Hello Tangerineys! From Heroica Veracruz (Puerto de Veracruz).
Close to the capital of the state of
Veracruz. It's our first time in this state.
I did not realize how much of this
state borders the Gulf of Mexico, it has a huge part of that! Yeah, it's like a sibling who
is like mine, it's mine, it's all mine! The Gulf of Mexico, it's mine!
We are going to be here for exactly one week. We're staying in the very desirable
Boca del Rio area. Or well, a little bit north of that, so slightly less desirable
in that area. [Laughter] But we're gonna make the best of it.
We are currently standing in front of this lovely beach in the
Heroica Veracruz. Main Centro historic area. Sorry.
We've spent about this past six weeks at about
6,000 feet above sea level, and now we are approximately six inches above sea
level. Yes! [Laughter] But not for long!
Oh yeah, you'll you'll find out though. We'll tell you, coming up!
It is around 80 degrees, lots of humidity as one would expect being next
to the ocean. So it's a nice change of pace from being up in the cold mountains!
Certainly a lot breezier! This is, you know, get ready for some of this! Your hair is
already curly. [Laughter] We're walking the malecon here,
So we have like this great view out to the
ocean! We keep trying to get these on camera but it's as if they know that
they're being recorded and they go into hiding. But there's all these crabs on
all these rocks! I've never seen so many in my life!
Real crabs. And they're big
crabs! They're really big, yeah!
This malecon is nice! It's a Friday but there's no
one out here. We have it all to ourselves, and it's this big wide area!
Yeah, come to think of it, I don't think I've ever been to a beach city
Anywhere with such few people! There's hardly anyone anywhere. [Laughter] Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's
just a couple vendors. There were a couple vendors selling coconuts. Some guy just
tried to sell us something, I didn't know what it was. Out of a, by the way, stroller.
[Laughter] Out of a stroller, yes.
Oh, it's just a stick.
Oh, there's another crab!
So it was getting pretty hot outside just to be walking around in the sun!
So we decided to come in this mall that was nearby.
Which has air conditioning. Now, as
you can probably see behind us, we are at a movie
theater. Cinepolis. We haven't been to one in a while!
But we really loved doing this when we were living in Guadalajara!
Tickets were 52 pesos a person.
At this theater, we were pretty surprised that there were plenty of showtimes in English.
And with subtitles, Spanish subtitles.
When we were in Puebla city, there were hardly any theaters at all that had English showtimes.
Yeah, and if you're looking for a
movie in English you want to see - on the screen, it will say "SUB"
That's short for "Subtitled" in Spanish. Sub-dilly-ada as Jordan likes to say. [Laughter]
We're in an Heroica Veracruz right now. And this is pretty close to the
Centro, but it's right next to the very popular aquarium, which we'll be going to
right after this. And where did we just book?
We just booked a place, I'm so excited! For a week,
In San Cristobal de Las Casas.
And that is in the state of Chiapas. It'll be our first time there!
And it's highly, highly, highly
recommended! So yesterday we were kind of thinking that Veracruz, at least the
beaches, well actually a lot of places. Were somewhat abandoned or maybe they
used to be touristy but there's nothing really here.
This beach, on the other hand, this is where people come to swim and hang out!
And there's all the vendors you could ever desire. [Laughter] With clothes, and swimsuits,
and things eat, and people trying to get you to eat at their restaurant. So I
think we should - it would have been better if we stayed in this side of town.
Most people on the beach here though, use water shoes, because we have seen glass.
Yeah, broken glass everywhere! And there's lots of shells.
That would not feel good!
Being in Girl Scouts for over 13 years, taught me a lot of very
valuable life lessons. Two of which are "Leave No Trace" and "Leave a place better
than when you found it." So although we're not contributing to this glass being on the
beach. If we're walking by and we see it, we're gonna pick it up, and put it in a
bag, and throw it away. Yeah, before coming to Mexico, I spent a ton of time on Facebook
groups. And one time I read the story of this lady who moved to a beach town, and
she loved it! But the only thing she didn't like was that there was always a
bunch of trash on the beach. So every morning when she went for a walk, she
would take a trash bag with her and pick up all the trash along the way. And at
first, people looked at her like she was weird. But even just after a few days,
Other people were doing it too. And within a couple weeks, the beach was
totally clean! What difference one person can make! So we are heading to the
aquarium now. It costs a 135 pesos. So let's see what one
of the biggest attractions in Veracruz is like!
What is that?
It's a water dog!
[Laughter]
Awe!
So cute!
Well so far in this aquarium, I think these animals, or these fish, have very
large spaces! Like this, we're totally surrounded by this. And it's all one huge
tank! It's crazy! It is crazy how scary these fish are! How huge they are! I didn't even know
like regular fish could have such mass! They probably weigh more than I do!
[Laughter] Sharks, I knew. But these type of fish, woah!
Regular fish. Regular, "regular." You know what
I mean? Like the ones that look like fish.
[Laughter] Look at this guy!
So we're looking at the dolphins now. This is the outdoor part of this aquarium, and
they're doing a bunch of tricks. And I think the dolphin stuff is cool, but then
hearing the kids go "ooo! ahh!" It's really adorable!
[Kids cheering]
You can go over here and look up to the ocean!
It's a cool experience, if you're here, you might as well check it out! If you're in Veracruz, this is
something I'd recommend doing once. I don't feel the need to do it again. And
right around the beach that's next to the aquarium there's lots of vendors,
There's lots of people set up with a restaurant serving drinks and food. On our way by, we
Saw a piña colada served in a pineapple! So I kind of have
to go get one of those! I've never had a drink out of a pineapple! Me either.
Thanks for watching our video up to this point now! We're not quite done yet, but if you
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What do we got here? Our first drink in a pineapple!
It's a piña colada, in a piña!
