Fu Tian, Chinese and Mexican Food
I mentioned earlier that Mexico is largely monocultural, without the ethnic diversity that we take for granted in this country (particulary in Los Angeles). That's mostly true, but there are some exceptions. For example, Hector and Malena often eat breakfast at, of all things, a Chinese restaurant up the street:
Fu Tian, Chinese and Mexican Food
I had molletes, which I mentioned earlier. And then, after breakfast, Terry and I went to get the car. Hector recommended against leaving the car parked on the street, so we parked in a locked parking lot a few blocks down the street. As we walked, we passed a number of shops, including a couple of perfume stores, an ice cream parlor, a juice bar, etc. We also passed a school, where students were just arriving for the day, and someone was singing the national anthem over a loudspeaker.
After picking up the car, we headed out of town, to spend a few days in Veracruz (w) . Veracruz is a city on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, about a five hour drive east of Mexico City. Finding my way to Veracruz wasn't too much of a problem - there's a major highway between the two cities. But getting out of Mexico City was a challenge. I was doing fine until I came to the point where I had to get onto the highway out of town. This was where I made the spectacularly wrong turn that I alluded to on the introduction page. The interchange between the road I was on and the road I had to get to was large and complicated, and I got turned around:
Where I should have gone
Where I went
...and found myself heading back into town, on a major highway, with no way to turn around. I finally did get back on the right track, but it took a while.
Here's a map of the drive to Veracruz:
Back on the introduction page, I listed a number of things that I saw along the way that showed the rural character of the country. Most of the items I mentioned there were things that I saw on this drive. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of most of them. But here's one:
A man riding a burro down the highway
On U.S. highways, especially in mountainous areas, you'll often find places by the side of the road where they have radiator water available for motorists. They have that in Mexico, too, but the water doesn't come from a faucet...
It comes from a well!
Along the way, we passed a volcano known as La Malinche (w) (ma-LIN-chay):
Again, the Wikipedia article has better pictures.
Just past the city of Puebla (PWEB-lah), we stopped for a brief bathroom break. So this would be a good time for a digression on bathrooms.
The guidebooks all tell you that when you're travelling in Mexico, you need to bring your own toilet paper. It's true. In the cities, of course, there's no problem. But out on the road, restrooms either don't have toilet paper at all, or they'll charge you 3 pesos (about 30 cents) for about half a dozen squares of paper. Moral: bring your own.
I have often commented that public restrooms are one reason I'm glad I'm a man. This was particularly true in Mexico. I have never been more glad to be able to do my business standing up. It wasn't always a matter of cleanliness, either. Sometimes the toilets had no seats.
Then there were the toilets that weren't connected to running water, so in order to flush, you had to dip a pail full of water from a barrel conveniently located nearby, and dump it in the bowl. And if you're the squeamish type, who doesn't like to turn around and look at what you've left behind... tough.
After Puebla, the road starts climbing up and over a high range of mountains. When we started coming down the other side, we ran into extremely heavy fog - so much so that the visibility at some points was darn near measured in inches. It was scary.
Then as we started coming down into the coastal area, the vegetation started changing, and becoming more lush and tropical. And so we came to Veracruz. Quite a contrast from Mexico City. Smaller, quieter, more laid back. People leave their doors unlocked, and walk down the middle of the street (at least in the suburban residential areas).
In Veracruz, we stayed at the home of Malena's friend Mina. Up until about a year ago, Mina lived in Veracruz (actually Boca Del Rio, a suburb of Veracruz) with her husband. But her husband died about a year ago, and Mina went back to Teotihuacan, where she grew up. So Hector and Malena arranged for us to rent her house while we were in Veracruz.
I thought we would be there by ourselves. In fact, there was a houseful of people. Mina, her daugher Karina, her two grandchildren (by another daugher) Darien and Roberto, and her mother, Doņa Irma.
A brief digression on the terms Don and Doņa. (If you already know what the words mean, skip to the next paragraph.) Originally, a Don was a Spanish nobleman, sort of the equivalent of a British Lord. And a Doņa, of course, was a noblewoman. Well, in these egalitarian days, there aren't noblemen or noblewomen any more, so the words are used as respectful terms of address for elders, superiors, etc.
Anyway, I was never sure which of those people were staying there at night, but they always seemed to be around. But they were all good people, so it was OK.
Mina's house was another facet of the adventure. She's having major remodelling done, so the house had a sort of unfinished look. We had to bring our own towels, because Mina didn't have any extras. The shower in our bathroom had no shower curtain, so I had to mop up the floor (with a bath towel) every time I took a shower. And the bathroom sink had a leak in the outflow pipe from the drain to the wall - water would drain out of the sink, through the pipe, and right onto the floor. So I found a Tupperware container, and put it on the floor under the sink.
Here are pictures of Mina's house and neighborhood:
Casa de Mina
Mina's neighborhood
So when we got to Veracruz, the first thing we did was meet up with Mina. Which proved to be an adventure in itself - we had quite a bit of trouble finding each other. Thank God for cell phones. Anyway, after we got settled in at her house, we walked down the street to a local restaurant, Varadero:
That's Mina on the left - unfortunately, that's the only picture of her that I got.
Varadero is a seafood restaurant. Terry had a very rich seafood stew, and I had a dish called "Camarones Caballo Blanco" (White Horse Shrimp), which consisted of shrimp in a white sauce, covered with melted cheese. Cholesterol heaven. We also had chips and salsa. Nothing unusual about that, at a Mexican restaurant. But this salsa (remember, "salsa" can be any kind of sauce) was made with cacahuates - that is, peanuts. Different.
Boca Del Rio means "mouth of the river," and it's so named, of course, because that's exactly where it is - where the river Jamapa empties into the Gulf of Mexico. The restaurant was right at the mouth of the river:
...and our table overlooked the water, so Terry could hear the pounding surf.
After dinner, we went back to the house, socialized for a while, and went to bed.
Here's a map of the Veracruz area, showing the approximate location of Mina's house:
