Of late I've decided to try and travel locally as much as possible, so this is the summary of some the places that I've checked out in the past couple of months.

Huasca y Basilica
A relaxing Sunday of local travel

Huasca is a town of somewhat more classical style as far as mexican towns go, unlike the more modern style of concrete boxes mascaraeding as a habitable abode for people. This basically means the the beautiful looking town is packed to the gills with tourists from DF admiring the wonderous nature of the cobblestone streets, the colours of the buildings and the sights and sounds of the market where every single vendor sells exactly the same things. Clearly the modern sales approach of product differentiation and niche marketing has not taken off in this town of old world charm.

Then we traveled onto the local example of ecotourism, the Basilica, an interesting array of hexigonal rock formations (see the pics for a better view of poorly described rocks).
With a large waterfall running through the middle of this unique natural attraction, it made for some very picturesque photos. And after a hard day of doing relatively nothing, it was time to sit down and relax with a nice cocktail of Clamato y Cerverza (tomato Juice and beer with a dash of chilli, lime and salt), which unusual as it sounds tastes alright.


Veracruz
aka why hurricane season is not a good time to travel to the east coast

This trip was one of the rare examples where it was planned more than just the day before, Anna my ex-corridor compadre from Sverige happened to be studying monkey's in the little town of Catemaco on the east coast. Thus it was decided that we should arrange some sort of old style meet up to reminisce and discuss our shit lack of spanish skills.
Being the eternal cheapskate that I am I opted for the cheaper 2nd class overnight bus from Pachuca to our destination of choice, Veracruz. Rather than paying 100 peso more and being comfortable I decided to make this sacrifice, and figured sleep would kill off any badness that could occur. (Mind you some overnight bus routes in Mexico occasionally get held up by bandits, I forgot to check if this was one of them). But yet again being the over 6ft foreigner has yet again worked against my sexy self. As soon as the bus left the station the overtly kind person in front of me decided to recline their seat back as far as possible leaving me with a semi permanent imprint of the indentations from the seat in my knee caps.
The bus also managed to go from boiling hot when we left Pachuca to fucking freezing cold on arrival to Veracruz. As per usual the 2nd class bus was an experience in itself, music blaring all night and the lights going on and off as people entered and exited the bus. It was reminiscent of one of the many bus trips i took in Thailand, just lacking the chickens.

Onto the actual weekend itself, when I arrived it was drizzling, humid and generally pretty damp this continued for the entire 2 days we were there. A side note, at the time I had a cold which had manged to block up my head well good, turns out it is not a good thing to go from 2500m above sea level to normality. I couldn't hear out of my left ear on arrival, and it took 5 hours for the pressure to normalise and my hearing to return, and when it did it was quite a cause for celebration.
I killed some time in the local cafe waiting for my amigo to arrive and my hearing to return, drinking a couple of very good local coffees which the state of Veracruz is renown for. When Ana arrived is turned out that she was just recovering from Dengue Fever, something I also got to experience when I was in lived in BKK, so it was decided with my cold induced lack of hearing and her recovering medical condition that we would take it easy for the weekend with nothing to strenuous. Due to the hilarious level of rain, the large majority of this weekend was spent inside cafes drinking coffee to avoid the precipitation and when it did stop for the occasional hora we would rapidly see some sights around town or by the seaside.
Some highlights definitely were seeing the locals busting a move in the street, eating the specialty of the region Filete de Pascado veracruz style, checking out the local bar scene and speaking in english.
The return bus trip was not as entertaining as i opted for 1st class this time and got to see some quality movies on the 7hr bus ride back. Now anyone who has not taken a bus in mexico will have missed out on the cultural experience that is 3 Jean Claude Van Damme films. something everyone has to do at least once in their lifetime.


Carnaval in Veracruz