Hotel Imperial Veracruz

We misted the right turn yet again. (Some of you may not know this but we have gotten lost and ended up at the beach EVERY TIME we've driven through Tampico.<br><br>I missed the sign as well as the quarantine stamp stop for that<br>town. &gt;.&lt; We ended up down town Old Tampico. Narrow streets,<br>sharp corners, dogs, drunks, bicycles, rebar piled in the road, no<br ...

... the stories that that site could tell :)<br><br>Today (Thursday) was an awesome day as well. We spent the morning cleaning the Northern part of a Veracruz beach which happens to also be a National Park. It is a popular tourist attraction as well as the home to a large coral reef population and a destination for sea turtles looking to bury their eggs. After sweating profusely and picking up trash for about 2 hours, we went to a local senior citizen ...

Tampico is much nicer than Monterrey! The family we are staying with is really cool. They are Catholic, so we've had a good chance to witness. We gave the husband a book called "More than Conquerers" so he could practice his english..... We went out for Tacos and Gringas - Muy Rico! We have an overnight bus tonight to Veracruz, then on to Cordoba - exactly what everyone says not to do!

It's beautiful here in Tampico. There's tons of night life and it's a lot safer than Monterrey! We boarded the bus from Monterrey at 10:00 AM this morning. We had the very front seats on the bus. The ride was not very comfortable. We just couldn't position ourselves in any way to make the ride more enjoyable. Not to mention, we hardly ate before we got on the bus and the bus doesn't make any stops ...

... Stueck durch Veracruz, versuchen in das beruehmte Aquarium zu kommen, das heute allerdings schon kurz nach dem Aufstehen, also um 16 Uhr, wieder schliesst. Stattdessen schauen wir uns etwas die Stadt an und sehen einen der Stadtstraende, wie er vor Einheimischen fast ueberlaeuft. Wir sind immer wieder davon fasziniert, wie beliebt Straende wie dieser sein koennen, wo er durch die Naehe zum Rohoelhafen nicht unbedingt der attraktivste ist und ein Stueck weiter viel ...

... we found a decent hotel the other side of down for $40. It is a pleasant hotel right off the road. The people were friendly we had a nice meal and got some information about getting out of town the next day. I looked over the map - we had 880 miles to the Guatemala border and we knew that we would not be busting out the miles like we were in the US. We ended the day just happy to be in Mexico after the scare the Old **** had given us earlier in the day.

Since we were leaving that day around noon, I had several hours to explore the neighborhood.

What can I say about our time in Mexico. I think I will use a list to describe our experiences: toll booths military check points topes(speed bumps) pot holes extreme poverty livestock ft:chickens, pigs, horses, brahma cows, sad dogs running free everywhere including in the middle of the road ...

... I spent the better part of the time trying to avoid even looking at the food! Well...It wasn't too bad. Good company, so that counts for something. After they had finished eating all that food (I was surprised they hadn't exploded from eating so much!) we then went to a rather well know coffeehouse where they got coffee and ice cream (I got just ice cream). I had hoped to look around in some of the shops but didn't get much of a chance! Oh ...

Tampico DOES have some points of interest, notably nearby Huastec ruins, but I had neither the time nor knowledge nor inclination for them at the time, so I change buses and move on. It's hot as Hell, so I order up one of those delicious-looking aguas naturales in the big jars with big chunks of ice floating in them. Big mistake.