Wednesday, 23. August 2006, 06:26:28
The trip to Veracruz went ok all the time... I bought plane tickets on the internet, flying from my city (Querétaro) to Veracruz is extremly expensive, like $500.00usd, but flying from Toluca cost only $100.00 and from Mexico City $170.00usd. Mexico City and Toluca Airport are on a three hour bus trip from Querétaro, I should choose Toluca, but I choose Mexico City, why, well a friend of mine was in Monterrey (600 km from Queretaro) so she arrived at Mexico City airport, and there I will meet her, in order to fly together, another friend will fly from Toluca and the others on the next day at morning from Mexico.
After a four hour trip by bus to the airport, thanks to a car accident in the road, I arrive just in time at the airport, two hours before flight, the recommended time, since all the stuff that happend in England.
The plane takes 30 minutes to arrive to Veracruz, by car or bus is between 8 to 10 hours, so I was positive to use the plane, since I was going to be only two days and two nights at Veracruz, I have to seize every moment.
We (Karina and Me) arrive on time at Veracruz, even earlier than our friend Julio that departed from Toluca, his flight was set to arrive earlier, but there where some troubles in Toluca. In the moment we arrive we feel all the heat, it's the coast, in Querétaro in summer time we have an temperature at day about 25°C (in hot days) and at night at 17°C, in Veracruz it was night and we where at 30°C.
After arriving we went directly to the Hotel Costa Inn, a really nice hotel.
We just left the baggage there put some lotion, clean up a little and depart to the night club "La Casona" my friend that lives in Veracruz didn't like it a lot, he likes electronic music, and in that nighclub they play live POP music, it was a nice club that night it was sponsored by Universidad TecMilenio (a cheap college), the band where REALLY good, and everything really cheap, the guys from Veracruz told me that the jarochos (people from Veracruz) are very trendy and that nightclubs tend to die really fast, but not "La Casona", they had clubs that lasted only two months, I think also the fact that Veracruz has a lot of clubs but not many people live there, not enough to fill them all. By the way nightclubs are really cheap (affordable and good).
The next day we prepared ourselve to go to the airport to pick up the rest of the guys, they arrive on time and we didn't have time to have a breakfast, not a big issue, after pick them up we went to diving in "Cancuncito" a part in the middle of the port where the sand is tall enough to let you walk and when the tide is low an island emerge from the sea, really cool, and something I didn't belive I could see in Veracruz, coral reef, Veracruz is a commercial port before being a tourist hot spot, so the beaches are not nice, but that "Cancuncito" place was ok, they said it was just like Cancun, not true, but it is nice.
Two of our friends taking the experience that says that Veracruz is commercial port and not touristic beach, didn't bring their swimsuits, even though I told them to bring them just in case, so we where all puting the diving stuff, and swimming ang they where bored in the boat, after a while, like an hour, we convince them to swim with clothes... We mess with them all the time about that, "so not cool to swim like that", "no class at all", that kind of stuff.
While diving we saw some sea animals, some cool fishes, at the end while trying to get on the boat again the birthday boy and myself step on some "Erizos de Mar" those animals with tons of pointy spikes that hurt a lot, don't know their name in english.
After that we celebrate the birthday in a traditional mexican birthday party, see my post about that, is below this one.
At night we went to another nightclub, the cool new fashion club in town, located in the World Trade Center Veracruz, it is called "Il Davide" (the David) the music was ok, it was latin pop of the 90's the place was really cool, and really affordable, everything in Veracruz is so more cheap than in Queretaro.
At the next morning we went to have a nice breakfast in the more traditional place in town, a place my grandfather liked to go, when in Veracruz, "Cafe de la Parroquia" so in honor of my grandfather memory I went there. In this place they serve the coffe in a special way, you have a glass with half of extremly strong coffee, then you hit the glass with your spoon and a guy came to provide milk to the top of the glass. By the way the waiter pays for your meal as you order, at the end your bill is paid, and you ou money to the waiter, weird.
After that we walk in the "Malecon" the part next to the ships and saw guys that pick up coins, I mean that you trow a coin to the sea and they swim to get it, they do it really fast.
This day we were going to do all the touristic stuff, visiting the landmarks, like San Juan de Ulua, when Mexico get its independence San Juan de Ulua was still spanish territory, years later they gave the small island to Mexico. In that Island was located the first fortress in Mexico, design to protect the port from pirates and enemies. There I bought a new hat, a four stones hat, "Cuatro pedradas" a traditional hat from Veracruz, but I lost it in the fortress.
After a tour in the fortress we went to the historical downtown, to see the oldest downtown in Mexico, since Veracruz is the oldest spanish city in Mexico. Veracruz also used to be the capital of the state, but since it was always invaded by enemies, Spanish, French and USA (twice) the goverment decided to move the capital to Jalapa a city located 100km from the coast.
After a walk in the pretty downtown I get into a fountain, it was a really hot day, this was the only solution... well our jarocho friends took us to have traditional ice cream, I notice that in all the ice cream stores they have the "Güero, Güera" sign (Blondie man, Blondie Girl), I don't like that expression since it was a racist one, now it's not, the black and indians call that way their europeans masters, but it became a tradition, according to locals, when the ice cream was sold in small carts in the streets they scream "güero, güera, nieve" some kind of marketing, and the tradition stay and they have signs with that word written all over the store.
After that we went to the lighthouse of the port, to have some pictures and near there we ate at a really nice restaurant, again really cheap and REALLY good seafood. After that we went to our friend house spend some time there and to the airport to come back to reality.
Nice weekend, hope never ended, but that is live.
