Week #20: Veracruz, Xalapa y Papantla

Greetings from Veracruz! Ginny was asking me yesterday if I feel as though time goes slower or faster while we're traveling through Mexico in our van. I definitely feel like it passes very quickly as there's always so much to see and do when we're traveling in such a diverse and fascinating country like Mexico. We've been here nearly three months already and are planning to stay about one more month before returning to the US. 

We spent most of this week in the state of Veracruz which was a nice respite from the hot and dry state of Oaxaca. Don't get me wrong, Veracruz can also be hot at times but we had a couple of fairly cool days including a rainy day last week which were greatly appreciated! It's also very lush and green here compared to Oaxaca which is why I've heard Veracruz referred to as the breadbasket of Mexico - I think almost anything will grow here!  

We only ended up spending one night in the City of Veracruz as we were underwhelmed by the city. We had a nice day walking around the city and it was overcast and windy which we absolutely loved. However, the city felt pretty depressed and was definitely one of the least impressive cities that we've visited on our trip so far - it felt like many of the buildings were from the 1950s and hadn't had anything done to them since then. Veracruz is where Cortez landed in 1519 so it's the oldest colonized city in Mexico and is strategically important as a port city in Mexico. Veracruz is also known for its food such as Arroz a la Tumbada which is Mexico's version of Paella and I can attest that it is delicious! See a couple photos below from our day wandering the streets of Veracruz. 

Our next stop was Xalapa which is the capital city in the state of Veracruz and also a university town. Xalapa is less than two hours from the City of Veracruz and is in the foothills of the Sierra Madres so it's a bit cooler and very hilly. There were some amazing parks in the city including one park that I ran at every day (Macuiltepec Ecological Reserve) that had great views of the surrounding mountains and is a cloud forest surrounding a dormant volcano. Xalapa is also known for having a huge number of cafes partly due to the region's coffee growing prowess. See photos below of a few highlights from our stay in Xalapa.

The real crown jewel in Xalapa is the Museum of Anthropology which we had read has the second best collection of Mexican artifacts in the country (Mexico City's Anthropology Museum is the best). We spent the better part of an afternoon wandering the museum and it was truly amazing. Most of the artifacts are from the Olmecs who ruled this region of Mexico for hundreds of years and left some truly incredible sculptures, paintings and most impressively, the monster heads - see below!  

A funny thing we've been noticing lately is the shear number of party supply stores in all of the places that we've been traveling. Festivities and parties are a big part of Mexican culture so I suppose it makes good sense that there are lots of party supply stores - they are stocked with pinatas, all kinds of candy, and my absolute favorite are the monster cheese puff bags (see photo below).   

After Xalapa, we drove to Papantla which is a pueblo magico largely due to its proximity to the pre-Columbian city of El Tajin. We stayed at a great spot in the hills outside of Papantla which was nice as we didn't have to do the stealth van camping gig which gets old after a while. We stayed on an organic farm that offered classes to tourists on vanilla which is native to this region. Luis, the owner of the farm, told us that vanilla is a declining crop in the region as it's just not that lucrative and also takes a lot of work to cultivate. 

We visited the ruins of El Tajin which were very impressive and definitely the best ruins that we've seen on our trip so far. I'm not an expert on the ruins so I won't say much more about them but see photos below to get a sense of their scale and grandeur. 

One of the coolest things that we saw in Papantla was the Danza de los Voladores which consists of four colorfully dressed guys diving head first off an incredibly tall pole (about 100 ft to be exact) with ropes tied around their wastes. They then spin in circles around the pole as the rope lets out and they eventually descend to the ground. There's a fifth guy on top who functions as the master of ceremonies and plays the flute and bangs a drum the whole time. He's the lucky guy who doesn't have to dive off the top! It's an ancient Mesoamerican ritual performed to ask the gods for rain to end the drought. See photo below of the Danza de los Valadores. 

No one likes toilet talk so I won't go into too much detail on this but one thing we've struggled with on this trip is maintaining the composting toilet in our van. Suffice to say that we spent a good amount of time giving it a serious cleaning at Luis's farm and we're hopeful that our expensive composting toilet will finally start to perform as advertised! 

In closing, I want to thank Ginny for being an extraordinary copy editor, regular photo contributor and being particularly adept at adding color commentary to all blog posts. I could not do it without her assistance!