Yucatan Peninsula

 The Yucatan Peninsula is a mecca for tourism due to Cancun, which was built up in the 1990s to expand the tourist industry in Mexico, especially since Acapulco had deteriorated somewhat due to cartel expansion and infrastructure collapses. 

Cancun became wildly popular, growing faster than they could keep up with. If you've been to Mexico on vacation, it's likely you stayed in Cancun, in one of the full-service resorts lined up along the beautiful Caribbean beaches.

The city itself has little to offer outside the nice hotels and resorts. Best to stay in your all-inclusive resort and avoid wandering around other areas. If you want to go visit any ruins, such as Chichen Itza, book it through your resort and all will be well. 

A day's ride from Cancun, in the state of Yucatan, lies the city of Merida. This is a beautiful place and a huge favorite with expats and tourists. Just as Cancun is famous for its high crime rate, Merida is famous for its low crime rate, marked as one of the safest cities in not just Mexico but in the American continent. One can safely walk through these neighborhoods and parks without fear, day and night.

I did it. I took the horse and carriage ride through the downtown streets.

Forbes has ranked Merida three times as one of the three best cities in Mexico to live, invest and do business. In 2022, the UN-Habitat's City Prosperity Index recognized Merida as the city with the highest quality of life in Mexico.

It has a tropical climate, which means the summers can be unbearable for North Americans and Europeans, easily getting to 100 and over. Because of the city's wealth and tourism, air conditioning is widespread in even small stores and restaurants. Still, it attracts a large expat population who rent or buy homes and apartments. Really nice Airbnbs are plentiful. As well as very nice restaurants specializing in the local Mayan cuisine. Outdoor dining is popular.

The Yucatan peninsula was central to the ancient Maya lands and cities. Merida features their arts and crafts in overwhelming beauty and abundance.

Check out these ceilings....

Not far from Merida, are the pyramids of Uxmal and Chichen Itza, both very well maintained and major tourist sites. The whole of Mexico has ruins. Bruce and I have been to quite a few sites in both Mexico and Guatemala, Tikal being one of the largest in Guatemala. But none of them compared to the obvious financial support given to Uxmal and Chichen Itza, due to the huge influx of tourists that visit the Yucatan Peninsula year-round.

The large pyramid at Chichen Itza

Merida has gorgeous colonial architecture from the Spanish era, since it is the city where government officials came to live with their families. One can tour a reconstructed Spanish home from centuries ago. I could quite make myself at home here, living in luxury. No air conditioning though. They probably had servants fanning people with giant palm leaves.

That's it for Y. Tomorrow is the last day of the alphabet. Fortunately, Spanish uses a lot of Z words.

 I hope you have enjoyed touring through Mexico and other LATAM expat destinations this month. I sure have enjoyed sharing my experiences and appreciated all the comments and interest.

Xalapa

 I showed a little bit of Xalapa in my U is for Uphill post. Xalapa is a very old city located in the misty mountains, the capital of the state of Veracruz. This is my first time visiting. I am staying 4 months and hope to return next year for 5 months. 

It is a city for summer. Even March was too cold for me. April to September are perfect months to stay in Xalapa. This city has many beautiful parks. It's a great place for birdwatchers. So far, I have only gone to the parks within walking distance. This is part of the playground at a downtown park. 

Xalapa is located about fifty miles from Orizaba Peak, the highest volcano in North America at over 18,000 feet. It is the second highest volcanic peak in the world, after Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. I took this photo from my kitchen window one unusually cloudless morning.

Xalapa is the site of the annual Orchard Festival, located in a little town on the outskirts of the city. It is always held end of March, early April as this is when the climate is most conducive for these sensitive flowers. I have no idea what these orchids are called, but they are just a few of the beautiful flowers we saw on display during the festival.

Okay, now I am saving the best for last. Xalapa has an archeological museum where $4.00 gets you a ticket to walk around viewing original giant Olmec heads and other artifacts from the Olmec period, which is the earliest known Mesoamerican civilization. It began around 1200 BC and disappeared around 400 BC for unknown reasons.

My daughter and I spent two hours here. Below are a few of our photos of these magnificent archeological wonders.

This final statue shows a man, likely a father holding his dead son. The man's mouth is open, which signifies a warrior, and probably the son killed during a battle or war. The face is so expressive, showing grief, captured in a sculpture of stone. It's worth a trip to Xalapa just to see the archeologic museum.

Why Mexico?

 I'm using W for Why Mexico simply because no other W word flew into my head. To write a full post on Why Mexico seems repetitive, since pretty much every post during this Challenge is about Why Mexico. 

Weather. Proximity to the US. Economy. More relaxed lifestyle. Friendly people. The opportunity to gain more fluency in a second language. Physical and Emotional health benefits.

Therefore, I will use this post to answer any questions anyone has for me about Why Mexico? Or anything else you might want to ask after following my April posts.

Meanwhile, here are a few more photos of Mexico specifically, since it's the country (outside of my home country) where I have spent the most time.

 

Tropical fruit with taste and price far superior to US prices. I can hardly tolerate bananas at the American supermarket after eating the ones here. American bananas taste like a storeroom.

The best diet cola you will ever taste, sold only in Mexico. Pepsi Kick. And I spend a lot of time outdoors walking. Being outside in the fresh air makes me happy.

Ruins of a once great people who covered the land. I love ruins. In another life, I would have been an archeologist.

And there is this. It's a fairly simple process to obtain residency in Mexico. The green card.

And last but not least.....

                                                    STREET TACOS!!

Any questions?

