Peace on Earth – Good will toward all men.
December 24, 2015 The Christmas holiday is here and life and traffic will grind to a halt this afternoon as business close early and folks head home for the highpoint of the Mexican Christmas celebration, Noche Buena.
Christmas this year presents a Full Moon. The moon officially reaches “full” locally in the early morning hours of December 25. The last Christmas Full Moon was in 1977 and the next will be in 2034, but it doesn’t look like it will be shining on very much freshly fallen snow in the States, although Canada has their fair share and certainly none here in Baja.
We won’t have snow in the Weather week ahead, but over the weekend a cold front is going to pass over much of Baja bringing some of the coldest temps of the season so far and the freezing mark may be reached in the northern high deserts Saturday and Sunday night.
2016 presented the wettest year in the last six years in Baja California Sur, and it certainly took its toll on the roadways and benefitted the llanteras. (Tire shops) It was the longest Baja Hurricane Season with the earliest landfall of a named system, Blanca in June and one of the latest threats to the peninsula with Tropical Depression Sandra in the final days of November. But we made it through 2015 with only a “flesh wound” from Blanca.
The year saw major changes to the vehicle import rules, which flip-flopped a couple of times through the year but now, seem to have stuck, in a rather unpleasant state of fees and requirements. As of January 1, 2016 only cars 2007 and newer may be imported and the fees charged rose significantly.
Despite the falling price of crude oil world wide, Pemex gasoline and diesel prices will rise again January 1, 2016 by 3% across the nation. The good news MAY be that some foreign competition will be coming to Baja in 2016. Headline stories today in the Baja press claim some stations are already offering discounts to attract customers up to 30 centavos per liter. Will Pemex be headed for an injection of federal money? It will be interesting in the year ahead to see what happens to Pemex. Crude oil prices are well below the $56 per barrel COST of pumping Mexican crude, a pain suffered by a majority of other world producing nations that depend on the income of state oil investments. Very few economists envisioned crude prices in the mid $30 range and to think in early 2016 it could fall another $10 to $15 on the world market. Who would have through low oil prices could loom disastrous?
The struggling Peso sure has had a rough year in decline against the dollar. Beginning the year at a dismal 14.7:1 on the dollar the slide into oblivion has continued to this day, with today’s interbank exchange rate of 17.29:1. It has put a lot of things Mexico on sale world wide and despite the slump in oil prices and thus revenue, the Mexican economy will grow at twice the rate of the US in 2015.
The first half of the year also saw the continuation of the drug violence in Baja California Sur, and more specifically La Paz. The good news is the last quarter of 2015 saw a virtual halt in the drug related homicides, with La Paz recording just three since the first of October, well down from our worst days of three every five days. There hasn’t been an open gunfire incident reported since late August. We have revised and updated our Travel Warning in Perspective and are pleased to report it looks like La Paz has returned to being the City of Peace.
The year was also positive in public health. Despite the south having a rainy summer that continued wet well into early November, we did not have a serious Dengue outbreak of significance in Baja California Sur. No deaths and reported cases were down 80% over 2014. The major difference? The unknown cycles of Dengue, better known as the roll of the dice.
It was a good year for tourism, with Los Cabos maintaining the title of Most Popular Destination on the West Coast of Mexico. It was only a ‘good year’ though, with many resorts along the southern most points of the peninsula still working back toward full health. Mexico should also maintain the title of #1 Foreign Destination for US tourists by a wide margin in 2015. Tourism returned to the top 5 GNP producers for Mexico as well.
Our “Baja’s Sur Best Weather” season was shorter than normal and it rained early in Baja California from the north as we moved briskly from fall into early winter. Long range forecasts call for us to continue to have a plunging Jet Stream along the Pacific coast into early February, which will continue to bring us cold air and the opportunity for rain along the Pacific coast of Baja California. Then in early February the flow will move more west to east across the US and most of Baja will begin to warm up. Aye, but lately they’ve had a hard time telling us if next Sunday will be cloudy or clear, so take it as you will.
The year also saw the biggest renovation to the BajaInsider since 2005. Moving into the next “Age of the Internet” we met the Google’s 2015 standards of being “Mobile Friendly” in July. With more than 1200 pages to update and move it remains a work in progress, but since the change to the new format our monthly visits are up 62% over the previous quarter, Mobile users now account for nearly 30% of our readership.
To all our readers and subscribers we wish the happiest and safest holiday season. Thank you for reading and for your support as we go into our 13th year online. And for all, from the original Greek translation, “On earth, bring peace to men of good will.”
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