In one day, Panaderia Caotzingo bakery produces 270 pieces of pan de muerto, Spanish for "bread of the dead."

Nushin Rashidian and I recently spent an evening at a Mexican bakery in Queens preparing for The Day of the Dead. Check out our story at nyfoodchain.com.

Climbing gear as it lay. Mt. Lemmon, Ariz. April 2009.

Photos and Writing by Daniel Woolfolk

Some people aren’t satisfied with just any sport. Many Tucsonans challenge themselves by climbing a cliff, grabbing onto morsels of rock, bit by bit, dozens of feet off the ground.

“It’s a great city for climbers,” said Stefanie Cafferel, 24, a Pima Community College student and a staff member at Rocks and Ropes climbing
gym.

When she’s not working , Cafferel is either honing on her skills in the gym or climbing outdoors, in and around Tucson.

“You’re right on the hub,” she said, explaining that Tucson is close to great climbing areas such as Cochise Stronghold near Tombstone, Hueco Tanks east of El Paso, California and Colorado. “Plus, you have Mount Lemmon in your backyard.”

Mount Lemmon offers different types of climbing, from roped climbing to bouldering, which doesn’t require ropes because the climber is typically less than 15 feet from the ground and is protected by mats and, usually, by others spotting from below.

Climbers enjoy a wide range of climbs from the base to the top of Mount Lemmon.

“You can boulder in the hot sun and drive half an hour and be in pine trees,” said Patrick Rees, 21, a University of Arizona fisheries management junior.

Tucsonans don’t need to go as far as Mount Lemmon to get a climb in. Many people even climb during their lunch hours at Rocks and Ropes, which is located downtown. It has 55 35-foot high ropes set up in addition to a freestanding boulder and a bouldering area that don’t require ropes

For roped climbing, a partner is needed to belay, serving as an anchor and pulling slack from the rope as the climber ascends. The ropes at the gym are set up in such a way that a large difference in weight between partners is not an issue.

“An 80-pound kid can belay his dad, no problem,” said Rocks and Ropes Manager Jon Mavko, 25.

Fear of heights is something that 38-year-old gym owner Jason Mullins and staff deal with regularly.

“You don’t have to go to the top,” Mullins said.

Mullins sees that happen in the kids’ program and said he provides gym-goers with a non-intimidating environment. One day a fledgling climber may go up part way to gain confidence. By the end of the week, the new climber is

Published: April 21, 2009. Aztec Press, Tucson.

ringing the cowbell at the top of the route.

One kid climber went from climbing at Rocks and Ropes to becoming a world-class climber.

Eric Scully, 25, got his start climbing at the rock gym on his 10th birthday. As a 13-year-old, he became the youngest American to ascend a rock with the rating of 5.14, the highest rating given to climbs at the time.

After a bout with cancer, Scully became the first American to climb that rating after surviving cancer, according to Scully’s biography on rocksandropes.com. He has been a sponsored athlete and competed in the United States and abroad.

These days, aside from being a business major at UA, Scully coaches the youth team at Rocks and Ropes. He is there many days a week, motivating kids in the sport he loves so much.

“It’s just a great way to give back to the community that gave me so much,” he said. “They get training from a pro athlete who’s competed all over the world.”

Scully said he hasn’t competed much in the past year but has plans to in the future.  He is especially interested in the world cup circuit.

Rocks and Ropes is open seven days a week. First-time goers ages 12 and older can climb, get an initial lesson and rent equipment for $30. Day passes cost $12, and memberships are available. Students are charged a discounted rate.

Make sure to bring a friend so that you can use each other in the belay instruction.

FYI
Rocks and Ropes climbing gym
Location: 330 S. Toole Ave.
Phone: 882-5924
Web site: www.rocksandropes.com

By Daniel Woolfolk

Victor Lopez, a Pima Community College business major, does not plan on traveling to Mexico for spring break.

“A lot of it has to do with the news,” said the 21-year-old, taking a break from playing video games at the Desert Vista Campus student government office.

The U.S. State Department renewed a travel alert Feb. 20, warning Americans about an increase in violence along the Mexican border. It mentions Nogales as a city experiencing drug-cartel violence, including “public shootouts during daylight hours in shopping centers and other public venues.”

Unlike earlier versions, the latest advisory does not mention Highway 15, which begins in Nogales, Sonora, just south of Interstate 19. The highway leads to Hermosillo, passes Culiacan and ends in Mexico City.

Sonora has increased highway patrol vigilance and expanded its tourism police force, according to Epifanio Salido Pavlovich, director of the Sonora Tourism Office.

Lopez used to travel Highway 15 about 60 miles to Magdalena, Sonora, to visit relatives.

While returning from his last trip, Lopez was pulled over by armed military officers in an all-terrain vehicle. The officers warned him about dangers in the region. Lopez has not been to Mexico since but said the violence is not the only reason.

“There hasn’t been a necessity to go,” he said, adding that he would consider going to Rocky Point because he hasn’t heard anything bad about that popular coastal tourist destination.

Nobody else in the Desert Vista student government room had plans for traveling to Mexico for spring break.

“I’m white. I don’t go into Mexico,” said Brittnee Clapper, eliciting groans and gasps from the half-dozen other students in the room, some white, some Hispanic and one black.

The 18-year-old sports broadcasting major and student government member explained her answer. Her father, a civilian working for the Army Criminal Investigation Division in Fort Huachuca, doesn’t want her to go.

“He said I shouldn’t go, because it’s bad,” Clapper said.

The native of Washington D.C. moved to Tucson in the fall and has never been to Mexico but said she would like to visit Cancun.

“I would fly there,” she said. “I would not drive.”

Clapper is not the only area resident who has been warned against going into Mexico.

