Blogs from Veracruz, Mexico, North America - page 2

Geo: 19.5312, -96.9159The Anthropological Museum in Xalapa (an otherwise unremrkable town) s reckoned to be the second best in Mexico - after the national museum in Mexico City. And that might well be true, but the day we visited the National Museum it was very crowded (being a free of charge entry day for Mexicans, if not for us) and not having enough descriptive material in English. Xalapa. on the other hand, we had almost entrely to ourelves and a vdry useful audio guide in English was available.The building swoops down a hillside moving you down from the earlest history to the last stages of pre-Hispanic development. And many of the artefacts are breathaking in their beauty, in the miracle of their preservation (life-size pottery models of gods etc) and in the excellence of the preservation.So ... read more

Well I've been in Mexico for 4.5 weeks now and thats half the trip done. Crazy how quickly time goes. As you know I was meant to be in Oaxaca for a few extra weeks but plans changed and I decided I'd go and see a bit more of the country. Choice was between Veracruz and Villahermosa. Villahermosa lost out due to the fact I couldn't find a hostel there (the 13 hour bus ride wasn't too appealing either). So got the bus at midnight to arrive on the Friday morning. Had 2 seats to myself so was in a position to get some sleep...that was until we stopped about a million times for different things...the worst being an army checkpoint high in the mountains where we had to get off and have our bags searched. ... read more

After straining my legs on the mountain bike, i decided to head for the home town of Salma Hayek. This is a small town in the state of Veracruz, that is well known for.... umm well nothing really.. but made a friend there so thought i would visit. Spent the 1st day wandering around the beach being a tourist taking lots of photos. It amazed me how dirty the beach was, in the distance you have a beautiful landscape of mountains and sea, yet right infront of your eyes the beach is full of rubbish. I was told tht its becuase of the fact its rainy sason, so the rubbish gets carried down to the beach, (from the streets), was a shame, didnt make me want to go in the water at all. Maybe if they ... read more

I stayed two days in a campground called "La Jugla" on the shore of lake Catemaco. They tell me that "Medicine Man" and "Apocalyto" were filmed here and I don't doubt that because it is such a fantastic jungle setting. I didn't have to drive far to get here but it was pretty brutal. I almost bailed on trying to find the campground because I had a hard time finding the entrance and it got a lot worse after that. The so called "road" into this place was little more than a path through the jungle that inexplicably split a couple of times. I had GPS coordinates to aim at but my GPS promptly lost its way under the thick canopy. The birds, monkeys, and something that sounded like R2-D2 started mocking me when I stopped ... read more

I had a relatively easy day yesterday. I visited the ruin of Tajin early in the morrning. As it happens, I got there 10 minutes before the gates opened so I was a little worried to find a completely deserted parking lot. The other strangeness is that there was a huge field of (mostly identical) tents set up just outside the gates plus many more tents along the driveway leading to the parking lot. It turns out that there was some kind of a concert the night before. I can only think it must have been quite the spectacle to see a concert in this unique setting of ancient pyramids and the like. I kinda wish that I could have seen that but it was probably chaos. The site was spectacular enough in it's own right. ... read more