Veracruz
Set on Mexico’s Gulf Coast just about where the horn of the country starts its eastward curve toward the Caribbean (the VER on the map at right), Veracruz is many things, though mostly it’s a city with a sordid history. Two buses and about nine hours shuttled me from sleepy Atlacomulco to the coastal city’s mezcla of personalities.
So first things first a little history: 21st of April, 1519 (incidentally, Good Friday, though not fortuitous for the locals), a fellow called Hernán Cortéz makes berth in a place to be called in years to come Veracruz. What follows is his trek inland to what is now Mexico City, which was then Tenochtitlán, Tenochtitlán being the seat of Aztec power. Resultant of various unfortunate religious beliefs and the portents of myth and folklore, the Aztecs gave not much fight, and the empire found itself neatly disposed of by a handful of Spaniards as of (the year of someone’s lord, though certainly not the Mexica, Mexica being another indigenous word for the Aztecs and subsequent namesake of the country) 1521. Thus began foreign conquests and the many violent woes of modern Mexico. And so, among other things, we can safely say that Veracruz is the site at which modern Mexico took its first gasping breath.
History continued, in brief: Veracruz, Veracruz (being doubly dubbed Veracruz as the city bares the same name of the state in which it is situated) became Mexico’s primary Gulf port, meaning its primary port (as we can assume and history will tell us that not many Australian escapees in make shift rafts or Chinese pirates in their junks were coming at the country from the Far East), and as such was the point of entry of all manner of n’er-do-wells for the next 400 years. Other fine things that came through Veracruz: slaves, would-be rulers, old rulers given the boot; in short, all things “New World”.
A sampling of the upstanding gentlemen to have come through Veracruz:
(A) Sir Francis Drake
Specifics: 23-year-old Francis Drake first made his way to the New World (as some would call it) in 1567/68. At port Veracruz he and the crew he was sailing with had a nasty encounter with the Spanish Armada. Though the Brits held them off, they took quite the pummeling. It’s hypothesized (or said. By them. As it were) that this campaign led to Drake’s hatred of the Spaniards and his drive for revenge, which eventually he got in 1587, when he “singed the beard” of Spain’s King by destroying 37 vessels at port in España and subsequently effing up the whole Armada when they attempted to attack England the next year in retribution.
(B) Luarens de Graaf
Specifics: Arriving 17th May 1863, infamous Dutch pirate de Graaf, often confused for French (though really how can you not know a guy’s Dutch when he’s got a double A in his name?), did the town a tremendous disservice by indulging in such pirate staples as pillaging, looting, raping, and generally laying waste. All in all, a savory gent.
(C) Chucho El Roto
Specifics: Jesús Arriaga, né Chucho El Roto, is a Mexican folk hero akin to Robin Hood. Throughout the 19th century, he jacked from the rich and gave his spoils to the poor. Quite the Don Juan, much of his theft involved the seduction of lonely, randy, bored rich women whose possessions he would make away with upon completion of the dirty deed. He was eventually caught and imprisoned in Veracruz (the old fort/prison being a place we didn’t end up making our way to in VC cause well we were only there for about 30 hours), where he passed away. Thus the place serves something of a pilgrimage site for those in awe of this working Mexican hero’s (which is to say a native Mexican who fought against the rich – read, Spanish – in service of his fellow and similarly downtrodden countrymen) accomplishments.
Veracruz x2 served various purposes throughout the 19th century, especially during Mexico’s revolutions, it being direct conduit from the country’s capital and megopolis Mexico City to Europe. The country’s first railroad was lain between the VC and the capital, again proving la Cruz’s indelible place in the history of modern Mexico. The last siege on the city was in 1914 at the hands of none other than yours truly’s United States. Thanks to some diplomatic misunderstandings, the US took over the port city for a full six months. You can read about this incident, part of the Tampico Affair, in its totality here.
