Veracruz (official name: Heroica, Leal e Insigne Ciudad de Veracruz; population 630,000 city, 900,000 metropolitan area; the main Pacific-Atlantic port of Mexico and the capital of the state of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico coast) is the oldest continuously inhabited European city in the Americas: Hernán Cortés landed here on Good Friday 1519 (naming the settlement "La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz" — the Rich Town of the True Cross) and within two years the Aztec Empire had fallen. Veracruz is the city through which virtually all the silver of the New Spain viceroyalty was shipped to Spain for three centuries (the silver of Zacatecas and Guanajuato, the gold of Oaxaca — the treasure fleets (flotas) assembled here annually and sailed across the Gulf to Havana and then to Seville; the San Juan de Ulúa island fortress built from 1568 controlled the entire trade). The city has the most African-influenced culture of any Mexican city — the enslaved West Africans (primarily from the Slave Coast — modern Benin, Nigeria and Togo) who arrived to replace the decimated indigenous workforce in the sugar cane plantations of the Veracruz coast created the son jarocho music (the guitar-driven dance music of Veracruz, derived from African, Spanish and indigenous rhythms — "La Bamba" (the famous folk song later recorded by Ritchie Valens in 1958) is a son jarocho), the marimba music (the African xylophone tradition adapted to Mexican instruments and the Caribbean scales), the Afro-Mexican cuisine and the Carnaval de Veracruz (the most spectacular Carnival in Mexico, the second most important in Latin America after Rio de Janeiro, dating from colonial times when African slaves were given freedom to celebrate the three days before Ash Wednesday). Veracruz is also the gateway to El Tajín (the UNESCO World Heritage Totonac pyramid complex 230 km north — the most important pre-Columbian archaeological site on the Gulf Coast of Mexico).
Veracruz Zócalo (the Plaza de Armas — the main square of Veracruz; the most animated zócalo in Mexico for music and street life): the character (the Veracruz zócalo is unique among Mexican main squares in having permanent marimba bands that play continuously from morning until midnight under the portales (the colonnaded arches around the square); the marimba (the wooden-keyed percussion instrument of African origin (the balafon of West Africa), brought to Mexico by enslaved Africans in the 16th-17th centuries and adapted to the Mexican-Caribbean musical tradition; the marimba bands of Veracruz (the típico groups of 5-7 musicians playing the diatonic and chromatic marimbas (the diatonic marimba has one row of keys; the chromatic has two rows like a piano keyboard) accompanied by the guitar, the requinto (the small 4-string guitar) and the vocals)); the architecture (the Palacio Municipal (the Neo-Baroque city hall on the north side of the square (1608 original, current neoclassical facade 19th century)); the Portal de Miranda (the colonial arcade on the east side where the café-restaurants serve the Café La Parroquia (the Veracruz café con leche — the most famous coffee ritual in Mexico: the server pours a tall glass of very strong black coffee (café negro) and the diner signals for hot milk (the lechero) by tapping their glass with a spoon; the lechero pours the steamed milk from arm height in a long arc)); the Palacio Federal (the General Post Office building on the square)).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideFortaleza de San Juan de Ulúa (the island fortress in the port of Veracruz — connected to the mainland by a causeway; the most important Spanish colonial fortress in the Americas after the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine and the Castillo de San Felipe del Morro in Puerto Rico): the history (the island of San Juan de Ulúa (named for the Ulúa River in Honduras, the destination that Grijalva had intended when he first sighted the island in 1518) was the first landing point of Hernán Cortés in 1519 and was used as an anchorage for the treasure fleets for the entire colonial period; the stone fortress was built from 1568 under the engineer Battista Antonelli to protect the silver fleet from the English and Dutch pirates (Francis Drake attacked Veracruz (the port of San Juan de Ulúa) in 1568; John Hawkins was defeated here in the same year); the dungeons (the fortress served as a political prison from the colonial period through the 20th century: Benito Juárez (the indigenous Zapotec president who defeated the Emperor Maximilian I) was imprisoned here in 1853 by the dictator Santa Anna; the dungeons (the "bajos" — the tidal cells below sea level that flooded at high tide) are some of the most notorious prison cells in the Americas)); the museum (the Museo de San Juan de Ulúa documents the history of the fortress and the colonial-era silver trade from Veracruz to Seville).