Wednesday, February 11, 2015
We packed up and left the Baluarte Hotel today, along with leaving Vera Cruz. We headed first to Bocca Del Rio. It is almost attached to Vera Cruz as there is urban sprawl between the two. We could see that they were still readying the two cities for Mardi Gras.
Bocca Del Rio appears to be a more modern city. We drove by many restaurant chains and those buildings were bigger than most in Canada. Our aim was the centro. We had been there before and it is new, not colonial. It has a river running through it as the name signifies. We ended up going to a Liverpool Mall and eating lunch there. Liverpool and the rest of the mall is very high end. We discovered a gourmet deli which took up much of one floor of Liverpool. We went to the lower level and found the buffet. Unfortunately that is what I wanted to have for lunch. I say unfortunately because sitting in a car for hours after eating a big meal is likely not wise. The meal was superb. Many waiters dressed in suits. silver covered chafing dishes, gourmet food - soup, salad, choice of main courses, spectacular desserts. The meal was less than 120 pesos or $12 CAD.
My large meal assisted me in falling asleep for about half an hour. When I woke up we were in landscape that was yellow, short grass with cactus and scrubby, leafless trees. We had the ocean on one side and a lake on the other. Soon we drove into beautiful green hills with lush landscape. We saw many trucks loaded down with sugar cane. We drove through cities, towns and villages for about a five hour drive along the coast on the free highway. We went through Alvarado, surrounded by water, Lerdo de Tejada, Angel R. Cabada, El Meson, Santiago Textla, San Andres Textla and Caleria until we arrived at Catemaco. These place were in a sort of jungle with banana trees and sugar cane. It was not really hot out but pleasantly warm with humidity.
We headed straight to the campground - Villas Tepetepan and RV Park - as the sun was setting. Highlight of our RV Park experience - a donkey. As we were driving through Catemaco we saw a fellow riding a donkey and I had tried to take his picture. Being on Ken's side of the road it was tricky and I felt bad that I had missed out on this lovely grey specimen of a burro. Not to be the case! He came riding into the campground, saddle and all. The rider tied the donkey to a tree to graze. Mr. Burro was so glad to have his saddle removed he rolled in the dirt then laid down for a nap. We both got to pet him as he was right outside our van.
We went for an evening stroll by the lake and into Catemaco. It is a tourist trap of sorts, likely being cooler than most places in the summer because being located on a lake. You could go out in a long boat and see monkeys out on the other side of the lake. We found a small restaurant with people at it. Many restaurants had no occupants, never a good sign. We had good, authentic soups. Friendly service welcoming customers who greeted us when we entered.
Mr. Burro slept outside our van last night. He was so precious.
Thursday, February 12, 2015
When we woke up in the morning the wonderfully cute gray donkey was gone off to work already. We did however get ourselves going and went out for breakfast at the same place we ate supper last night. The Huevos Mexicanos were wonderful along with the refried black beans.
After leaving our campground at Catemaco we drove on the free road to Acayucan, heading towards the city of Villahermosa, Tabasco. After Acayucan We were on a toll highway. Honestly most of the highways we were on today we're quite rough and had lots of potholes. When you went through towns or villages there were many topes (like speed bumps) to slow you down. At the tollbooths and at topes you would be inundated with lots of people coming out to sell you mostly food items. In this particular part of Mexico peanuts in the shell, some kind of fried coconut disks, along with peeled spiced oranges were the food of choice to sell.
In one town the taxi was a very small little car with room enough for the driver in the front and a small backseat. They had a convertible top for when the weather was hot. The picture will give you a much better idea of what these little taxis were like.
There were lots of trees on both sides of the road. Most of the trip was on the toll road that was four Lane Highway. Some towns looked more well-off then other towns. Sometimes towns really took pride keeping their properties clean, tidy and trash free. One town had several smoke stacks spewing dark smoke into the air. Another had the ash from sugar cane burn floating in the air. It landed on the van, even came in the windows during the short time of driving through town.
On the northern image of the Villahermosa we decided to camp. We stayed about five miles north of the city at Recreativo Él Gordon Y San Pancho. Just to let you know there is no running water in the bathrooms and the Internet is only good in a few spots. So no hot shower in the morning in fact no shower in the morning period. We have been inundated by mosquitoes and feral dogs. After dark I saw a big, warty, light coloured toad on the ground in front of me. Glad there was only one.
Friday, February 13, 2015
Today we drove into the big city of Villahermosa, in the state of Tabasco.
This city is actually the capital city of the state of Tabasco. It has a population of about 600,000. It is an industrial town with lots of oil production.
We looked at hotels on booking.com and saw that they were very expensive and did not have very good ratings. Our solution, we decided to find a good Air B and B. The first one we looked at was Rebecca's home and it was lovely so we decided this is where we would stay. While I was freshening up Ken got some good names of restaurants etc. from Rebecca. It was near lunchtime so we decided to use one of her recommendations and we went to the theater district. Los Tulipanes restaurant served traditional types of food for the area. Instead of giving us nacho chips made out of corn we got big sort of pancake type thing that was crisp like a nacho chip but was made out of banana pulp. The waiter warned us several times that the salsa was very hot, however, we found it very flavorful and delicious. I had a rice and shrimp dish which is quite traditional and Ken had grilled chicken breast. Our waiter made a point of inviting us to come out tomorrow for the breakfast buffet. He said the food is very traditional and felt we would really enjoy it.
