Hi guys! I hope everybody's doing well. This is Jenny and Kevin and welcome back to
Eat, Baila, Travel. We want to update you guys on our
three-week stay in Orizaba, Veracruz. Remember we just moved to Mexico and
we're looking for a potential new home and so our first stop which has been
Orizaba. And now that we've been here a few weeks we want to take the time to
reflect on its liveability or as a potential candidate for our new home.
Within that we're also thinking about whether this would be a
good city for expats because I know that some people watching this might be
interested in moving to Mexico themselves and maybe you're looking for
um off the beaten path cities that may not already have a lot of expats in it.
Like I know Merida is very popular for expats.
Mexico City
Querétaro
San Miguel de Allende
Puerto Vallarta
Guadalajara
So there are many big popular cities in Mexico that have lots of expats.
But Orizaba may not be one of the main ones
so we're going to try to explore from the eyes of expats. Which actually,
Are we expats? Yeah, that made me think I was like wait are we really expats?
we didn't grow up in this country we moved here but
we're citizens. So I don't know, I guess it depends on how you
identify or define the word expats but we're going to give you our perspective
as outsiders because we're at least that.
Here are some things we're
considering when trying to establish ourselves in a city that we someday call home.
One of those things first is the size of a city
also climate, geography, food, health and fitness, for Jenny dance culture
important! and most importantly safety.
Big city, small city, medium I think we're both pretty set on at least
some sort of a city-ish feel because they're both from a big city. But
I don't think I want to live in a city as big as Chicago.
So how does Orizaba measure up to that? I'd consider Orizaba a small
city it's got a population of around 475,000 people.
And it's located in the state of Veracruz at about 4,000 feet in altitude it's a
You want mountainous region that offers a very temperate climate.
You want to tell us about the weather?
As far as the temperature goes it's mostly 70s throughout
the year and it dips down to the 60s 50s at night.
I think the hottest days of the year
come between like June, July August, summer time and it
goes up to 95 and it also dips down to the 60s 70s
during the summer it's a really nice temperature
the difference is that 50, 60s also translates to being
50, 60s inside of where you live unless you pay for
like a heater but the electricity here is kind of expensive yeah you would have
to get a space heater because the most of the buildings in Orizaba don't have
insulated heating like we're used to back in Chicago.
Right! In Chicago, it's two degrees outside and you go inside and it's nice
and warm but here it's 60 degrees outside and 57 degrees inside.
But overall, it's a very comfortable climate. I think we were most of just
under prepared and under dressed we didn't bring enough warm clothes because
we didn't expect to feel cold.
From Chicago why are we why would it be cold?
Another thing that's really important to us is FOOD.
Orizaba has a really really great food
And I had no idea what to expect because
I had never been to Veracruz before at least for that length of time.
So we tried amazing food like Pambazos, Nutella stuffed conchas, ChileAtole.
Check out our previous video on the Orizaba food tour to get a glimpse of
the kinds of foods that you'll find there and you'll know exactly what we're talking about.
We're also going to have a bonus video.
On a separate trip that we took just on food, so check that out.
If you like fresh fish and when I mean fresh
I mean you get to meet your fish before you eat it check that one out
So next we'll go into health and fitness
Which is super important because you want to be healthy.
And we also enjoy exercise
and we want to try to be fit. We only brought
one carry-on sized luggage with limited clothing
so if we don't fit into our clothes then we're in trouble.
The nice thing about Orizaba is that there's so many opportunities
for you to stay active and It's a very walkable city.
A lot of the parks have a lot of these small fitness centers.
Where you can go walk and work out and do
any kind of physical activity. But there's also opportunities for hiking
there's a park dedicated to going to work out it's called the
500 escalones = 500 steps. When you go down on the 500
steps there's also a trail that you can take to go to other springs around the area.
The trail super fun! You could either just do the stairs but the trail is awesome!
Because everything's so walkable and everything's easy to get around.
It doesn't seem like you really need a car much.
Sticking to the health and fitness topic
We were frequent customers at the pharmacy Guadalajara.
One of the chain pharmacies there.
I think where we've made most of our purchases.
and spent most of our money so far but they're very accessible very different system.
In Mexico it's fairly easy to get
certain medications without a prescription.
There's a topical ointment that I really needed for my skin.
That I absolutely needed a prescription for in the USA.
Here all I had to do, was walk up to the counter and ask for it.
If they didn't have it, they'd order it for me for the next day,
super affordable,
In the USA, the same cream would have cost me 45 dollars with insurance.
with insurance coverage.
Here I only paid ten dollars and they even apologized
and said "sorry we only have the patented brand name we don't have the generic"
So it's gonna cost you a little more a little more how much is a little more?
He said "it'll be 200 pesos" it's about ten dollars
I was like that's fine with me.
Another topic in health
Is access to health care
So i've been a client so far at the hospital.
My baby!
I actually went to the emergency room
and didn't pay anything! nothing nothing
I went twice already and then there's other tests that i did.
I did a couple ultrasounds, each ultrasound was 25 dollars
The consult visit was 150 pesos now if you're going to see a specialist its
500 pesos which is about 25 dollars.
This is just the the kind of like
the universal health care. You could actually go to private consults.
You'll pay more but this hospital was a public hospital so
yeah it came out to zero which was nice and going to the hospital back in the
States is scary because you you walk in there
and it's at least five hundred dollars a visit.
I'm in the process of meeting more specialists so i'll let you guys know
how that goes and how much more money i spend visiting these specialists
It's been quite the journey we've had great food we've seen
beautiful places and I also got to visit the hospital
Taking advantage of that universal healthcare.
Unfortunately because of the pandemic we didn't get to experience any sort of
dance scene in Orizaba but we were told by our
cousins there. That the Parque Castillo has
live music every sunday and as we were walking around we did see some salsa
classes going on. With people and their masks on and maybe we don't
feel quite comfortable with taking these classes right now.
It was good to know that there at least does exist
some sort of a salsa scene in Orizaba. So we'll put that in the maybe pile for now.
Safety. Overall we felt safe at all times in Orizaba
We would walk around town day and night and never felt threatened.
Our family finds the city to be very safe and as well have mentioned that
it's a good place to raise kids.
Covid, we arrived in level orange of their covid restrictions.
Orizaba, overall was very respectful of
their restrictions and followed the guidelines.
From Thursday to Sunday; they close down, the downtown area for public transportation
and would have a crew of COVIDBUSTERS, sanitizing the area.
We love Orizaba and it's definitely a place that we would love to live in.
But we're on a mission here,
we know there are other beautiful cities so we have to make sure we check them out, before we settle here.
So... Right now, we're actually not in Orizaba.
Plot TWIST, we are in...
Stay tuned to find out where we're going next.
Se cuidan, Se bañan, y nos vemos en la proxima.