Gifts of Veracruz (and travel notes)

Traveling.  We are no longer in Oaxaca, the city of bright, beautiful and colorful embroideries, really tasty food, the smell of chocolate and the sound of bus horns, settled in an apartment.  The brown, winter landscape of Oaxaca becomes normal in December and January.  I didn't realize how much I missed the green until we began to climb the mountains between Ixtlan and Valle Nacional, heading for Veracruz state.  Suddenly, it felt like spring on the south coast of North Carolina:  rain showers, cool, and green everywhere.  On my List of places to see in the state of Oaxaca, the mountains beyond Ixtlan were close to the top of the list.  We bought tickets on Cuenca bus line from Oaxaca to Tuxtepec, because it went on the impossibly curvy road over the mountains. ADO goes to Tuxtepec,via Puebla. The five-hour trip was relieved by several stops, giving us a chance to get our balance again before negotiating the next section of unbelievable road.  We passed more than a dozen tourist cabin sites, all of which called me to stay for a few days of hiking, even in the cold, foggy, rainy day.  Abruptly, we cleared the mountains, and from Valle Nacional, the road was flat and straight, and the sky blue.  We drove past miles of fruit trees and sugar cane as we peeled off layers of clothes.  By the time we got to Tuxtepec, we were down to a t-shirt again!

A business cross-roads, Tuxtepec feels small and quiet, and sits in the big curve of the Rio Papaloapan.  We stayed two days, enjoying the quiet, after three months of city busy and noise.  Not much to take our attention, other than the barbacoa palapa, and it was nice to begin a "re-set".  The two hour bus ride to Tlacotalpan, another place on my List, turned into only a layover on the way to Veracruz.  It was the weekend of Candelaria, and Tlacotalpan hosts a bigass homecoming of sorts.  Families make day trips from Veracruz city.  If they come from further away, they sleep wherever they can:  in tents pitched everywhere; in their cars; on the sofa of a local who rents any space they have.  No way to stay in this picturesque town.  We sat on the curb by the tiny bus office (no station here), taking turns walking through the crowds, waiting for the next bus to Veracruz.  We might have been the only gringos in town, and were curious to the locals.  This man, from Boca del Rio, sat down and sang for us, then got on a bus and disappeared.

In Veracruz, we found a hotel close to the Malecon and zocalo.  We arrived at 9pm with no reservation, and were led to a tiny room on the third floor.  Because the air conditioner didn't work, and it was surely needed, we were led to a much nicer room for the same price.   Veracruz is grittier, more casual than Oaxaca, with delicious seafood and a big reverence for good coffee. Javier Marin, sculptor from Veracruz, had recently installed giant, bronze heads along the Malecon. It took distance to recognize the shapes, turned sideways and upside down in the constant wind off the Gulf. I loved them.  One afternoon, we caught a local bus to Boca del Rio, the Myrtle Beach of Veracruz, where we had a fabulous meal of grilled octopus, seated at the best table in the palapa, by the water. 


Veracruz is an important city for business and tourism, a good city, but we were looking for quiet, so after a few days, we headed west 2 hours to Cordoba. Some people in Veracruz say the people of Cordoba are snobby, theater-going, high-class people.  We found then very warm and friendly, and saw no signs of high heels!  A really pretty small city.  A cold front was chillin' most of our friends in the north, and had dipped very far south, chilling and bringing rain as far south as Veracruz.  No views of mountains or hiking for these fair-weather gringos! Much coffee, and a little tobacco is grown here.  The tourism office is very eager to show spanish-speaking tourists around, and we learned more about the histoy of the state.  The church across the street from our hotel was almost invisible in the fog before the lights came on.

On the road again, we headed further west, to not-so-sophisticated Orizaba on the river, passing miles of sugar cane and coffee growing underneath the taller banana trees.  The bus negotiated the 5-wagon-trains of sugar cane, hauled by slow moving tractors on the way to the processing plants.  (Not such a good photo, grabbed when the bus slowed for traffic.)

Still cold and rainy in Orizaba, we put on another layer of clothes, thankful for our raincoats and gloves, and hit the streets looking for a glimpse of the highest mountain in Mexico, and the third highest in NA.  On a rainy, cold afternoon, we went into the beer museum (yep, a huge beer manufacturer for more than 100 years) and then the museum of Mexican presidents, and were adopted on the spot by Alan Joseph, a college student working an internship at the museum.  His english is far better than my spanish (even though I'm doing so much better!),  and he spent the rest of the afternoon with us.

Lonely Planet guide book reports that the Iron Building in Orizaba was designed by Gustav Eiffel, which Alan Joseph informed us is not correct.  The beautiful building, bought more than 100 years ago by the city for use as a hotel, was designed by an annonymous designer for the Belguim Iron Works.  When it arrived in Orizaba, in hundreds of cases, the city decided to use it as a city hall, and it functioned as that for about 100 years.  Today, it houses museums and the tourism office, lovingly maintained and used.  The second-largest collection of Diego Rivera paintings, housed in the gorgeous 450 year-old ex-convent across town, were traveling in China.  The teleferico, the cable-car to the top of the mountain which looks over the valley with views of Mount Orizaba on clear days, was closed for repair.  Thankfully, the day we left town, the sun appeared, the teleferico opened, and we enjoyed beautiful views of the volcano from the top of the Cerro del Borrego.

Cold.  It's just cold!  And, the chipichipi, (constant slight drizzle) keeps us out of the parks and other outdoor living areas.  So, we bought beers and returned to the hotel to get warm.

Seems that everyone we met asked if we were going to Cosco.  Being eager to know the area, we bought bus tickets to Cosco.  It's about an hour north Orizaba, a Pueblo Magico, and turned out that getting there was more complicated than we planned, but eventually we found ourselves at the small bus station.  Coscomatepec.  By the time I'd figured out how to pronounce the name, we'd fallen in love with the pretty village.  Coffee, really delicious bread and fruits are grown in this Nautl village that is more about 800 years old. Sunday, looking for a laundry, with an armful of dirty clothes, we met Rafael on the street, with his 2 year old daughter.  He took us into the house of his in-laws, where we were hugged, kissed, fed coffee and roasted meat in hand-made tortillas, and entertained by a stream of cousins and spouses and children coming and going, all being fed.  They were horrified to know that we were paying for a hotel, and insisted we stay with them.

Next visit, and I'd love to return, we will stay with our adopted family.  Rafael, baby daughter, son Renato, wife Maria Antonia, Stuart in the photo.  We spent the day with the family, meeting friends and touring the small town church and tiny museum.  The town is terrifically proud of it's beautiful location, view of Mt. Orizaba, cleanliness, good coffee and friendly people.  We ended the day with antojitos, and a brief cooking lesson from Maria Antonia.  I was sad to leave, and was overwhelmed when Maria Antonia gave me a tortilla cover she embroidered. 

No surprise, we have met many kind, generous, caring people traveling in Veracruz.  I can't help but compare the places we are learning about on this trip to our second home in Oaxaca, where we always meet kind, generous, caring people.  There is a love of good food everywhere!  The artwork in Oaxaca is the finest in the country, by far, but the hearts and souls of the Mexican people are the same, no matter where we go.

Next stop:  Xalapa.