Veracruz, Veracruz

Saturday, February 7, 2015
Oops, forgot to do today.

Sunday, February 8, 2015
La Gran Parroquia Cafe was our choice for breakfast.







When we arrived the restaurant was full with people on this sunny Sunday morning. Families were enjoying the Marimba music that was playing. This is the café that has coffee or milk being poured about 3 feet above the cup. They never seem to spill and are skilled baristas. The cup is actually a glass.

Ken had a delicious potato type omelette. He tops off most of his dishes here with a with a warm type of catchup. I had a typical Veracruzana dish with black beans, fried eggs over top of white rice and fried banana. All delicious! Best of all was The Gran's famous coffee. All this food was served graciously by our professional waiter.

After such a filling breakfast we continue to walk up the main type promenade along the ocean. We started watching some guys jumping into the ocean - burrrr! This is the Atlantic ocean I'm talking about in February. If you would throw in 10 pesos they would dive in to catch the money before it landed at the bottom. They were very good at getting the money quickly.

It was perfectly gorgeous weather and sunny. We walked along the ocean where we had walked previously deciding to return back to our room.

Later on in the afternoon when we returned out into the beautiful sunshine, we walked along the ocean on the promenade south towards Boca Del Rio. What did we see besides breakwaters, big boats and little boats, people selling different kinds of food, sandy beach, etc.? Well, we saw row upon row of portable bleachers. These bleachers were set up on both sides of the road, driving north into Veracruz. In fact, the bleachers went almost all the way into Boca Del Rio from Veracruz. Mardi Gras is coming up real fast. A lady working at the front desk of a hotel told us that they were going to be three days worth of parades coming up. I guess putting up that many bleachers is worth it if that's the case.

After deciding on a suitable restaurant, believe me we had a lot to choose from, we decided to order a traditional dish from the area. This was a rice dish with prawns (heads and all) in a tomato base. It was called Arroz a la Tumbada. It was almost soup like in character. The wonderful restaurant we chose had a couple a little older than us who were the owners. The gentleman was very interested in where we were from before coming to Veracruz. His wife was very interested in where we were going after leaving Veracruz. Between what English she knew and what Spanish we knew we were able to communicate about some desirable places to drive to after heading south from Here. Cancun, Isla Mujeres and Cascadas de Agua Azul near Palenque were three of her favourites.

We walked from Boco Del Rio back into Vera Cruz. Today's walk was 11.13 km in total. This time, however, we walked in from the ocean a few blocks. It had gotten a bit windy and chilly. We did discover a wonderful little bakery, a Mexican panadería. My favourite treat was there - meringue cookies.

Monday, February 9, 2015
I have to tell you about our wonderful breakfast that we had at the Gran Café.






We were going to avoid a big breakfast but somehow when we woke up we were hungry and decided it was a great idea. Ken had a Spanish omelette with pieces of cut up chicken overtop. The whole thing was sort of in a chicken soup broth. I had a sweet bun, cut in two with beans and cheese in the middle. Sounds unusual but it was delicious.

Being Monday it was laundry day. We went to a lavandería (laundry) about a kilometer away from the hotel. We walked to the laundry and using Spanish let the girl know we wanted to get our laundry washed and picked up tomorrow. We kept going on our walk to try and find a suitable place for lunch. Some days when you're vegetarian everything is kind of meaty and I couldn't find anything that was suitable for comida corrida. We went back to the wonderful bakery that we were at last night and picked out a few little snacks that we called lunch.

This was also a shopping day. We took our van out for a little drive, out to a part of Veracruz that is more in the suburbs. We went to about three different super mercados (grocery stores)  that were huge. You could probably find just about anything you wanted at any of these stores. However, two of the things I was looking for I believe are probably not in Mexico. I am looking for Reynolds white freezer paper. It is one of those things that is hard to find in Canada too. Another thing I was looking for was a new brush for my battery-operated toothbrush. I could not find either. Ken found what he was looking for actually in all of the stores. He was also looking for 10W-30 motor oil. He finally had to go to AutoZone to find it at a reasonable price. It was, however, more expensive then it was when he bought it in Canada. Somehow this higher price doesn't seem fair because the average Mexican person earns much less than the average Canadian.

We walked about 12 km today.  I think I was still tired from one other days long walk.

When it came to suppertime we decided that we needed some raw food. We actually found a restaurant that specialized in salads it was a chain type of restaurant. We're also lucky in the fact that it actually had two-for-one soups on Monday night. This post sort of sounds like all we did was eat today. Well, we did do a lot of eating but we did do a lot of walking too.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Going to the zoo today....but more on that later.










We have taken to riding the elevator that is not just outside our room but the elevator on the opposite side of the floor from us. It is an older model with a view out to the huge stained glass wall and the main floor courtyard. The few extra steps are worth the wonderful view.

Off we went for one last breakfast at The Gran. I had molettes which are buns cut in half with refried black beans spread on them, then cheese melted on top. If for any reason your meal seems bland each meal is accompanied by pickled onions, carrots and hot peppers. This meal also had a type of pico de gallo, but sort of pickled. We both drank Lecheros (a little coffee, lots of warm milk). Ken had waffles.

We proceeded to picked up our completed laundry, get the van's oil changed and eat lunch. We ate at Antejitos Anita. I had the comida corrida. I have to tell you about this lunch at 55 pesos. I had a squash, similar to a small zucchini, stuffed with cheese (panella) then that was dipped in a batter and perhaps fried - wow delicious. Plus I was given soup, salad, beans and a small home-made pudding dessert. Ken assisted me in consuming my enormous meal. He had fried bananas with cheese on top.

We were full and needed to walk off some of the fullness. This is when we went to the zoo. It seemed a little less occupied then two years ago. The creatures seemed well cared for but could have had bigger accommodations. One parrot was hanging onto the side of his cage at about eye level. I snapped pictures then decided I must pet his soft belly, then his toes, then his beak. He seemed to like the attention, I certainly enjoyed my parrot interface. Ken felt the animals seemed loved and content. There were a few in very small cages obviously the animals were waiting to see the vet on site.

The ride back to the hotel was eventful. The city had obviously geared up for Mardi Gras and had traffic that was cut off from entering certain areas. That led to limited grid lock and honking horns. It was one of the several indicators that we had made a wise decision to not stay in Vera Cruz for Mardi Gras.

We could not resist going back to he Gran for supper, but at about eight-thirty as night. I will miss it and the music, the sound track of Mexico.