Wednesday 8 March – Coatzacoalas to Heroica Veracruz
The weather forecast for the Mexican Atlantic Coast was not good – thunder storms! The reality was not as bad, but windscreen wipers were used. The rain during the night seemed to have triggered the flowering of trees along the road. As we sped by at 100+ kph it was difficult to ID the plants and in some ways they resembled the flowering of cherry trees in De Betuwe, in the Netherlands during my youth. I remember my Dad planning a trip to catch the flowering at its peak, but usually the exact dates for this event were unpredictable. In the Netherlands, the saying goes ‘Maart roert zijn staart’, the month of March wags its tail between the end of winter and the start of Spring. The major difference here is that the flowering trees were not managed into orchards, but just as natural small groups of trees, ineeficient to harvest as a commercial crop, but very pretty to drive through. I took a few pictures as we drove past them, then realised that the dash cam would cover them.
We arrived around 2 p.m. in the town of Veracruz, or Heroica Veracruz as the full name goes. There were a few drops of rain and threatening skies, but our Hotel Mar y Tierra was right on the sea front, so we were tempted to a stroll along the harbour, with a number of medium sized containerships in.
Just to prove that we were mad, we went for an hour long scenic boat trip around the harbour, just to dare the clouds to open and to stop Alain from marching me around the town as a self appointed fitness instructor.
The Cactus Trip Diaries 