Chasing Waterfalls in Xico

January 29, 2020

After sleeping in, we caught a local bus in Coatepec down the road 25 minutes to the little town of Xico for some waterfall hiking.

We got off the bus at the main plaza and took a moment to admire the Church of Santa María Magdalena. I most enjoyed the variegated dome on top.

We each ate a banana in Coatepec, but thought we might want a little more, so we found a bakery, chose a variety of interesting looking breads, bought juice boxes, and had second breakfast sitting on the edge of the road. We had entertainment in the form of watching buses not meant for small streets trying to turn the corner in front of us.

Second breakfast over, we walked down through town towards the path to the waterfalls. Cascada de Texolo is the main one, and we could take a short trail from it to Cascada de la Monja nearby.

The road down to the waterfalls was paved with cobblestones and on either side had banana and coffee farms. Dad was tickled to see real bananas growing in real trees.

It took a little over a half hour to walk down the road to the waterfall area.  From there a path took us through the jungle to Cascada Texolo. We crossed a massive canyon on a sturdy bridge, right next to a not so sturdy one.

A bit farther along we came to El Sendero de Ocelote (Ocelot Trail) which we could go down for a small fee.

Wooden stairs wound down the far side of the canyon to a much better view of the falls.

Its 80 meters tall and an impressive sight. We finished off the last of our breakfast bread on a bench enjoying the view before steeling ourselves to head back up the stairs.

Back at the top, a short walk down another path took us to La Cascada de la Monja.

The safe path, and the dangerous path. They really laid it out for you to decide. Turns out the dangerous path was just skinny and next to a water viaduct. Nothing as dangerous as I imagined.

It was smaller, but still lovely. There were guys fishing in the pool, but we never saw them catch anything.

The walk back up to town wasn't bad. I asked directions from a couple people and we found a bus back to Coatepec without too much trouble. We showered off, rested tired feet in the hotel for a bit, then headed out to dinner, tired but satisfied with the day's adventures.

San Juan de Ulúa and Romancing the Stone

January 28, 2020

The main reason for choosing Veracruz as my destination with Dad was because one of his favorite movies, Romancing the Stone, had scenes filmed there. The movie is set in Colombia, and the final scene is in a fort in Cartagena. When I was in Cartagena, Dad told me I should go see it, and a quick Google search told me I wasn't actually in the right country. So it went on my bucket list, and is finally getting checked off.

San Juan de Ulúa was the last Spanish stronghold in Mexico, and it has all sorts of history that we didn't really care about, since we just wanted to find where the scenes were filmed. I printed some movie screenshots for comparison. So without further ado:

Of course we had to recreate Danny DeVito.

In addition to comparing movie stills to real life, we enjoyed walking around the rest of the fort. There's a lot more than is shown in the movie, built all out of coral blocks taken from the surrounding reefs.

Since it's mostly original construction from over 200 years ago, many of the rooms had stalactites dripping from the ceiling, a result of water seepage through the limestone coral.

We spent about 2 hours poking around all the places in the fort, and heres some photos.

I highly recommend visiting the fort if you're ever in Veracruz. I also recommend watching Romancing the Stone, because its great.

After some lunch we hopped on a bus towards higher elevations and cooler temperatures. Our next couple days will be spent exploring the areas around Coatepec!

Tlacotalpan: colors on the river

January 27, 2020

Our third day we headed out of town. Two and a half hours south-west of Veracruz is the colorful little riverside town of Tlacotalpan, which Dad never did successfully learn to say.

The center park was lovely, with a colorful pavilion surrounded by trees and flowers.

The church at the edge was a wonderful sky blue. We took a peek inside, and found it wasn't entirely gold leaf like some altars are. I thought it was very dignified.

Painted on the pillars next to the pews- you don't need a cell phone to talk with God.

A stroll down the street revealed every house or storefront painted a different color of the rainbow. It was a lovely effect. A big annual festival is starting in a couple days so lots of paint was getting touched up and lawns were being mowed.

