mexico has more Unesco World Heritage Sites than any other country in Latin America. In an effort to increase tourism to these sites, Guevara and the Ministry of Tourism have created and will host its first Cultural Tourism Conference to be held in Morelia later this year.

The conference will be geared towards tour operators and should be a great opportunity to collaborate on ways to increase tourism. Now if we can just get the American media to play fair…

Cabo San Lucas International Film Festival

Traveling to Cabo San Lucas for their International Film Festival is a must for anyone who loves luxury travel. The event, which will be held from November 5th to the 10th, is sure to be nothing short of glamorous as many of Hollywood’s celebrities with homes in the area are expected to be in attendance.

Cabo is considered the first “fly-in, sail-in vacation destination for the stars,” and for good reason as Cabo’s natural beauty is only an hour away from Hollywood’s brightest. The many resorts, restaurants, and nightclubs, set against the breathtaking Sea of Cortez, make the city of Cabo San Lucas the perfect venue for an international film festival.

More information about the festival can be found at their website.

Ancient Ruins Continue to be discovered in Mexico

Tzintzuntzan of which the newly discovered Purepechan site is believed to be a suburb

If you enjoy archaeology travel, Mexico is a must visit as archeologists are constantly uncovering cities, towns, and places of importance from the Mesoamerican world.

The archeology department of Colorado State University has recently discovered and mapped an ancient city of the Purepecha people near Lake Patzcuaro. The Purepecha people, who held off the Aztecs and long resisted the Spanish, are thought of as unique in terms of Mesoamerican peoples, as their language is believed to most closely resemble that of the Quechua in far-off Peru. Archaeologists hope the discovery of this new site will add to the almost non-existent knowledge of Purpechan culture.

The site at Patzcuaro is said to include houses, plazas, temples, and a pyramid. Patzcuaro is located just outside of Morelia and makes an excellent location for a day trip during a tour of Colonial Mexico. More about this recent discover can be found at The Los Angeles Times.

Paul McCartney in Mexico

Pual McCartney in MexicoPaul McCartney’s upcoming concert in Mexico City set a record with its ticket sales. Tickets for the show on Thursday May 27th in Foro Sol Stadium, which seats 60,000 people, sold out in just a few minutes, putting McCartney at the top of the quickest-to-sell-out concerts list for the enormous stadium. Previously, the record was held by Radiohead and Madonna.

The May 27th show will be McCartney’s first concert in Mexico since 2002. Hopefully, the overwhelming demand for tickets to the Mexico City concert will make it easy for Sir Paul to commit to playing at the ruins of Chichen Itza in 2011. According to several sources, McCartney has already agreed to play the Chichen Itza show in Yucatan and that all that needs to be finalized is the date.

Previous artists to play at Chichen Itza include Placido Domingo, Sarah Brightman, and Elton John. The governor of Yucatan and National Institute of Anthropology and History are committed to bringing big name performers to Chichen Itza to promote tourism to the Yucatan. Below is a video from Elton John’s recent performance at the incredible ruins.

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2010 World Celebrities Motocross Race in Mexico

If you’re interested in some adventure in Mexico, you’ll be sure to love this event. On July 31st and August 1st, some of the world’s best and most famous motocross racers will travel to the Colonial Heartland of Mexico for the 2010 World Celebrities Motocross Race. The even will take place just outside of Guadalajara at the Nicolas España motordome.

Some 40,000 spectators are expected to travel to Guadalajara to watch motocross celebrities like Ricky Johnson (U.S.), Jeff Ward (U.S.), Sebastien Tortelli (France), Lobito Fonseca (Costa Rica), Stefan Everts (Belgium), Nicolas España (Mexico), Jean Sebastian Roy (Canada), and the Latin American champions Adrian Roberts, Pedro Gonzalez and Erick Vallejo.

The two-day event will include a freestyle show, some rock concerts, hot air balloons, a bikini contest, and more. As a result of their performance during the event, several Mexican riders will be chosen to compete in the Motocross World Championship in San Bernardino, California on Nov. 6th and 7th.

Wine and Cheese Festival in Tequisquiapan, Mexico

Any fan of luxury travel will love the National Wine and Cheese Festival of Tequisquiapan, which will take place from May 28th to June 6th in Mexico’s Colonial Heartland. I love the way they describe the festival as “Paying homage to the art of living well.”

The festival features tastings, lectures, competitions, and workshops. Approximately 25 restaurants from Tequisquiapan, San Juan del Rio, and Queretaro are involved in the fair, and the most important wineries of the region are featured during the festival as well as wines from France, Italy, Spain, Chile, Australia, and Argentina.

A number of delicious cheeses are made here in Mexico, and you can find a nice little description of the most common by clicking here.

Bike Share Program Happening in Mexico City

If you want to stay Green while traveling to Mexico City, take advantage of the city’s new bike share program, Ecobici. Although the abundance of cobblestone streets doesn’t exactly facilitate bicycle riding, the three-month-old program seems to be flourishing.