Veracruz

In 2020, I scheduled a 3-month trip to Veracruz for January through March. We all know what happened in 2020. By March, not knowing how bad this would be and worrying about airport crowds and flights getting cancelled, I took advantage of Delta's Covid-era offer to cancel or change flights without penalty. 

Besides, from the minute I walked into my Airbnb, I felt at home and never wanted to leave. Staying past March sounded great to me.

Maybe it was this chair that looked so much like Bruce's office chair. I never sat in it. I sat on the bed and looked at it, sometimes talking to it (him.) It was not even two years since he had passed away, and I still had not figured out how to handle the grieving process.

Or this beautiful site as I walked toward the sea. I truly felt like I was someplace else, and I really, really wanted to be someplace else. Far away from hospitals and cold air-conditioning and cold winters and everything since 2018 that had chilled me to the bone. I had come to Veracruz to get warm.

And Veracruz, a tropical climate along the Gulf of Mexico, is indeed warm. The city center itself is beautiful with striking architecture, walkable streets, lovely parks.

From my Airbnb, all of this was within easy walking distance. Sunny skies and high 70s in January and February. A nice beach, interesting scenery, an Airbnb at $300 a month where they cleaned twice a week, changing towels and bedding. Is it any wonder I didn't want to leave all this and go back to the Covid mess in the US? 

Covid did come to Mexico later, a few months behind America, but by then we had more information and clarification about it. It was not as frightening as it had been at first. This is how my three-month stay in Veracruz turned into a year, then another year, then finding a rental home and signing a three-year contract. 

I furnished it myself and I loved that house, in the same neighborhood as my Airbnb.

Course I was happiest when it was filled with my people who came to visit.

Even when they came in July and got completely knocked out by the heat and humidity.

Peter is ready for the beach! As in any house, it is the ones you love who come and make it a home.

Until one thing led to another, and it came time to leave this house and this city and go back to Utah. I sold my furniture to local people. Apparently, good, used furniture for sale is difficult to find in Mexico.

I don't regret leaving that rental home. It was time. I will still return to Veracruz, though, and stay at the Airbnb that first welcomed me and my broken heart in 2020.

Uphill

The city where I'm currently living, Xalapa, the capitol city of the state of Veracruz, is in a mountainous area. Streets are on an incline, some quite steep. Walking up those hills is good exercise, good for the lungs, but oh my goodness, I do get tired of going uphill.

This is the view from a park in the city center. I wonder if this might be the highest elevation in the city, explaining why they chose this location for the official government buildings. My apartment is about six blocks from here, uphill of course.

This uphill walk is near one of the mercados I shop at. This view is from the top of the walkway, followed by the view from the bottom. 

My camera view gave me nine stairs out of the fourteen in total. It's quite a climb.

Even going to church is an uphill climb. Whew!

I walked up this street today to get to a tailor shop, where I had a new zipper put in a jacket. It may not look so steep from this view, but I promise it's on an incline all the way from the bottom of the street to the top, where I stood to take the picture. Five blocks uphill.

Another crazy incline street. You can tell what I'm talking about by the line of that house. 

Can you imagine living down there and having to walk up those stairs every day to get to the main street at the top? I have not gone down there, although I've thought about it, just to see what's at the bottom. But then I'd have to climb back up.

Tacos, Tamales, Tortas, and Tortillas

 The Mexican taco is a corn tortilla folded over meat--generally shredded pork or beef-- and topped with a variety of salsas and pico de gallo, with cut limes and chopped cilantro to finish off the garnish. There is no cheese.

Street tacos are better than restaurant tacos, everybody knows that. This taco stand was directly across the street from my house in Veracruz. Such a favorite with guests! Their hours were from about 9 to 4. The one pictured below was a few blocks away and opened from 7 - 11 pm. So day or night, we could get amazing street tacos.

Now about tamales. At the bakery down the street, a lady would bring her pot and set up outside, selling tamales. People lined up to buy them. I don't have a photo, but they were the traditional Mexican tamale wrapped in corn husks. 

The photo below is of tamales sold in a mercado in Arequipa, Peru. People lined up for these, too. They look different from Mexican tamales but are just as good. I ate a lot of tamales in Peru.

A torta was one of my husband's favorite street foods. I wish I had a picture of him enjoying a large torta. These are basically a sandwich made of a thick bread filled with meat and cheese, then grilled. 

Did you know that what we call tortilla chips in America are called nachos in Mexico? If you order a plate of nachos at a restaurant, they'll bring you plain chips with salsa on the side.

The humble corn tortilla is so ubiquitous to Mexican cuisine, every meal comes with a basket of freshly made tortillas wrapped in a towel to keep them warm. 

When I traveled to South America, I missed the tortillas. In Chile, bread and empanadas rule, with not a tortilla to be seen. In Peru, it is potatoes. Oh, so many potatoes. And soup. No bread on the table like in Chile, which is a shame. Bread would be perfect with all that soup.

I think the tortillas in Guatemala are better than those in Mexico. They are handmade, without the large automatic tortilla mill used in Mexico, and there's something about the masa dough they use that has a distinctive flavor not found anywhere else.  This lady takes a hunk of dough, patting it and flattening it as she flips it back and forth in her hands. Then cooks it on the cast iron grill. They smell so good cooking and taste even better.

In Guatemala, the basket of unlimited tortillas comes with every meal, just as it does in Mexico.

This is an order of rabbit at a street fair in Mexico. To eat this meal, you pull off some meat, fold it into a tortilla, add your salsa and lime as you wish, and use it to help scoop up the rice and beans. That's a taco. That's a meal.

One more important point about tortillas. When a flour tortilla is used, it's not a taco. It is a burrito.