While wandering around in the center of the city of the Villahermosa we saw quite a few wonderful sites. In Centro we saw "Casa de los azulejos", built in 1890 in the Historic centre of Villahermosa, combines Gothic and Moorish styles. We also saw Esperanza Iris Theatre, Plaza de Armas (main square), Zona Luz (city centre) and Catedral del Señor de Tabasco (Cathedral of the Lord of Tabasco and much more. We saw one building with clay faces as decoration. The city has a lot of water features with lagoons and rivers throughout. While walking to to reach the beginning of a bridge we found a ferry that went across the water that we were trying to cross. The ferry ride was short and sweet with two men playing guitar and singing while we rode on the ferry. We walked for a while on the other side then decided to take a small red and white taxi back to the ferry. Using Ken's good navigation skills and the power of Google we did find the Centro. We covered a lot of ground.
We walked approximately 10 km on this overcast Friday. We walked through neighborhoods that were wealthy and neighborhoods that were not so wealthy. We felt perfectly safe at all times. The air, however, does not feel so safe it feels quite polluted here. Rebecca provided us with a booklet of some information about the city. She says that Hermosas pretty well hot all year long and that cold temperatures for locals are below 25°C. She said that really for people who live in the city 18°C is like freezing for other people. The drivers here are quite aggressive, impatient and advanced. They do blow their horn often so you must have patience driving here. Another little tip for coming to Villahermosa, bring your insect repellent there are lots of mosquitoes.
Once we returned to the van we decided to drive to a restaurant in the mall. Once there we realize there's a very well-off part of this city. We were in Boston pizza and the prices are about the same as Canada. We were in a Liverpool mall and prices were quite high.
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Happy Valentine's Day!
I am lucky enough to spend my Valentine's Day with my sweetie in warm, sunny southern Mexico, in Villahermosa to be exact. Ken and I had a wonderful Valentine's Day together.
We walked all together 22 km to a museum, from the museum downtown and then back to where we are staying. Before arriving at the museum we went into a mall. They design their malls a little bit differently here where temperatures can go up into the 40° C range. They have covered parking lots in front of the mall which seems very odd to us. But after thinking about it it makes perfect sense. It provides shade for the cars and shade for the patrons who are going into the stores.
Part of our walk was a long and very busy street but once we got near the river it was a walk through the park. We saw what we would call wild animals coming out of the jungle and trying to get food from people. These animals that looked like a cross between a raccoon and an anteater were white nosed coatimundis. These little creatures looked quite adorable, there were even babies, but I do believe they're quite ferocious. We saw coatimundis almost everywhere for the rest of the time we were in the park in museum area.
Parque La Venta Museum in Villahermosa is a wonderful getaway while in this city. The big plus is you get to see works of the ancient ancestors of the Maya, the Olmec. There are 28 Olmec carvings at this mainly outdoor museum with its interesting zoo, lake, and indoor museum. Each piece was set carefully for optimum viewing with benches placed for those wishing to meditate or ponder. It also has descriptions of the work in Spanish and in English. My favourite zoo animal was the baby monkey who had plenty of space to play in and many relatives to play with. This park was in a jungle with coatimundis following us around. The huge statues actually gave you a feeling of awe when you thought about how old they were and the ancient civilization that they were a part of.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Today we left Villermosa and our plan was to drive to Palenque which is about a two hour drive.
Before we left we went to the Galleria Tabasco Mall and ate lunch. We did not think there would be much in the line of places to stop for food, especially vegetarian. Ken also made sure our TelCel was recharged. This little task he was able to do in Liverpool which is a big name story like theBay in Canada.
Once we were out and on our drive, it took awhile to get going, we saw many fields full of cattle. We did make a stop along our way. We stopped at a Pemex station that was constructed of stone. I am assuming it is a cheap, local building product. Think of the ruins in the surrounding area.
Ken was thoughtful and found our camping spot on Google Maps before leaving our last internet connection. We went to the Maya Bell RV site. It is the last campground before the Palenque ruins. You could walk there or to the museum from the campground. Arriving at the campground we found two Canadians immediately, a couple from Victoria, BC. Quite a coincidence since Victoria is about a two hours drive from where we lived for years. They had driven far south of Mexico to places like Cosa Rica (which they found expensive), Guadamala, Honduras, Nicaragua, etc. They felt safe most of the time, but they stayed in hostels not their tent. Amazingly they had taken two light brown standard breed poodles with them. Very sweet and fluffy dogs. It must have been a hard trip on the dogs, but I am sure they are pampered.
We did not go beyond the campground that evening. We ate at the funky restaurant at the RV grounds. Their appeared to be an unusual assortment of people from many different areas of the world - lots of Australians. The Restaurant had woven lamps, a mid-size palapa roof, what wall it did have were painted with jungle scenes. It was extremely cozy for basically an open air eating area. We had a chica (small) agua fruita made of water and cantelope. It was the size of a litre wine carafe. The real surprise was the cheap price. To top off the evening two musicians sang right beside our table. Too bad we had business to take care of, we did our accounting.
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