Hot and Sultry: Veracruz

As planned, I spent the 4-day weekend in the state of Veracruz. My first stop was the city of Veracruz, located on the Gulf coast. I arrived at 6am Saturday morning ("fresh" off the midnight bus from Oaxaca), and had the taxi drop me off in the zócalo, where I read while waiting for restaurants to open for breakfast. Even at 6am, it was obvious that it was going to be HOT, the air was heavy with moisture and it all felt refreshingly tropical. But by the middle of the afternoon, I was having flashbacks to summer in central Florida, and I felt very sluggish and lazy. I managed to take a long siesta (my specialty!!) and visit a great foto exhibit, but besides that I mostly just hung out in the zócalo. I believe I had at least one nieve (natural ice cream made from a water base) from every possible vendor. Mango was the flavor that won, melon was a close second.

Here are some random fotos from my time wandering in Veracruz. There was so much activity in the zócalo at night, excellent people-watching! Street performers, musicians, wandering vendors, and just crowds of people getting ready for the big festitivies on Monday night to commemorate Mexican Independence Day.

I took some fotos of the waterfront pretty close to the town center. Apparently there are some decent beaches much further south, but I didn't make it down to check them out. I'd heard mixed reviews of the Veracruz beaches, and since the most beautiful beaches are right here in Oaxaca, it didn't seem worth the trouble...

I've also included a random foto of one of the lions that is guarding the front of the post office. He seems unnecessarily surly to me!

I went to the Veracruz Aquarium, which was pretty impressive (and air-conditioned!!). It was cute to hear little kids around me pointing out the Dorys and Nemos in the fish tanks, apparently "Finding Nemo" was a big hit in its Spanish version, as well! I did my best reading all the informational signs in Spanish, many of them had the English name for the creature in addition to the latin name. One interesting factoid: a shiny fish called doncella arcoiris in Spanish, which translates to "rainbow damsel" in English, was listed with the English name "Slippery Dick." I'm not sure if that's an actual fish name, or if some Aquarium translator got a little bored, and decided to spice things up a bit. : )