After finding lunch at a restaurant with a riverfront view, we went and talked to one of the guys asking if we wanted a boat ride. We accepted the terms, and took a spin up the river.

The houses from the water were just as pretty, and we got to hear some of the history of when they were built (some 200 years ago) and about the festival coming up which includes a water parade.

Our personal tour guide for the afternoon. I understood maybe 70% of what he was telling us.

The view back at town from out on the water.

Our lunch spot was the orange one.

Our captain with his boat, Ninfa Elvira.

And finally, this gem was parked on the street. I did a whole post about slugbugs when I was traveling before, and this one would have fit right in. Dolled up with a megaphone off each side and a giant speaker in the middle. Amazing.

Day 1 and 2: Veracruz

January 25-26, 2020

About a year ago I told dad I wanted to take him to Mexico on a trip. Several scenes from one of his favorite movies, Romancing the Stone were filmed in or around Veracruz, so I said let's go see those. And do some other stuff. He agreed, and we've finished our first two days here. His first two days in a country not the US or Canada.

Our flights were somewhat uneventful. We flew Seattle to Guadalajara to Mexico City to Veracruz, and arrived mid afternoon to our final destination.

We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel, and dad got his first taste of bat-out-of-hell taxi drivers and Latin American traffic, but did pretty well at hiding any terror. I was just happy to be back with familiar sights and sounds.

We checked into the hotel, then walked up to the centro for some sightseeing. The bulwark, a remnant of the wall that circled the city in the 1800s, was unfortunately closed for renovations, but the outside still looked cool.

We got ice cream to drown our disappointment. (Okay, that one was all my idea) then found the naval museum the next block over. It was open late for an event that night.

The museum was extensive to say the least.

The exhibits were all around this huge center room with a big map on the floor.

There were exhibits in room after room of naval history, prehispanic artifacts, recreations of weapons, uniforms, ships, it just kept going. There were people in uniform ready to talk about the exhibits and answer questions. A musical performance was being set up for in the courtyard.

Scale model of an 18th century boat.

It's a good thing they were open late because we took way longer than I thought to go through it all.

It was dark when we finally left. We took a stroll out to the waterfront, saw the fort across the water that we'll be visiting in the next day or two, then went to find dinner.

Dads first Mexican meal was from a very authentic street taco shop, with horchata to drink.

We went to bed pleased with day 1.

Day 2 I had arranged to go diving. That one was actually Dad's idea. He wanted to go snorkeling and just have a day out on the water, so I didn't argue.

After the normal madness in the shop with paperwork and sizing gear, we were on our way down the beach to the boat.

Leaving Veracruz harbor, definitely a working port.

The second dive was just off this lighthouse, which warned unsuspecting boats about the reef.

The dive sites were maybe 20 mins offshore, and we passed a bunch of shallow reef areas along the way. I'd hate to be a captain out there, lots of things to run aground on.

I'll do a separate diving post once I download my photos and see if there's anything worthwhile in them. Suffice for now to say the diving was fun, and there were lots of fish, corals, eels, sea urchins, and I very much enjoyed them. Dad had a good time snorkeling and experiencing how a dive boat operation worked.

After returning gear and rinsing off, we walked out to El Faro Verde, the green lighthouse that was protecting the harbor in front of the shop.

It was pleasantly breezy, and dad liked seeing all the guys fishing off the side. We also saw a school of fish leaping out of the water running from some predator fish, and he thought that was REALLY cool.

Back on land I bought a cup of shaved ice from a street vendor, and dad looked at how the boats were moored in the marina. Hey, we all have our interests.

Interesting mooring techniques apparently. Also interesting pelicans.

We showered off at the hotel and had some downtime, then went out to the waterfront to find dinner. All the restaurants along that part of the street have folks out on the sidewalk showing menus to passersby, so we looked at a couple, found one that looked good, and had shrimp dinners with a view of the ocean and live music.

After dinner we walked a ways down the waterfront in the other direction from town just to see what was there, then called it a night.

Looking back up the waterfront towards the Veracruz old town. The photo turned out almost black and white.

Another successful day in the books.