Arrival
First impression of Veracruz is biased because any place I smell sea breeze (by which I mean breeze actually coming off of a body of water larger than say a lake, and not whatever sort of cleaning or deodorizing product happens to carry the same name) I am predisposed to falling for. First action item was disembarking the bus, after which juncture we proceeded to the little taxi kiosk where we told the woman the name of our hotel and she, conferring briefly with a horrendously confusing map that looked like a runny omelet with a blueprint on top of it, named her price. We paid her the fee and made our way to the taxi queue.
Our taxi driver was a very interesting small bald fellow whose driving lean was at such an angle that, unfortunate enough to end up seated directly behind him, I had the feeling that I was once again in middle school, being forced by a sadistic mustachioed lesbian (my actual middle school gym teacher) to hang upside down suspended a bit like a bat from a metal bar gripping solely with the backs of my knees. He (our driver) chatted amiably with us about this and that, telling us that he had a dream of going to the United States to live in New York City.
Having driven for say ten minutes, most of which is along the beautiful Blvd Comacho, adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico, we arrive at an epic and somewhat imposing hotel, its stucco work done in a very choice salmon that after a moment of contemplation hypnotizes me in much the way a magic eye book does. Having called in a reservation to what our guide book describes as a modest establishment run by a friendly family, we are faced with two options: assume that in Mexico modest means something quite different (a.k.a. Gaudy) or tell our cab driver that he is in fact wrong.
“Um…hello.” I tried.
“Well, here’s your hotel. If you’re looking for something budget I can take you elsewhere.”
“No. Ok. We have reserved. But at budget hotel.”
“Well, this isn’t a budget hotel.”
“Hmm. Truthfully. But our hotel is Hotel Villa Rica.”
“Right.”
“That is hotel Villa Mar.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Truthfully?”
“Yeah. No, for real.”
“But, well, because, it’s a different number.”
“Different number of what?”
“Um, the number building.”
“K. No idea what you’re saying.”
“Our hotel different address.”
“Oh. I see. Well, you’re wrong.”
“It says in book that it is on this street.” I sort of thrust the book toward the man. He pays the weighty tome no mind.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter what your book says, cause it’s not in the city guide to hotels.” At which point he holds up what I can only assume is the city guide to hotels, city guide to hotels being a coffee-stained, yellowed, like Vietnam-era communiqué looking series of 8.5x11 pieces of paper bound with a shitty plastic spiral that said right on the front cover 1997.
“Huh. Well. Good. Can we look for the other?”
Conceding finally to drive us until he proved that we were in fact wrong (again stabbing with a stubby finger to his ‘book’ as proof of the ineffable truth of what he was saying), we three minutes later arrived our Hotel Villa Rica (Villa Rica being interestingly enough the name Hernán Cortéz gave Veracruz upon his arrival). Taxi man grumpily discharges us. We checked into the hotel with great ease, aided by the incredibly kind older gent working the desk. The lobby of the little hotel holds a massive TV running some kind of soap opera, a counter behind which stood said gentleman, and a fish tank replete with little plastic diving figurine and big skull looking pirate treasure thingamajig. Finally breaching the threshold of our room (this being probably 9 hours after leaving home), we are greeted with a lizard on the wall, an incredibly fortuitous thing in my mind.
(Clockwise from top left: Bateman in the hotel, view from the hotel, view of the hotel, me stealing boats)
Day Two
Electing an early start, we’re out of bed around eight and a half. Showering is a fantastic experience as in our hotel bathroom there is simply on the wall a showerhead and some knobs, thus one could very easily have potty time and shower time be the same time. Phase two of the shower’s Excellency is the water pressure, pressure such that less than five minutes into the experience I feel nothing but the omniscient omnipotence of said shower.
Refreshed and ready to hit the town after being brought to my knees by the awe-inspiring mightiness of the taking-a-shit-while-being-obliterated-by-the-shower-head bathroom, we decide to make our way by foot to a recommended diner (which later I find out is famous enough to be on wikipedia). We walk north along the gulf, the sidewalk abutting one of those brilliant little stucco walls that you might see in a Winslow Homer painting, a violently azure body of water gently sashaying its breath against said wall.
