The Best of Both Worlds

Yesterday was sunny, and hot as ever.  I had to take a bus from Veracruz up the coast to the town of Cardel, before changing to another bus to get to Cempoala.  Cardel was just a normal town in the tropics.  A couple of grocery stores, a town square, and juice stands selling tropical mixed drinks, and potions to relieve various illnesses.  I stopped for a mix of banana, pineapple, and orange juice before getting on the bus to Cempoala. 

This was the site of the first contact Cortes made with the native people of Mesoamerica.  He landed, was greeted by the chief, and invited to stay the night. Of course it is all in ruins now, so its a bit hard to imagine how it was back in that day, but there is still a fair bit to explore, and there were some interesting circular structures scattered about that I had never seen before. 

 The site consists mainly of the main temple on the other end of a grassy field, this was where the chief stayed and which had at the time a cabin made of thatch on top (the Spanish destroyed this by setting it on fire), and a temple of the sun and moon (at least that is what the guidebook called them) on the other side of the field.  The whole place is wide open in the middle, with lots of palm trees swaying in the wind, and mountains off in the background.  It was especially nice yesterday, as the site was jam packed with locals who came to have picnics, and lounge about on the holiday. 

After hanging out for a couple of hours there, I took a bus back to Cardel and got some lunch.  In the middle of this small town in the middle of Veracruz, I was extremely surprised to find a table of fifteen American students having a meal together.  If a bunch of college students on spring break could find this town, I guess I wasn’t as adventurous as I had thought.  I didn’t talk to them— I prefer to keep up the ideal of  ´´my Mexico´´ in these situations.  Oh well, I shouldn’t be surprised, there are few parts of the world that tourists don’t get to anymore. 

Finally I took another bus to the exchange for La Antigua, then walked down a path for 20 minutes to get to the center of town, and what a beautiful little town it was.  Much smaller than Cardel, with no supermarkets or banks, just little shacks set up to sell the most basic goods to the locals.  The whole place was set in the jungle, and every house was crowded into a mix of tall green grass and palm trees.  In addition there were some beautiful churches, including the first chapel ever set up in the Americas.  It was small, white with pink walls on the side, and a steeple in front with three niches carved for three church bells.  It looked like a building you might find in Seville.  After seeing that, I went down to the river to enjoy a shrimp cocktail and a cold beer.  A relaxing way to end the day before returning to Veracruz for the night.  Next up on my trip: the lake and wilderness area of Catemaco.