In an online message, University of Arizona Dean of Students Carol Thompson “strongly advises” UA students to avoid travel to Mexico during spring break. Fort Huachuca has restricted troop travel to Mexico, and warned military families and civilians employees.

Despite the warnings, Pete Ashcraft, 40, a captain with the Nogales, Ariz., fire department, travels to northern and coastal Sonora regularly in older-model vehicles. Many of his trips are to visit relatives.

Ashcraft, who has blond hair and blue eyes, was born to a Mexican mother of Irish origin. His father is an American from Salt Lake City. He said he doesn’t feel threatened in Mexico.

“I just know where to go and where not to go,” he said. For example, he avoids a neighborhood called Buenos Aires in the eastern hills of Nogales, Sonora, because it is notorious for gangs.

While driving across the border in rural hills just south of Sasabe, Ariz., Ashcraft did see an unusual scene. A man was slumped over a steering wheel, apparently dead. Another man standing by the car, dressed in civilian clothes, waved Ashcraft along. He neither stopped nor reported the incident.

This spring break, Ashcraft’s 20-year-old daughter plans to visit Rocky Point with many of her friends.

His advice to her: “Watch what you drink and who you accept drinks from.”

Ashcraft also had advice for anyone visiting Mexico.

“Just use common sense, like you would anywhere else,” he said. “There are parts of Tucson that I’m just as leery going into as parts of Mexico.”

If you decide to visit Mexico, follow this tips compiled from interviews and personal experience:

• Bring documents required for crossing the border back into the United States. If you don’t have a passport, you can use your driver’s license and a copy of your birth certificate but both documents must be together. There are other options listed on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Web site, cbp.gov.
• Do not take guns or ammunition into Mexico. They are illegal in Mexico. Both U.S. and Mexican authorities are cracking down heavily, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
• Watch what you drink and who you accept drinks from.
• Don’t get into a stranger’s car. Refuse politely and firmly.
• Stay with your group and stay in tourist areas, which usually have special tourist police.
• Take a reliable car but avoid flashy vehicles, especially SUVs and pickup trucks.
• If someone is overly nice and pushing you to do something you don’t feel comfortable doing, politely and firmly refuse any offers. They will usually move along.

Arturo Valenzuela at his gallery in Tucson. (Photo: Daniel Woolfolk)

Writing and photos by Daniel Woolfolk

Arturo Valenzuela dresses the part of a rising fashion designer. His pressed pants always match his pressed shirt, which in turn matches the highly-shined shoes that he wears below his perpetually crossed legs.

In the ‘80s, Valenzuela was a professional performer who had aspirations of directing his own musical. A fall in 1989 put him in a wheelchair, but that did not stop him from expressing himself. In 1991, after two years of recovery, he enrolled in fashion design classes at Pima Community College.

His hands have lost strength in the past two months, and Valenzuela can’t hold a pencil like he used to. He sketches quickly with a pencil wedged between his middle and index fingers. The long and elegant figures he draws bring to mind French posters of the art deco era.

“When you are creating something, you want your work to transcend,” he said.

Artistic expression has taken many forms in his life. As a child, he sculpted human figures with Play-Doh and he took up painting in high school. His interest in fashion was sparked when he took part in a fashion show as a student at Tucson High School in the early ‘80s.

Georgeanne Fimbres, a fashion instructor at PCC who taught Valenzuela, knew him as a local artist before he ever enrolled in her class.

“He has brilliant ideas that he manages to put onto paper,” Fimbres said.

His style is influenced by the fashions of the 1930s and by Europe. He also embraces the shawls and bold colors of his Mexican heritage.

“I am going to show all of my influences as a Mexican,” said Valenzuela, who will present his collection during New York Fashion Week in February 2009.

Valenzuela plans on studying at Istituto Marangoni in Milan next year. His classes would be for experienced designers who plan on breaking into the international market.

Zandrea Penn models a dress designed by Valenzuela

The main problem for him is that the buildings in Milan are not always accessible to disabled people. The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, a partner of the Milan institute, is helping find wheelchair accessible facilities for him.

Fimbres, for one, is confident that Valenzuela will succeeded.
“He never let anything slow him down,” she said.

Much of Valenzuela’s time is spent helping others. He worked for 12 years as a volunteer translator at University Medical Center in Tucson, where he received his treatment after he fell.

In 2001, he founded “Cuadro Arte Latino Internacional,” an organization to promote local artists, usually by running a gallery of the same name. Most artists are Latino, but he says that is not a requirement.

During a gallery showing in October celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, Valenzuela exhibited work by artists from places like Thailand, China and France.

“I work for the community,” he said.

His goal is to pull the artists from where they are, he said. People visit his gallery and sheepishly say that they are artists. Sometimes, people will say that their friend is an artist.

Many times when Valenzuela asks for a portfolio, he is amazed by the talent and begins to promote the artist’s work.

“I do it for the love of art and to support other artists,” Valenzuela said in Spanish.

At his temporary gallery on University Avenue, various local artists walk in and greet him enthusiastically by name.

A colorful painting by Valenzuela of a Tehuana woman from Oaxaca, Mexico, might be the first painting someone sees upon entering the gallery. Valenzuela paints about three pieces a year.

One day, he would like to have his paintings printed as graphics on his garments.

“I love my career and what I like the best is being able to share Mexico and my culture,” he said.

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This is a story I wrote and did photography for about a local fashion designer.  Arturo is very talented and promotes the work of other artists through galleries.  I expected a fashion designer to be kind of narcissistic, but he spoke a lot about other artists.

The page designers did a great job.

I’ll link to the story once it comes out on the Aztec Press site.

Photojournalist Deanna Dent went to Imuris, Sonora to cover an orphanage.  She didn’t mind snapping a few shots while we were there.