Veracruz is still despite its noticeable and disappointing lack of pirates a shipping town, and thus our walk brings us through a very industrial sort of dock area with city-sized ships vying for space in a very small area. This shipping hub thing of course also means that there are a great deal of goods that seem to have fallen from the back of ships or perhaps grown legs and carried themselves into town. At any of many dozen stalls/tables/hole-in-wall shops one has access to most anything imaginable that might come through a shipping town: Cuban cigars, t-shirts, pottery, oil, oil refinery equipment, mariachi bands (admittedly these guys probably didn’t fall off a boat, more likely they live in Veracruz and just like to play music), and of course watches. Having decided before leaving the US that I would acquire in Mexico what I had come to deem a “badass Jason Statham watch”, this last item was of particular interest to me.
So back to breakfast, where having eaten some nice Mexican cuisine in the recommended diner, I am offered tickets to the day’s football (soccer) game when the waiter sees my wallet (on which is sewn the insignia of Team America, one of Mexico City’s four teams). I politely decline, and we make our way through the zócalo toward the Spanish cathedral (zócalo being as per my Spanish/Ingles dictionary a geological shelf, plinth, socle, skirting board, or MEX public square).
(Clockwise from top left: (A) Near the port (B) Strange bird (C) Bateman with Cathedral (D) palms and govt. building)
Being an American in Mexico, specifically to say being an American who was raised partially Catholic and has childhood memories of English cathedrals, so being all of these things in a Mexican town that saw the inaugural sally of the Spanish conquest against said country (Mexico), to be going as a tourist to see a Spanish cathedral which the Mexican authorities of the town tout as a prime tourist draw (it’s all over post cards and other such promotional materials) is a multifaceted and bizarre experience. On level one, you have the not-even-thinking-about-such-things person who is simply enjoying the beautiful day and unfolding magisterial fractals of the cathedral in the colonial arcade. Then you have level two, the self-conscious American who doesn’t want to appear overly American but still wants to take “wow look where he is now” pictures for his facebook of shit you wouldn’t see in America to sort of make himself appear more worldly and/or wise. Then level three is the person thinking well ok I don’t have to feel bad about the cathedral thing cause being partially European that’s part of my heritage too so me and these Mexican fellows and fellaws have much in common. Then level four is thinking shit man the Spanish fucked this place up so hard that they have to very blatantly use the iconography of oppression and mass murder (church being Spanish catholic, arcade being Spanish and looking much like prison bars. And note on the mass murder thing, something 24 out of 25 Mexicans died in the years succeeding Spanish arrival) as symbols and sources of national pride to draw in tourists to make a go of it in the global economy. So but all this aside the church was very beautiful, we took some photos, saw some very strange almost metallic blue raven-like birds and made our way, after some ice cream, to the aquarium.
On our way to the aquarium, down Veracruz’s Blvd Comacho, past the monument to migrant Lebanese workers (huh?), we run into a guy on the side of the road hawking little Sponge Bob candies. His dilated pupils and shifty mannerisms give him away, guy being high as a kite. Having politely declined to buy his candies he shouts various combinations of the words fuck, white, foreign, bitch, and fag at us as we walk to see some fancy fish.
The first room in the Veracruz aquarium serves two purposes: aviary and repository for turtles. All manner of tropical birds squawk lazily (and this let me assure you is a very strange sound, as a squawk is most often something frantic shrill and slightly strangled) and flit about while down below in the twin ponds flanking the central path dozens of turtles heap upon one other on logs and boulders looking like green sugar cube structures. A bird of some kind that looks something like a toucan lands very close to my feet and I try my best not to frighten it while Ms. Alexis takes our photo. The bird attempts to charge me 50 pesos the photo, but I dart quickly enough into the next room that I avoid making this payment.
(Clockwise again (A) Road (B) Me with bird (C) Bateman with talking fish (D) Jellyfish)
The aquarium has its share of delights, among them a sea otter (who proves impossible to photograph because he’s fast as lightning and in a frisky mood), some sharks, groupers, barracudas, manatee, and, the pièce de résistance, a blindingly blue tank full of the laconic mercurial drifting of jellyfish. This attraction consumed most of our time in the aquarium, as we were unable to detach ourselves from its hypnotic lull. Finally mustering the will power to move on, we made our way to dinner.
