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Vera CruzCarnaval TimeBy Sandra ScottThe week before Ash Wednesday, Vera Cruz erupts in a celebration that resembles New Orleans’ Mardi Gras. Getting to this city on the Gulf of Mexico just 145 miles east of Mexico City is easy; just head east on Highway 150. The road is excellent, the traffic minimal, and the drive through the mountains, farmland, and past villages is beautiful and interesting. Tolls cost about $25. If it is Carnaval time you’ll be greeted on the outskirts of the city by the local police, given a program of Carnaval activities, and directed to your destination. Vera Cruz is the perfect place to combine a family vacation in the sun with a hot dash of Carnaval. Days lazing in the sun are followed by evening parades and partying in the Zócalo. Most of the visitors are Mexican families with only a few tourists. It is good family fun, plus it is safe and reasonable!
Most of the Carnaval activities take place in the evening. Each night, for a week, a 3-hour parade makes its way along the Malécon. Bleachers and chairs are set up along the entire 5-mile route. Seats are rented by local entrepreneurs for a couple of dollars with a higher price for a better location and more comfortable seat. It’s a good idea to be in place an hour ahead of time to soak up the whole party ambiance. Vendors work their way up and down the route.
After the parade head for the Plaza de Armas where a stage is set up in front of the Palacio Municipal, and let the party continue. Each evening offers a different event or entertainment. Regardless of the presentation, be assured it will include music. Several nights a week, even under ordinary circumstances, the city band plays and couples dance the Mexican version of the waltz, call danzón. The whole park area is cacophony of sound as the marachi and marimba bands play in and around the plaza, usually moving from one outside café to another. Amid this festival atmosphere you can see just about anything – be prepared for the unexpected! A clown balances precariously on a tight rope he has strung between two trees in the park. In an impromptu manner a woman jumps up from the table, where moments before she was eating her dinner, and does the bottle dance. Vendors sell brightly colored balloons and a variety of crafts. Women, and in some cases men, in sparkling sequined dresses wander among the diners. What ever happens, it is sure to be fun for the whole family. There are plenty of places to eat but the cafes on the plaza provide a place to dine on traditional food while watching the festivities unfold. Just watching the people is entertainment in itself. There is one place everyone should stop, Gran Café de la Parroquia on Avenue Insurgentes, where coffee drinking is a ritual. It won’t take long to learn the local custom! Order café with milk, and one waiter will pour thick, dark coffee into your glass. Then bang on your glass with your spoon and another waiter will scurry over with a big aluminum pot, and pour hot milk into your glass with panache! The restaurant, which also has good reasonable meals, is a hubbub of animated conversations, the dinging of spoons, and music, usually a marimba band.
About 25 miles north of the city are pre-Columbian ruins of Zempoala. The town has been in existence for 1500 hundred years. The Spanish made friends with the local people and spent considerable time with them learning about the Aztecs before they headed inland to conquer the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán. Vera Cruz has a long and varied history. It is here that Hernán Cortés first set foot in Mexico on Good Friday, 1519. In 1599, Vera Cruz, officially Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz (Rich Town of the True Cross), became a permanent settlement. The Spanish shipped most of their gold and silver from the port. The city continues to be one of the country’s principal ports. Much of the city’s history has been turbulent. At various times through the years pirates, the French, and the Americans have attacked the city. Today the only onslaught is by visitors at Carnaval time, but anytime of year is a good time to visit Vera Cruz. If you go:Hotel Mocambo: $40 to $75, http://www.hotelmocambo.com.mx/, Vera Cruz: http://www.veracruz.com.mx/home.html Images by Sandra Scott |
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Hotel Mocambo, nine
miles south on the city on one of the best beaches in the area, was built in
1932 and still retains much of its colonial charm. There are four pools
including an indoor one that resembles an ancient Roman bath, plus a
restaurant, and many other amenities. The location allows for days walking
along the beach or lazing around the pool, and evenings in town
participating in the revelry. 
The parade is an
explosion of sound and color. The booming salsa music drowns out the
tractor-trailers pulling elaborate “allegorical” floats, more than 50!
Everything is vibrant – the colors, the flashing lights, the music, the
costumes, and the designs. Interspersed between the floats are brightly
costumed dancers, from the neighboring villages, keeping pace with the
frenetic music. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of it all.
Don’t be surprised if you find yourself dancing down the street with someone
you never met! It can’t be helped! Goodies, products of a float's sponsor,
are tossed into the crowd. For 6 nights the revelry continues. 
During the day,
other than “fun-in-the-sun” activities for the whole family, there are other
points of interest. The biggest draw is at the Aquarium, one of the largest
of its kind in Latin America, featuring all the marine life of the area. A
large circular tank gives the illusion of being surrounded by fish,
including sharks.