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Published: February 15th 2009
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9 - 11 Feb (Sorry this is out of date but did not get a chance to download corresponding photos)
We have moved on to the town of Catamaco on the shores of a lake of the same name. Both are named for a local fisherman, Juan Catamaco who had a vision of the Virgin Mary at a spot by the lake about a hundred years ago.
The RV park, identified as Hotel Tepetepan in Church’s Camping Guide, is right in town and is the most beautiful park we have stayed in thus far. It is owned by an American and his wife. Gene moved here from South Padre Island, Texas. He was with a sister city group when he met Gaby whose parents owned this park along with a hotel and restaurant. Gaby had gotten involved with a Mexican sister city group in an effort to help her parents sell the hotel and park, both of which were pretty run down. Gene told them that they should spruce the place up to make it marketable. He began dating Gaby and - guess what, seven years later they are married and he is still here managing the park. Gene
converted the hotel to condos and is doing a thriving business. We met several of their guests. Gene and Gaby have four parrots. Kiko is Gene’s pet. He has had him since he was a baby. The others have been given to them. Kiko usually sits on the outside of his cage and is the only talker in the bunch. He didn’t say anything to us. When he speaks, he imitates Gaby. In other words, he speaks Espanol. No Ingles, Senor. Oh well, we’re getting used to that! Anyway, there is a lovely pool and several bouganvilla trees. The RV spaces are nice and shady, a good thing as it is getting warmer. This park has free WiFi, laundry facilities and muy caliente regalados (very hot showers) with decent water pressure. This is also the first opportunity we’ve had to wash clothes. We did seven loads.
The area sits in a small range of volcanic mountains and is lush and tropical. The drive from Veracruz was varied, pastures, interspersed with groves of banana, farms growing sugar cane and pineapples and areas too hilly and tropical to cultivate. Because it is hardly exotic, I have forgotten to mention that corn
Pool at RV Park
Bridge across the pool at Gene and Gaby's beautiful hotel and RV Park is grown almost everywhere. Corn (or maize) is, of course, a staple in the Latin American diet.
Catamaco is known for its brujos (witches) and brujeria (witchcraft). My Let’s Go guidebook attributes the area’s supernatural beliefs to natural mineral springs and hundreds of species of medicinal plants growing in the area. Gene thinks that it is attributable to the way the fog settles in over the valley and lake because it looks kinda spooky. He shared a few local superstitious stories with us.
Ray is getting pretty good at figuring out the bus system. Today we caught the bus over to San Andres Tuxtla for a cigar factory tour then and caught another bus which delivered us to a village where we were able to walk down (and up) the 250 steps to view the 150 foot Salto de Expantla waterfall.
Cigars manufactured at the San Andres factory are all hand made. As we were the only visitors at the time, we were given an informal tour by a gentleman whom we assume to be a manager. He led us through the tobacco warehouse where the product is aged for two years and then through the production
area where we watched employees strip veins from the tobacco leaves, sort them according to quality and then again according to type for the production of various types of cigars. There must have been about 100 workers hand rolling each cigar. We’d guess that, depending on size, each cigar took from one to three minutes to roll. After our tour, naturally we were escorted to a small sales room and given an opportunity to buy their products. There must have been well over 50 different types of cigars. We only have one cigar smoking friend, so Jimmy, I guess you know what you are getting for a souvenir.
Catamaco had one other interesting place to visit but we did not get there. In 1979, folks from the University of Veracruz brought a group of red cheeked baboons from Thailand to see if the animals could survive in a new environment and installed them on an island on Lake Catamaco. Thrive they did. Boat tours to see the monkeys are a local money maker. Tourists bring fruit to entice the monkeys out of the woods. The monkeys have become very aggressive and fat jumping on the boats for the free
treats. We had planned to take a boat ride to the island after our cigar factory and waterfall tours but storms were threatening and we did not want to wait another day.
Our drive today was uneventful. We crossed into the state of Tobasco. Roads were good. Out of Catamaco we were still in the volcanic area with lush tropical vegetation. Later we passed crops of corn, sugar cane, bananas and pasture land.
Feb 12, Tonite we are parked at a fairgrounds parking lot in the city of Villahermosa along with a large Caraventure RV caravan. These folks are returning from our next stop, Isla Aguada. The Villahermosa campground at which we planned to stop was unexpectedly closed. Ray restocked the booze supply and bought dinner fixings at the Wal-Mart Supercenter.
At first, our parking lot guard seemed surprised and refused our $50 peso tip with “No Senor”. We insisted with the comment for cerveza (beer). He then accepted with much gratitude. Makes us think that the big caravan group that came in front of us had stiffed. Fifty pesos is a small price for free parking and 24 hour’s security.
Watching these folks has further
reinforced our appreciation of the fact that we opted not to join a caravan. To go to dinner, these people were dressed as if they were going to the theater or a fine dining restaurant. While most are driving large RVs, one couple is traveling in a pick-up camper smaller than ours and another couple is using a small Class B. There is no way those two rigs have closet space for fancy clothes.
We had an amusing experience before getting here. We missed the turn into the Wal-Mart/Sam’s Club lot so we thot we’d enter the parking lot from the back side. Wrong …we wound up on a very narrow residential street. In order to turn around, I got out and helped Ray back down an alley. Folks were watching us fools so before I got back into the truck, I grinned and told a couple of older guys “Wal-Mart”. They laughed and repeated it to each other. We gringos probably gave them their biggest laugh of the day.
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