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideEl Malecón and Aquarium (the Veracruz waterfront): El Malecón (the 6-km seafront promenade along the Gulf of Mexico coast of Veracruz — the most animated seafront in Mexico: the fishing boats (the charanga fleet — the small artisanal fishing boats that bring the Gulf of Mexico catch to the Veracruz market (the red snapper (huachinango), the Gulf shrimp (camarón del Golfo), the jaiba (the blue swimming crab (Callinectes sapidus)), the black snook (robalo), the barracuda, the king mackerel); the pelicans (the brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) colonies that perch on the malecón railings and plunge-dive alongside the fishing boats); the street food (the veracruzano street food along the malecón: the paella a la marinera (the Veracruz seafood paella adaptation), the ostiones (the raw Gulf of Mexico oysters served with lime and hot sauce on the half shell), the jarocho-style picadas (the thick fried corn masa discs topped with the salsa and the white cheese))); the Aquario de Veracruz (the Acuario de Veracruz — one of the largest aquariums in Latin America: the 2,500 m² of tanks containing 3,000 specimens of 200 species from the Gulf of Mexico ecosystems; the shark tank (the bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas) and the nurse sharks (Ginglymostoma cirratum)); the sea turtles (the Kemp's ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii) — the most endangered marine turtle in the world, endemic to the Gulf of Mexico)).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideVeracruz evening (the son jarocho music and the seafood dinner): the son jarocho (the most characteristic music of Veracruz — the guitar-driven dance music of African-Spanish-indigenous synthesis: the instruments (the arpa jarocha (the Veracruz folk harp — a large wooden diatonic harp played standing up, plucking the bass strings with the right thumb and the melody with the left fingers), the jarana (the small 8-string double-course guitar of Veracruz — the size between a ukulele and a guitar), the requinto jarocho (the 4-string plucked guitar played with a long plastic plectrum)); the zapateado (the rhythmic foot-stamping of the dancers on the wooden tarima (platform) — the footwork of the son jarocho dancer generates the third percussion layer in addition to the arpa and the jarana rhythm); "La Bamba" (the most famous son jarocho — the traditional wedding song of Veracruz (the white handkerchief tied into a bow with the feet of the dancing couple) recorded by Ritchie Valens in 1958 and later re-recorded by Los Lobos in the 1987 film)); the huachinango a la veracruzana (the signature dish of Veracruz — the red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) baked in the tomato-olive-caper-chilli sauce (the "salsa a la veracruzana") that combines the Gulf of Mexico fish with the Spanish colonial ingredients (tomatoes, olives, capers, oregano, bay leaf) and the indigenous chiles (the jalapeño (originally from Jalapa/Xalapa, capital of the state of Veracruz))).
El Tajín UNESCO World Heritage Site (the pre-Columbian Totonac city 230 km north of Veracruz near Papantla; the most important archaeological site on the Gulf Coast of Mexico; established as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992): the history (El Tajín ("El Tajín" means "thunder" or "lightning" in the Totonac language — the city was inhabited from approximately 100 CE and reached its apogee between 600-1200 CE when it was one of the largest cities in Mesoamerica with a population of approximately 20,000; the name refers to the rain and thunder god of the Totonac (the cult of Tajín, the lord of rain and thunder, was the dominant religious force at the site); the Totonac civilization (the Totonac people who built El Tajín occupied the Gulf Coast of Mexico — the "totonacapan" region; they were conquered by the Aztec Empire in 1452-1455 and allied with Hernán Cortés in 1519 against the Aztecs (the Totonac provided Cortés with the first Mexican indigenous soldiers and porters for his march to Tenochtitlán)); the Pyramid of the Niches (the Pirámide de los Nichos — the most distinctive pre-Columbian building in Mexico: the 6-tiered pyramid (28 m high, 25 m square base) with exactly 365 niches (decorative rectangular indentations in each tier, painted red and black) — one for each day of the solar year; the symbolism connects the building to the solar calendar and the lord of rain and thunder); the ball courts (El Tajín has 17 ball courts — the largest concentration of ball courts of any Mesoamerican site: the ball game (the Mesoamerican ballgame — the players used their hips, thighs and knees to propel a heavy rubber ball through the stone ring; the game had cosmic and sacrificial significance (the south ball court reliefs show the sacrifice of a ball player); the rubber ball (the Totonac region produced the rubber (hule) used throughout Mesoamerica for the ballgame — the rubber tree (Castilla elastica) was cultivated by the Totonac)).