Visit to Tepoztlan

Last Saturday I went to visit Tepoztlan with my brother and a couple of cousins. Tepoztlan is a little town located about half hour from Mexico City. This town is a traditional Mexican tow with old houses, small streets, a traditional marketplace, traditional food, handcrafts, etc.

We arrived late due to the heavy traffic (it was a long weekend and people escape the city in hordes) and we were hungry. We ate at the marketplace in a small stand that sells “antojitos”, basically quesadillas, sopes, and so on. First I ate an itacate, a triangle-shaped dough filled with the filling of your choosing, mine was potatoes with chorizo. Then I have a cecina (salted beef steak) taco and a cuitlacoche quesadilla, mmm I love cuitlacoche. Finally a chapulines quesadilla, tasty and something different.

To end the day we went walking through the handcraft vendors and bought a couple of things before returning to Mexico City.

Here are a couple of pictures from my visit to Tepoztlan:

Quote of the Day:
Vegetarian is an old Indian word meaning bad hunter.
--Anonymous

WRC Corona Mexico 2008 photos

As promised, here are a few photos of my trip to the WRC Corona Mexico 2008.

Quote of the Day:
Forgiveness is not an occasional act: it is a permanent attitude.
--Dr. Martin Luther King

WRC Corona Rally Mexico 2008

In a few hours I am off to Leon, Guanajuato for the World Rally Championship, Corona Rally Mexico 2008. I'll take lots of pictures and post some when I come back. See ya!

Carlos Slim, a Mexican, is wealthiest man on Earth

Maybe you have heard/read the news on this, maybe you haven't. The news have been revealed today by Mexican publication "Sentido Común" (Common Sense). The Mexican Tycoon, who has a 33% participation in the stocks of America Movil (the largest mobile telecommunications provider in Latin America) passed Bill Gates as the World's wealthiest man this past second quarter.

The fortune of Bill Gates rises to $59.2 billion and Slim's fortune goes up to $67.8 billion, a difference of $8.6 billion claims the publication.

What is most shocking about this news is that Carlos Slim comes from a country with a great amount of poor people. This only remarks the inequality that exists in this country, where the income is unevenly distributed and you can find very, very rich people as well as very, very poor people.

I hopes that Mr. Slim can give a little back to his country and contribute to it's development.

Original story from "Sentido Común": link (english translation).
Story at The Guardian newspaper: link.

Quote of the Day:
Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
--C. Archie Danielson

Just one week to WRC Corona Rally Mexico 2007

Next weekend will be the World Rally Championship Corona Rally Mexico 2007 in León, Guanajuato. For those who are not familiar with the Rally, a Rally is an auto sport in which production cars (regular cars that are available to the public) are modified to certain specifications and then race against time. The cars run in different surfaces snow, ice, gravel, and pavement on regular roads (not a closed circuit). Each rally is made up of timed "Stages", usually around 15 of them. The WRC is the premiere series for rallying, organized by the Federation Internationale de L'Automobile (FIA) and is the equivalent of the Formula one in rallying.

The WRC season begins in January and ends in December. It goes around the world in 16 rallies: Monte Carlo, Sweden, Norway, México, Portugal, Argentina, Italy, Greece, Germany, New Zealand, Spain, France, Japan, Ireland, and Great Britain. Each rally gives points to the top drivers and manufacturers/teams and at the end of the season the one with most points takes de Driver's Championship title and/or the Manufacturers's Championship title.

Corona Rally Mexico is in it's fourth year as an WRC official event. It is held in the mountains outside León, Guanajuato in México. It is a gravel rally with fast stages and the highest altitude of all the championship.

I will be attending for the third year in a row simply because it's loads of fun. You have to get up very very early in the morning to get to the stages because the roads are closed as the dawn draws closes and they are far from León (about an hour because of the rough terrain). But once you get there you have amazing views and, as the fans from all over the world gather a great ambient. Then you can head to the service park, where you can see the cars being repaired in less than 20 minutes (or they get penalized) by incredible mechanics just metres away from you! You can also go to the superspecial stage in the Leon Race Track where you can watch them running side by side at night.

You can find more information on the WRC site @ www.wrc.com and at the site for the Corona Rally Mexico www.rallymexico.com.

1st place in maneuverability in MBM 2006 and other results

It is about time that I inform you of our results of Mini Baja Mexico 2006.

As you can see from the title we are very happy for achieving our first ever podium in any test. It is a very nice podium, first place of maneuverability, because we have always had problems with this test. And let me congratulate the team on this achievement and also congratulate the driver that did this feat, Primo (a.k.a. Juan Carlos, Nauj).

Now the next part of the results. We did "relatively well" on the first day of dynamic tests. We got 7th place on the hill climb and pull tests, we got 8th place on acceleration (determines the endurance starting grid). On the Endurance test we finished 10th.

Overall we managed to get ourselves on the top 10 teams, getting to the 9th place. This place is "good", but not near what we were expecting. Got to work harder for the next Baja SAE event.

MBM 2006 is Live!!!

The date has finally arrived and the Anahuac Baja SAE Team is already on site for the first event of the season, Mini Baja Mexico 2006. Today will be security check (our team has already passed it) and braking; tomorrow acceleration, hill climb, maneuverability, and pull; and on Sunday the endurance test. It would be nice seeing some of you at the event.

And root for Universidad Anahuac!! Go Coyote, Go!!!

09 days for MBM 2006

It is just 9 days for Mini Baja Mexico 2006. Like I promised a couple of weeks ago I post here some more  information on the event.

MBM 2006 will take place from Friday November 17 to Sunday November 19. There are two venues for the event, Friday events (static events) will be held on the ITESM Campus Toluca. Saturday and Sunday events (dynamic events) will take place on the skirts of the Nevado de Toluca, specifically on the 18th km of the Toluca-Valle de Bravo Highway. You can find the map to the Saturday and Sunday venue @ http://www.saemex.org/minibaja/mapa/2006mb_map_large.jpg

 The best day for enjoying a Mini Baja event is on the day of the endurance test (Sunday November 18, 2006). Commonly referred to as "the race" it is a gruesome four hour ride along an off-road track. This event is the one that award the most points on the event. The day begins at 9.30 hrs with the formation of the starting grid, the endurance test begins at 10.30 hrs and finishes at 14.30 hrs, the end of the day is marked by the awards ceremony held at 15.15 hrs.

You can also enjoy the events on the Saturday, this events include the acceleration, hill climb, pull, and maneuverability events. They are good events, but as the cars have two opportunities to each event it can be a long day and a little tiring for the spectators. These events are held throughout the day from 8.30 to 17.00 hrs.

You can find the whole program and more information on the event website @ Mini Baja Mexico 2006.

Well that's all for this post, hope to see you around MBM 2006 rooting for car No. 100, the Coyote from the Universidad Anahuac (tip, it is a red car).

Less than a month for MBM 2006

Is less than a month (24 days exactly) for Mini Baja Mexico 2006. This will be the 12th competition of the Baja SAE Anahuac Team, it is also the first one of this season.

MBM 2006 will take place near the base of the "Nevado de Toluca" just outside of Toluca (well, about 20 minutes from it). The official website of the Mexico event is located @ Mini Baja Mexico 2006, there you can find information on the event.

We will be competing with one car, the 2005 model Coyote.The team is currently working on some improvements and repairs on the car, and we are hoping for a good performance on the event.

I'll publish a map later so you can go and see this cars in real life.