Embedded Files
Nov 16, 2017: Casa San Ildefonso, Mexico City
Bus to PVR, flight to MEX, metro to TAPU bus terminal (LOVE the metro: clean, fast, easy to navigate, and 25 cents), reservation for tomorrow bus to Veracruz, metro to near the hostel.
Hostel about $25 (single room, shared bath: but never saw anybody), almost empty.
Walked around a bit, noting a lot of preparations for something in the main square. Found out the next day it was for an NFL game to be played at the main stadium: seats 75,000, and was sold out in 5 minutes. Also saw a number of gay couples in a nearby park, walking hand in hand, sitting with their arms around each other, or just flat out necking. I don’t remember any of this my last visit.
Dinner at Cafe Tacuba - I had eaten here the last time I was in Mexico City. Great food, beautifully decorated with colored tiles, brass lamps, and oil paintings. Ordered up a storm, and the bill came to $28. I had forgotten how inexpensive Mexico was.
Nov 17, 2017. The bus to Veracruz passed right by Popocatépetl, which conveniently became active six days before. It also passed Pico de Orizaba (below), the second most prominent volcanic peak in the world after Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro. It has been dormant since the 19th century.
Nov 18, 2017. Veracruz, Hotel Trianon Veracruz
Debating whether to ditch my beard. The more I look at it, the scruffier it seems. I think it is barber shop time.
Breakfast at Bola de Oro: really good lechero (strong latte). This is the coffee producing part of Mexico (along with vanilla and cigars), and the coffee is delicious.
Ditched the beard!
Rented a car for a week for $37 (!) Will pick it up next Tuesday. Decided to be in Veracruz on Monday to watch the Mexican navy parade around the Faro Carranza.
Afternoon strolling along the malecon to the aquarium, the “best” in Latin America. Dolphin shows and a chance to swim with sharks: I passed on both.
Enjoying an evening lechero and enchiladas mole at the Gran Cafe del Portal, just off the Zocalo. The lechero starts with an inch or so of strong coffee in the bottom of a glass. You then tap your spoon on the glass, at which point a waiter comes by and pours hot milk at great height from a pot with a spout, never spilling a drop. Meanwhile three guys are playing a wooden xylophone outside the main entrance, and another guy is soloing inside on a harp. One guy is walking around rubbing a stick against a corrugated metal cylinder in time to the xylophone. A bunch of women just stood up and started dancing at their table. A nurse just came by with a cuff and asked if I wanted my blood pressure taken. The place is packed, everybody is talking and laughing, and I can barely hear myself think. Across the street in the Zocalo (main square) a band with all manner of instruments, including conga drums, is wailing away, and couples - mostly elderly - are dancing the danzón, imported from Cuba (and no longer found there). Periodically a semi full of Federal police, wearing bulletproof vests and carrying serious looking automatic weapons, cruises by. I have seen no other non-Mexican tourists. Good old Veracruz.
Nov 19, 2017: Veracruz, Hotel Ulua Veracruz
Left the hotel in the first rain I’ve experienced in Mexico for a breakfast of pancakes and lechero at the Gran Café de la Parroquia, then a bus to Cardel, and another to Cempoala, a lovely Totonac site amidst grassy fields and coconut palms.
Continuing a bit further north to Villa Rica, where I hoofed it about a mile uphill to Quiahuiztlán, a Totonac ruin at the base of the Cerro de Metates, sort of a mini Machu Picchu, but without the crowds. Peaceful, jungly, with a slight drizzle keeping it cool and a bit mysterious.
Back south to La Antigua. This is where Cortez struck an alliance with its chief against the Aztecs, but then turned against him, the bastard. Everybody I asked around here thought Cortez was a very bad man. La Antigua has the Ermita del Rosario church, founded in 1523, making it the oldest church in the Western Hemisphere. It also has a great seafood restaurant, Las Delicias Marinas, on the banks of the Rio Antigua. I had their specialty, barbecued octopus, very tender.
Cempoala
Quiahuiztlan
Nov 20, 2017. Veracruz, Hotel Ulua Veracruz
Even though today is Mexican Independence Day, I couldn’t find anything going on to celebrate it. So I took in the new Pixar film Coco, in Spanish (I didn’t understand a word). It broke all Mexican records for animated films when it showed up a few weeks ago. Now sitting in a “restaurant” in a sketchy part of town, with a few guys drinking beer, a few ladies of uncertain virtue scattered about, a big screen TV showing a series of nude photos, really, really loud music from a jukebox, and, best of all, free soup. Not a bad way to celebrate the day.
Article in the digital NY Times entitled “Not dead. Not alive. Just gone.” Dateline Xalapa. The state of Veracruz has the most number of disappearances of any Mexican state: 2600 at last count, and surely an under estimation. Last year 300 bodies were exhumed in the state, but since there is no money for DNA analysis, virtually no positive identifications have been made. Last year there were 20,000 killings, with 98% unsolved. In fact, only 13% were reported. For lots of reasons, neither the government nor the police are interested in pursuing the cases. Veracruz is the most dangerous place for journalists in the Western Hemisphere. No wonder I have the place to myself. It’s easy enough to blame Mexico, but remember: the drugs they are killing for down here are the ones being demanded by American users.
It is now 3 in the afternoon. A few more men and women have trickled in. I’m interested to see what happens as the day progresses. So I’ll just hang out, read more on the life of Thomas Jefferson, and check my Lonely Planet and Rough Guides for what’s next in this most interesting state. Can’t believe how loud the music is - and not just here, but in restaurants, shops, hotels. Reminds me of the noisy cities of India.
2017 Mexico VeraCruz Dancing.MOV2017 Mexico Veracruz musicians.MOV2017 Veracruz dancers.MOVGoogle Sites
Report abuse