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuidePapantla and the Voladores de Papantla (the Totonac "flying men" ritual — one of the most spectacular traditional ceremonies in Mesoamerica): the Voladores (the "Papantla Flyers" — the four Totonac ritual performers who climb a 30-metre cedar pole (the palo volador) and then leap off the top, unwinding ropes attached at the waist and spiral around the pole 13 times each (4 flyers × 13 revolutions = 52 total revolutions — the number of years in the Mesoamerican calendar cycle (the "Calendar Round" — the 52-year cycle at the end of which the Aztec "New Fire" ceremony was performed)); the fifth performer stays on the small rotating platform at the top of the pole, playing the flute and the drum while the four flyers circle below; the ceremony (the Voladores ceremony was originally a fertility ritual performed to honour the sun god and to request rain; the performance is given daily at El Tajín and in Papantla town at the Cathedral of Papantla (the 16th-century cathedral with the famous 49-metre-long relief carved into its facade depicting the history of the Totonac people); UNESCO inscription (the Papantla Voladores ritual was inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative List in 2009).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuidePapantla vanilla and the Totonac vanilla tradition (the Papantla-Veracruz region (the "Totonacapan") is the birthplace of vanilla — the Totonac people were the first to cultivate and harvest the Vanilla planifolia orchid (the only fruit-bearing orchid in the world) and were the first humans to taste vanilla, which they used to flavour their xocolatl (chocolate drink) for the Aztec emperors): the history (the vanilla orchid (Vanilla planifolia) is a climbing orchid native to the subtropical Mexican rainforest (the Sierra de Papantla region) and was known only to the Totonac until Cortés brought it to Spain in 1520; for 300 years Mexico (the Totonacapan region) held a monopoly on vanilla production because the Melipona bee (the stingless Mesoamerican bee) was the only known natural pollinator of the vanilla orchid (the flower opens for only one day and must be pollinated within 12 hours); vanilla reached mass production only after the 19th-century discovery (by the 12-year-old slave Edmond Albius on Réunion island in 1841) that vanilla could be hand-pollinated); the Papantla vanilla market (the Mercado Hidalgo in Papantla sells the finest Mexican vanilla: the real Mexican vanilla extract (from Veracruz and Oaxaca), the vanilla beans (the brown-black pods dried for 6 months), the vanilla vodka, the vanilla-infused honey and the chili-vanilla seasoning blends).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideReturn to Veracruz and the evening Carnaval scene (the Carnaval de Veracruz — the most important Carnival in Mexico and the second largest in Latin America after Rio de Janeiro): the history (the Carnaval de Veracruz dates from the colonial period — the three days before Ash Wednesday when enslaved Africans and the lower classes were allowed to celebrate, dress in costumes and temporarily invert the social hierarchy; the current Carnaval (held annually in February-March, 9 days before Ash Wednesday) is the largest public event in Mexico attracting 1-2 million visitors to the city): the key events (the Quema del Mal Humor (the "Burning of the Bad Mood") — the Carnaval opening ceremony where an effigy representing bad mood and ill fortune is burned on the malecón; the parade of comparsas (the costumed dance groups who parade along the main boulevard); the Rey y Reina del Carnaval (the King and Queen of the Carnival — the two civic personalities elected to preside over the Carnival); the coronation ceremony on the main stage at the Malecón; outside Carnaval season: the Foro de la Ciudad (the outdoor performance venue on the Malecón) hosts son jarocho performances, marimba concerts and the Veracruz cultural events calendar throughout the year.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideVeracruz museum and the Baluarte de Santiago (the city museum and the last remaining bastion of the colonial-era city walls): the Museo de la Ciudad de Veracruz (the city museum in the historic centre — the collection documents the complete history of Veracruz from pre-Columbian times (the Olmec, the Totonac and the Huastec civilisations of the Gulf Coast) through the Spanish colonial period (the silver trade, the slave trade, the treasure fleets, the multiple pirate attacks on the city) to the independence period (the 1914 American occupation of Veracruz — the Battle of Veracruz in which US Marines seized the city to prevent a German arms shipment to the dictator Victoriano Huerta; the most recent foreign military occupation of Mexican territory) and the modern petroleum economy (the PEMEX state oil company, whose offshore wells in the Gulf of Mexico transformed Mexico into a major oil exporter in the 1970s)); the Baluarte de Santiago (the only surviving bastion (baluarte) of the colonial-era city walls of Veracruz — the fortified walls originally enclosed the city with a series of bastions connected by curtain walls; the Baluarte de Santiago (1635) contains the Museo de las Joyas Prehispánicas — a small collection of pre-Columbian gold jewellery found in fishing nets in the waters around the Veracruz port (the "Joyería del Pescador" — fishermen's gold)).