Weekend in Veracruz
Trip Start
Jul 27, 2012
1
12
18
Trip End
Dec 17, 2012
Where I stayed
Veracruz, Central Mexico and Gulf Coast, Mexico
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Well I made it! The planning paid off and last weekend saw a group of us head out to Veracruz. Rachel decided to come along so the cost of the hotel room was shared, but for 2 nights the total was only £35 and that included air con. And 2 huge double beds….so no complaints about that! In fact the bus fare cost more than the hotel! It would have been slightly cheaper if we had travelled to the bus station further north in Mexico City but I really couldn't be bothered to travel on the crowded metro with my bag so 4 of us decided to go from Taxquena bus station which only meant being squashed for about 30 minutes on the tren ligero! We caught a bus at 4.30pm and considering it was Friday the traffic out of the city wasn’t too bad, or perhaps I have just been here long enough to accept it as normal now! The buses here are very good; with plenty of leg room, air conditioning, toilets and movies. This bus also had extra channels where you could listen to music as well! It was a six hour journey but time passed quickly and once we arrived we dropped our bags at the hotel and headed for the centre (zocolo) which was very lively! Amazingly as we were walking around looking for somewhere to eat we saw the others who had travelled down on Thursday! We were all staying at the same hotel so arranged to meet up for breakfast and a boat trip next morning.
The third group who left us at Taxquena to travel down from the other bus station were not booked into our hotel and in fact we didn’t see them all weekend! Anyway Saturday morning, after a huge breakfast, we headed off to negotiate terms for the boat trip. Apparently they were promising to drop us on an island where we could stay and sunbathe for a couple of hours. The beaches in Veracruz are sandy, but hard compacted sand that is a greyish colour, so not too appealing! Eventually we paid about £5 for the boat trip and headed off to explore the sea around Veracruz, which is an enormous port with a continuous stream of container ships heading in and out! We had to laugh about it though as the "island sunbathing" didn’t materialise. We approached an island and were told something about it but as it was a nature reserve we were not allowed to land on it. But we joined several other boats moored on a sand bar, which was submerged in waist deep water, where we could swim or head into slightly deeper water to snorkel……so much for sunbathing on sandy beaches! But we had some fun and the breeze aboard the boat was so refreshing after the humidity in Veracruz.
Later we whiled away the rest of the afternoon in an airy beachside bar drinking margaritas or piña coladas and swimming in the sea. That evening we headed for a fish restaurant that the others had tried the previous evening……but it was closed!! Nevertheless we managed to find another one and enjoy fresh seafood!
The weekend just disappeared all too quickly and after a spell sunbathing on Sunday and trying the local coffee it was time to head for the bus station. Not too far into the journey the heavens opened and the roads became like rivers! It really does know how to rain here!!! That didn’t seem to slow us down but later we hit some kind of traffic jam that snaked all the way up a mountain and delayed us by about 2 ½ hours…….we eventually got home around midnight. Needless to say I didn’t make it to my 8.30am spinning class on Monday morning! But it was such a lovely relaxed weekend it was worth it. I am feeling better this week about coping with everything. I still haven’t sent off my insurance claim or applied for a replacement passport yet. I am hoping to get the final bits done today so I can get it all sent off. It has been such a lot of paperwork and as I have no printer here I have to take everything over to Tec for printing or scanning and it is just so time consuming.
Anyway I think my weekends away are on hold now for a few weeks as we have the next lot of “partials” coming up. But I think the idea is to escape the weekend they finish which will be at the end of the month. There is a lovely looking place next to Acapulco but it seems quite hard to find decent hotels there so we may end up in Acapulco…..not ideal but as it is just a weekend escape I guess I will cope! Loads of people have been there as it doesn’t take too long by bus and they say it is fine….so we shall see. I am planning to go and visit some of the museums this weekend and it is also Tessa’s birthday (she is one of the Australian students) and a party is being organised for her on Saturday…..the only problem is she wants it to be fancy dress!! Oh well…watch this space!
Comments
see the Albino is still around lol