Earlier this spring, Mexico City installed 85 Ecobici stations with a total of 1,100 bicycles that are available for rent in half-hour increments. A membership card for the program, which you swipe at the stations to release a bike, cost $24 dollars per month.

So far, Ecobici has 4,000 members who have taken 50,000 bike rides with zero accidents and zero acts of theft. City officials hope to see the number of memberships reach 24,000 by the end of the year. Below is a video from Ecobici’s website.

Beatnik Fans Will Love Mexico City

If you love Beatnik literature, booking a Mexico City trip will transport you back in time to hear the sounds, smell the smells,

Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and others in Mexico City. Nov. 1956

and see the sights that inspired Beat heroes such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and others.

Though names have changed and places have slightly evolved, many of the bars, apartments, and landmarks that inspired some of the most legendary Beat works still exist and are not marked with tourist-friendly signs or plaques – just as the anti-establishment authors would have wanted.

  • Monterrey 122, on the corner of Chihuahua Street, is the anonymous building in which William Burroughs shot and killed his wife in an attempt to William-Tell a glass off of the top of her head. Burroughs later credited the incident as the catalyst of his writing career.
  • Below the apartment where Burroughs killed his wife was the now legendary Bounty Bar, where ex-pats and Beatniks would drink until the sun came up. The bar still stands, but is now a cantina called Krika’s.
  • You can also visit another then hang out for the Beats, Plaza Luis Cabrera, on Orizaba at Zacatecas Street. The plaza, filled with trees and a fountain, as well as the cafes that surround it were often the setting for Beats’ drug and alcohol induced conversations, which would later lead to some of literature’s most famous works.
  • Chapultepec Park, which is Mexico City’s equivalent of New York’s Central Park, is where Jack Kerouac suggested the name for Burroughs’s novel Naked Lunch.
  • Near Tacuba Metro station is the Panteon Americano cemetery. At the very back of the cemetery, lie the remains of Burroughs’s wife, marked with a little inscription that reads: “Joan Vollmer Burroughs, Loudonville, New York, 1923, Mexico D.F. Sept. 1951.”

Read more about the Beatnik authors in Mexico City at The San Francisco Chronicle

Journey Mexico Partner Properties on Conde Nast 2010 List

Two of our partner properties, The Banyan Tree Mayakoba and the Saint Regis Mexico City, both made Conde Nast Traveler’s “Hot List Hotels” for 2010.

The Banyan Tree is an incredible experience in exotic luxury with its Asian style villas, Thai trained masseuses, and Thai kitchen staff. Each villa offers its own private pool, and the staff members actually remove their shoes before entering your villa to wait on you. This award is an addition to the 300+ they’ve received since 2006.

The Saint Regis Mexico City, aside from being a stunning 189-room tower of class, was this year’s host for the Virtuoso Symposium, in which Journey Mexico was thrilled to be involved. The event was a huge success as is shown in the list of tweets to come out of Mexico City.

New MACAY Museum Exhibit Opens in April

MACAY, The Museum of Contemporary Art of Yucatán, is definitely the place to go if you’d like to travel the Yucatan Peninsula and see contemporary art. Approximately 80,000 people have visited the MACAY museum, annually, over the past ten years.

by Leonardo Nierman

From now (April) until June of 2010, MACAY will be displaying their latest exhibit featuring works of the renowned Leonardo Nierman in salons 6 and 7 and in the Expoforo of the museum. Nierman’s exhibit, El Sonido del Color (The Sound of Color), consists of 96 pieces of sculpture, painting and tapestry.

Other featured artists are: Beatriz Simón, Ana Gómez, Leonel Coronado, Carlos Carbajo, Aurora Caro, Ángeles Maldonado, and Tania Cámara.

MACAY is open Sun, Mon, Wed, and Thu from 10 am to 6 pm as well as Sat and Sun from 10 am to 8 pm.

Protest Graffiti Mexico: Oaxaca Now For Sale

This seems like a pretty interesting book reflecting the social angst that came out of Oaxaca, Mexico in 2007. At the time, Mexican police officers opened fire on a group of protestors who were advocating for the right to an education. A strong social backlash was channeled through the art form of graffiti, and Protest Graffiti Mexico: Oaxaca is comprised of images of the graffiti photographed by, the now deceased, Elaine Sendyk.

You can purchase Protest Graffiti at Amazon for $21.24, and there are some really insightful comments about the book at BleedTheSoul.

Coco Nogales Surf Contest in Oaxaca

Coco Nogales, a professional surfer and local of Puerto Escondido, is putting on a surf contest April 29th and 30th, 2010 in Oaxaca, Mexico. The event is called “The Coco Nogales Surf Challenge – For the Future Stars” and is being hosted in conjunction with Hurley and Red Bull.

The prizes for the event will total approximately 30,000 pesos (about 3,000 USD), and 20 to 30 surfboards will be given away to local groms who can’t afford to buy boards.