Dinner being the point at which, eating fried plantains, rice, salad, fried potatoes, and beer, all specially prepared for me when the waiter/possible proprietor/very gregarious fellow discovered I am vegetarian, I realized, my goodness, I’m on a beach in Mexico in a little hut with a straw roof eating like mad delicious food that costs basically nothing and everyone’s being really nice to me what the hell have I been doing with my life up to this point? After dinner we ask said man of ambiguous occupation if he wouldn’t mind taking a photo of us to which he agrees sending a whistle out as the sun sets. In response to his whistle a mariachi guy appears, quickly firing off a text, and takes a few photos with us. He then says well congratulations, I guess assuming we’re on our honeymoon.
(Clockwise baby: (A) Restaurant view (B) Bateman & Michelada (C) Awww (D) With Bruce)
Sauntering full-bellied back to the zócalo, where resides the cathedral and Spanish arcade, we catch on a side street not far from the town center a band playing various styles of Latin American music. Proceeding after a few tunes to the square, we take a spot at one of the many cafes lining the Spanish arcade to watch the night unfold. Our very elderly waiter brings us some micheladas (beer in a salt-rimmed glass with depending on where you get it some combination of tomato juice hot sauce possibly soy and/or Worcestershire sauce and some other things). A shifting cast of characters stops by with backpacks woven baskets suitcases etc offering us cookies breads pottery jewelry and, finally, watches. The watch man saddles up and I straighten my tie and get ready to do some bidding as I see right there in his hand amidst many other what is destined to be my “badass Jason Statham watch”.
(Jason Statham, looking badass, with a badass watch)
“Hello, sir. Are you looking for a watch?”
“As a fact of matter, I am.”
“I see. I have digital, I have analogue. I have battery, solar, and wind powered. This one launches missiles in Chechnya, while this gives you the value of the Chinese Yuan against the peso, dollar, pound, and euro at any time desired.”
“Well, woman…excuse me, man. Man. What I watch for (pun not intended because my Spanish is bad and I used to wrong word) is silver ill-behaved butthole Jason Statham watch.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“This one,” I say, pointing to my desired quarry.
“Ah, a wise choice. The Rolex. A truly badass, Jason Statham sort of watch. You can tell by this hologram here and the way the second hand sweeps and not ticks (both of these things I have verified with professionals, who have attested to the veracity of the claim that my watch is truly a Rolex, and not a Fauxlex) that this is the real deal, purloined from a crate that very tragically fell from one of blah blah blah blah.”
(Turning now to Ms. Alexis for translation)
“He’s saying the watch fell from one of the ships.”
“Oh.”
“For this one, 1200 pesos.”
(Telling Alexis to please speak to him because I can’t understand what he’s saying at this point)
(Alexis talking to him then conferring with me).
“He wants 1200, nothing less.”
“No thanks.”
(Man feigns leaving, turns back). “Ok, fine, you’ve backed me into a corner. 1000. Final.”
To this we say no to which he does his feigning to leave thing until finally he agrees to 800 pesos, which is about 60 dollars, and in hand I have my badass Jason Statham watch. All is well in the world.
(Parting shots: (A) Toucan (B) Lebanese Immigrant Workers Monument (C) Prehistoric Relic (D) Mountains from the bus)
After another michelada, we decide to call it a night. This proves more difficult than one might imagine as our waiter, again at least a septuagenarian, has nodded off in some sequestered corner and has to be found and awakened by a very patient co-worked. We pay, we shuffle back to our hotel, to find once again our friend the lizard on the wall. Tomorrow morning we head via Mexico City back to our sleepy mountain town of Atlacomulco. Veracruz Veracruz has charmed and loved us and we it. It is a wonderful and idiosyncratic place and one to which I hope to return some day soon.
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