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideXalapa and the Museo de Antropología (the state capital of Veracruz, 90 km west of the port city at 1,400 m altitude in the Sierra Madre Oriental; accessible by frequent bus from Veracruz (1h30)): Xalapa (the city of Xalapa (also spelled Jalapa — the origin of the word "jalapeño", the green chilli pepper named for the city where it was first marketed to the wider world) is the cultural capital of the state of Veracruz: the university city (the Universidad Veracruzana), the Totonac-Olmec archaeological heritage and the finest regional museum in Mexico outside the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City); the Museo de Antropología de Xalapa (the MAC — the second most important anthropology museum in Mexico; houses the largest collection of Olmec monumental sculpture in the world): the Olmec colossal heads (the 10 colossal basalt heads (the most in any single museum — the total number of known colossal Olmec heads is 17; the heads (0.9 to 3 metres tall, weighing 5 to 50 tonnes) were carved from single basalt boulders transported from the Tuxtla Mountains (60-100 km from the Olmec capitals of La Venta and San Lorenzo) using wooden rollers and reed rafts — no metal tools, no wheels, no draught animals; each head is a portrait of an individual Olmec ruler wearing a distinctive headdress (the helmet-like headgear resembles those worn by the ballgame players depicted in Olmec relief carvings)).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideVeracruz coffee route (the coffee haciendas of the Sierra Madre Oriental foothills — the region around Coatepec (the "capital of Mexican coffee" 12 km south of Xalapa) and Xico (the mountain village 18 km south of Coatepec)): the Veracruz coffee tradition (the state of Veracruz is the second-largest coffee-producing state in Mexico after Chiapas; the Coatepec region (altitude 1,000-2,000 m on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Madre Oriental) produces the finest washed Arabica coffees in Mexico (the "café de altura" — altitude coffee, harvested November-February); the Bourbon variety (the heirloom Coffea arabica var. Bourbon, the original coffee plant brought to the Americas from Yemen via Bourbon island (now Réunion) in the early 18th century — the Veracruz Bourbon is considered the finest Mexican coffee variety by specialty roasters); the La Parroquia café ritual (the Café La Parroquia in Veracruz city (the most famous café in Mexico) serves the "café lechero" — the ritual of signalling the lechero by tapping a glass is the most distinctive café ritual in all of Mexico; the La Parroquia has been in continuous operation since 1808 and has served every Mexican president and every major national writer and intellectual from the 19th century to the present)); the Xico waterfall (the Cascada de Texolo near Xico — the 50 m waterfall in the cloud forest (the bosque mesófilo de montaña — the subtropical montane cloud forest of the Sierra Madre Oriental) that was the filming location for the opening scenes of the 1984 film "Romancing the Stone").
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideFinal Veracruz evening under the portales (the arcades around the Zócalo — the most characteristic feature of Veracruz's social life): the portales culture (the Veracruz portales (arcades) around the Zócalo are the hub of the city's social life from morning until midnight: the marimba bands, the son jarocho groups, the papalotero (kite sellers), the torito vendors (the torito de Veracruz — the regional cocktail of Veracruz: the blended drink of cane liquor, coconut cream, peanuts, oatmeal and the featured flavour (mango, tamarind, guanábana, mamey) — the most distinctive regional cocktail in Mexico)); the mochomos (the dried shredded beef similar to the Veracruz version of machaca — served as a tapa with the torito cocktails at the portales bars); the café de olla (the traditional Mexican cinnamon-spiced coffee brewed in a clay pot (olla de barro) and served with piloncillo (raw cane sugar)); the fandango (the son jarocho fandango — the participatory dance party where the musicians and the dancers gather in a circle around the tarima (the wooden platform): the fandango is the social heart of Veracruz port culture (the sailors, the dock workers, the market vendors and the musicians celebrating together); the traditional fandango takes place in the barrios (the working-class neighbourhoods) of Veracruz on weekends and during the festival season (the Encuentro de Jaraneros de Tlacotalpan — the annual son jarocho festival in Tlacotalpan (UNESCO town 100 km south of Veracruz) in early February).
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