A Million Minutes in Africa

Today is Saturday, Nov. 19, but the last thing we wrote about happened on the 15th. That night we went to hot & steamy Veracruz, a port city on the Gulf of Mexico. Took a lovely evening walk along the Malecon (seafront) and had dinner at a sidewalk cafe there. After dinner, we went to the main town square (zocalo), where an orchestra was performing as townspeople danced the Danzon. It was a pleasure to watch them while eating ice cream that warm night.

The next morning, the 16th, we had cafe lechero at the Gran Cafe de la Parroquia, famous throughout Mexico for its fabulous coffee. (Thanks for the tip, Bert!) The waiter brings you a glass about a third full of coffee. Then you summon the milk guy by tapping your spoon on the glass. The white-coated milk guy brings a steaming kettle and pours it high above your table into your glass without spilling. Yummy coffee, plus a show. What more could you want?

Oh, I know. Chilaquiles without chicken! Why do they sometimes contain chicken and sometimes not? Warning, vegetarians, always ask BEFORE ordering. Sopa Azteca sometimes is vegetarian and sometimes contains gloppy globs of fatty bacon!

So we headed for Oaxaca. Warning: do NOT go on route 175 without dramamine! It twists, turns, pitches and yaws for 5 hours without a gas station in sight. (Dan narrating here:) Genius boy driver, who said “Aw, there´s gas stations every 10 feet in this country” decided to go fill up on the other side of the hill. The hill turned out to be about 100 miles long, and there was much sweating on brainiac’s part as he rolled down the other side of the mountain in neutral to save gas. We made it, though, and there was probably a good 3 spits left in the tank. Now I fill up every 10 feet, whether I need it or not.

More later…

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 19th, 2005 at 6:32 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.