Day 3 - Nuestro Mejor Amigo Chucho
First stop: drive through at a Gran Cafe La Parroquia, a popular local coffee chain in Veracruz that goes back to 1808 when the first cafe of its kind opened. Cafe Glen is better, but we were in a hurry so Glen and his AeroPress got a break that morning.
Our first stop of the day was to check out the San Juan de Ulua fort at the mouth of the port of Veracruz, an unbelievably rich port that used to be called the mouth of the Americas since most goods going in and out of the Americas had to pass through there under Spanish rule.
We drove through the beautiful historic center where a solitary stone fort stood in the middle of a town plaza surrounded by colonial churches, palaces, and brightly painted town squares. As we followed the path to the fort, the colonial charm gave way to a sprawling industrial port where enormous cranes, factories, and shipyards dominated the landscape. We thought the address was wrong, but sure enough the signs pointed forward through barbed wire checkpoints, naval armories and training grounds, and labyrinths of shipping containers piled high.
We arrived at the fort and as if on cue, the rain began. The fort was massive: a series of imposing fortresses and prisons connected by bridges and walkways, looking over the entry to the port. The size of the fort was not surprising when we learned the importance of the port and kinds of battles it had lived through. What was most shocking, was the materials used to build it. Enormous chunks of seashells and coral were embedded into the stone and concrete, as the Spanish used these in a mixture in addition to rocks, stones, and concrete to build San Juan de Ulua. Pockmarks and holes in the fortress’ exterior revealed scars from past battles.
The rain came down as we wandered the damp tunnels, torture chambers, and plazas where the military once marched and executed countless enemies. It was easy to imagine the dread prisoners once felt as crossed through the fort’s threshold, an archway known as the “puente del ultimo suspiro” or the “bridge of last breath” as prisoners who passed beneath though the dark stone tunnel knew they last breath was at hand. What awaited them at the other side was either death, if they were lucky, or maddening torture.
We cut inland after this, en route to Xalapa, our next stop. On our way there, we stopped at La Antigua, a small riverside town recommended to us by locals where it was said Cortes and his men disembarked on their way to the Aztec capital, and where one could find Cortes’ first house.
We raised our eyebrows since our knowledge of Cortes’ journey didn’t have him building or living in a permanent settlement outside of the capital, after the Atec were defeated, but we decided to check it out.
Some winding roads took us to the center of a very old, very charming town. As soon as we got out of the car and walked towards the main plaza a small boy who introduced himself as Chucho walked up to us with an unbelievable amount of confidence and charisma for his size. He offered to give us a tour of the ruins of the “Casa Cortes” for a small donation of our choice. We accepted and he led us through the ruins, weaving the history of the town and the house expertly and taking questions left and right.
Turns out, the stories of this being Cortes’ house were pure bull. He said that locals peddled the story to get more tourists, but that it DID belong to a Spanish noble and it DID have its own torture chamber and smelting oven to make cannonballs and swords. Afterwards he took us to a beautiful restaurant with a great view of the river where we ate seafood and listened to a marimba band belt out some classics.
We interviewed one of the marimba players after eating, asking him about La Mlainche. He said that around these parts, La Malinche was name met with fear. People here have seen La Malinche, he said, wandering the riverbanks. She wears a black veil and weeps. If you’re even a little bit familiar with the story of La Llorona this should sound familiar. In fact, the story of La Llorona, a grisly cautionary tale that advised against the mixing of social classes that became popular during the very racially divided colonial period was (many historians believe) based off of La Malinche. This was so because her relationship and child with Cortes threatened to undermine the racial caste the Spanish put into place which saw indigenous people beneath mestizos (people of mixed Spanish and Indigenous blood), who in turn were beneath criollos (people of pure Spanish blood, born in New Spain), which in turn were beneath peninsulares (people of pure Spanish blood born in Spain who moved to New Spain).
Before we left town, we also interviewed Chucho and asked what he knew and how he felt about la Malinche. He launched into a very accurate historical account of her role in the conquest, halfheartedly echoed the most common sentiment in Mexico about her role as a traitor, and then also told us that his friends had seen her. Kids have a unique reason to be afraid of La Llorona as she has been damned to wander in search of her kids after having drowned them in the river, so parents often warn their kids about playing near rivers at night telling them that La Llorona will snatch them up. Chucho told us that he had never seen her personally, but he’d heard many accounts of people seeing a woman wandering the riverbanks, half of her face was rotted, falling apart, burned, and the the other half still beautiful.
We said goodbye to Chucho, and he told us that if we ever find ourselves in La Antigua, to ask for “our best friend, Chucho,” and someone will tell us where to find him.
That kid’s gonna be president one day, or at least mayor.
After a short drive, we entered the gorgeous mountainous city of Xalapa where Roberto burned up his clutch navigating the steep winding and narrow city streets, especially on the driveway to our home for a night.
The home is owned by a family with many historical connections to the city. It was home to one of the archaeologists who founded the regional anthropological Xalapa museum, and also to an former professor and artist whose paintings covered the walls of the ornate home. Books lined almost every wall and in the back was a lush garden that overlooked the city.
On our way out to wander downtown a kind neighbor gave us a ride and we walked around the cobbled streets where we checked out the murals of the municipal palace, sampled some esquites and dorilocos, before we found a woman selling homemade food on the street and took a seat on stools in front of her as we ate and conversed with her and her husband. Everything was delicious and it was awesome to have had such an intimate eating experience.
The plaza there gave us a great vantage point to view the mountains, especially La Malinche, an active volcano and one of the tallest peaks in the Americas. The entire top half of the mountain was covered by the clouds so we couldn’t appreciate the size, but hoped tomorrow would be clearer.
We ended the night at Cantina Submarino, a post revolutionary joint that was now a trendy college hangout spot that never gave up its grit.
On our way back home, we hit up a hot dog joint where the owners from Sinaloa made their hot dogs in the style of Sinaloa: inside the massive bun were squares of manchego cheese folded inside slices of cured ham, a hot dog wrapped in bacon, a smear of mayo, cream cheese, diced onions, tomatoes, a healthy layer of guac to cement it all into place, ketchup, mustard, bbq sauce, parmesan cheese, and a mountain of caramelized onions to top it all off.
I think it’s safe to say, we’re not going to starve anytime soon.