I don’t think the contest has an official website but for more information, you can email asociaciondesurfoaxaca@gmail.com or call in Mexico (954) 101-6452. Video of Coco and Puerto Escondido below:

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Somewhere Near Tapachula Documentary

Below is the trailer for a documentary film called Somewhere Near Tapachula about a mission in Tapachula, Chiapas for Mexican children with troubled pasts. In addition to shelter and schooling, the mission takes the children on weekly trips to the beach. Apparently, in 2004, someone left a surfboard at the mission for the children to use on these weekly trips to the ocean and since then, the process of learning to ride waves has given these kids a new outlook on life.

The blog I found the documentary on said the movie was to be released in October of 2009, and the film’s website shows tour dates from February to April (but no year). Oh wait, the film has its own blog, and… the tour is already over. If anyone has any info on where you can purchase/view the film in its entirety, please post in the comments section.

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Annual Newport to Ensenada Yacht Race Begins Next Week

If you are interested in sailing to Mexico, next Friday, April 23rd, marks the beginning of the 63rd Newport to Ensenada Yacht Race, the word’s largest international yacht race. So far there are 210 yachts registered for this year’s event.

The race takes sailors 125 miles from Newport, California to Ensenada, Mexico on the Baja California peninsula. This year’s winner will be awarded a $6,000 watch from Lamborghini.

Non-racers can enjoy the event as well by taking the three day cruise with Carnival Cruise. Passengers pass the sailboats and end up with the ultimate view for the finish of the race. More information can be found at the race’s website, and below is a video about the race.

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How To Follow Us Via RSS Feed

Typical RSS Symbol

If you’re not familiar with RSS Feeds, fear not. It’s actually a really simple and convenient feature that allows you to have updates from your favorite websites sent to you as soon as they are published, saving you the time of having to actually go to each site to check for updates.

Readers

To receive RSS feeds, you need a “reader.” A reader program is basically a customizable dashboard that receives and displays the RSS feeds to which you subscribe. Let’s say your three favorite websites are a sport’s blog, your friends website that publishes cooking recipes, and a news site. Once you sign up for their RSS feeds, you simply need to log into your reader account to view the newest content from all three sites. In your reader, you will see that the sports blog, the recipe site, and the news site each have their own little “section” on your dashboard, which you can move around. Now, you can choose which articles you’d like to read without having to actually navigate to each website.

If you have a Gmail account, iGoogle is the reader extension you should use. Once signed into Gmail, open a new tab in your web browser and go to http://www.google.com/ig. There you can customize your iGoogle page and move the different feeds around to your liking.

If you use Yahoo for email, your “MyYahoo” page is your reader. It’s very similar to iGoogle and is also customizable. There are several other reader programs, but these are the two I’d suggest.

Subscribing to an RSS feed

When you decide that you enjoy a website enough that you’d like their updates sent to your reader, look for their RSS icon. It’s usually orange with a sort of Wifi symbol on it (shown at top). If there is no icon, look for something that says “Follow our RSS Feed” or something similar. Once you find it, click on it and you should get something that looks like this:

Note, because I am signed into Google, it’s just showing me the Google options. If you use Yahoo, you will see several options – just click on the +Yahoo button. Because I use iGoogle, I would select “Add to Google Reader.” Once you click the button to add, you’re good to go. Sign into your reader account, and you will see the latest posts from the site you just added.

5 Things You Need to Know About Sunscreen Before Summer

I just came across an interesting article that really opened my eyes about sunscreen. If you’ll be traveling to Mexico with us this year, or to anywhere else you’ll need protection from the sun, here are five things you need to know:

  1. According to the Environmental Working Group’s 2009 study, only one in ten sunscreens offers superior protection from the sun and is made from healthy ingredients.
  2. Sunscreens of 55-100 SPF only block 1-2% more sunburn rays than a sunscreen of 30 SPF.
  3. The sun produces three bands of ultraviolet light: UVA, UVB, and UVC. UVB is the band that causes sunburn, and the US Food and Drug Administration only holds manufacturers to regulations in regards to UVB. Although UVB light will burn your skin with prolonged exposure, the body actually needs UVB light in order to make Vitamin D. According to Elsevier, the world’s leading publisher of Medical Information, 30-50% of Americans are deficient in Vitamin D.
  4. UVB only makes up about 4% of the total ultraviolet light that enters our atmosphere. UVA is actually much more responsible for long-term negative effects cause by the sun including: skin cancer, premature skin aging, and other skin damage. Because the US government does not regulate UVA protection, most claims of UVA protection on sunscreen bottles are not credible.
  5. Many brands claiming to block both UVA and UVB, Coppertone ultraGuard for example, use a compound that is absorbed into the skin called oxybenzone, which, although organic, is believed to be a photocarcinogen. When exposed to light, photocarcinogens damage human DNA.

Scary stuff right? The good news is there are websites out there that compare and rate brands of sunscreen. The Environmental Working Group has a great site that lists the top one hundred+ brands of sunscreen. They also have a great widget on the right hand side of the page, titled “Find Safe Sunscreen,” which allows you to search for specific brands and products and view their ratings. Don’t let the sun keep you from summer fun!