250 pesos. Not the cheapest drink ever but we're sharing it.
There's some beach experiences that are just too hard to pass up, and this was one of them. [Laughter]
So while sitting here drinking our drink out of a pineapple, Maddie got
elote for 15 pesos. I said that so weird.
15 pesos. haHA!
And I got three chili rellenos tacos for 50 pesos. So right now we
are walking around our neighborhood, taking this hyper-energetic lady for
a walk. And to go to the beach.
Ah, this is kind of scary!
[Dogs barking] On this street, there's a lot of cables and stuff.
Can you please help me? Oh geez! No!
Anyway. Ah! Oh my gosh! I'm trying to show you Laska while telling you this.
You guys always want to see her! [Laughter]
The Airbnb we're staying at is really nice (the inside, at least.)
In this area. And it's only a block away from the beach!
And there we have it! Right in front of us is the ocean!
Laska, is that a bird?
[Laughter]
Right now, we're at this breakfast restaurant in Boca del Rio. This is
right on the end of the Boca del Rio malecon, with a great view out to the sea!
I got a shrimp omelette for 80 pesos. Maddie got huevos al gusto for 65
pesos. And this is the best deal we've found in the whole city. We've found the
city to be quite expensive, especially considering there's not really any
tourism here. Maybe it's kind of similar to Monterrey in that there's like a lot
of industry there and the prices are pretty high. Well here, this is a big port
city. What do you think? Yeah, I don't get why the prices are so high.
But they are. And we're not, obviously. There's like seafood stuff, Jordan got a shrimp omelette.
We're not talking about seafood because obviously that's going to be more expensive no matter
where you go. But just your average things like huevos al gusto, or coffee, or
I don't know, prices at OXXO even? They're all higher. So it's super weird
considering there's like no foreigners here. There's not like beach resorts
That are drawing a lot of people that are spending money and all that. So it
seems pretty strange to me. But for the most part, it seems to be rundown in a
lot of places. There aren't a lot of parts of the city that are really...revitalized. Yeah.
Revitalized. It's almost like it used to be a thriving city,
And then something happened. We don't know what. But, just the money dried up.
Tourism dried up. Everything dried up. And therefore things are just deteriorating
over time. Yeah, we don't know what the story is. If you know, please fill us in.
But we're going to enjoy our breakfast and this gorgeous view!
Oh, by the way. My picada. Picada, is it? I think it's
Picada. Picada. It's missing sauce because that had onion, so they made it with just tomato on the base.
But this is like Veracruz's version of a sope, I think? Maybe it's the same thing
with just a regionally different name. I guess that's one way to eat it.
How are you supposed to eat it? I don't know,
With a fork and a knife? We're trying to try as much food like that as possible
I also tried consomé.
Which is like soup. That that was super good!
as well. Super-good? (word play) Souper good! [Laughter]
So, whenever we go to a new city, and whatever video we make. We want
you guys to know that we're the channel that tells it like it is.
We tell you the honest stuff, the real stuff, because that's life, and that's
reality. And we're not going to tell you all the rosy stuff.
All the rainbows and sunshine. Well, we are going to tell you that, but not just that [Laughter] But we deal with
a dilemma we go to a city that we aren't super fond of, because we don't
want to offend people who live here, and this is their city that they love so
much, and they just want to show it to the world because they're proud of it. But we
also don't want to lie and say like "This is the greatest city ever!"
When it's not (in our opinion.) Oh, oh, oh!
A full sand dollar! We're rich!
There's broken ones all over the beach but we finally found a
whole one! So what are your thoughts? You know what, I don't know what to think of
it. I feel like something happened with the city. There might have been a
thriving tourism industry in the past. But now, today, there's lots of buildings
that used to look really nice that are completely abandoned. Or buildings that
were like high-rises or hotels that were started but then they didn't finish it.
Uh-huh. And we saw the port yesterday, and the port is still clearly thriving!
There's tons of ships out here. There's ships that wait out here and they have
to wait for their turn in the port? I'm not sure how that works. But it seems
like they're waiting for days. But yeah, there is still quite a bit of money here.
It's an expensive city. Oh, oh, oh!
We're double rich! So we say this - We're shocked! We get so shocked when we go to
new city! There really are things that shock us. But here, I wasn't expecting
this city. A lot of aspects about Veracruz, we weren't expecting any of that! And
I'm not expecting this wave to get me. No!
Veracruz brings back some really good
memories for me, because there's crabs all over the place! Back when I was
younger, my family went on this vacation in Florida, and I had to get a crab net
and a crab bucket! And I spent pretty much the entire vacation on the beach
catching crabs. I taught Maddie this game last night.
Except no net and no crab bucket. So we didn't catch anything.
We were just chasing them into their holes. [Laughter]
And Laska, when she saw the crabs, she was
freaking out! She had to have the crabs!
Now we're walking on the Boca Del Rio malecon, and we were told that this is
the nicer part of town. There's a mall on the far side of the river. The malecon
itself is really really nice! It's still, for like - for this being the nicer side of
town. There are nicer buildings but you still have those abandoned spots mixed
in. Like pretty much every place could use a fresh coat of paint, that kind of
thing. Lots of places for rent and sale! Yes! Tons! Tons of places for rent and
sale. It's just, I'm just thoroughly baffled by this city! There are tons of
other places in Veracruz that we would really love to see! Like Pueblos
Mágicos that we didn't get to go to. We did stop by, what was it called? Orizaba?
Orizaba? Orizaba. On the way here, but Laska was in the car. We had all our stuff. So
We couldn't really like take a look around or anything. But there's plenty of
other places that I would be delighted to explore! But, I don't know, this city...
Would you come back? I mean, there's so many places in Mexico that I want to see!
If I did, it'd probably be a while. But Veracruz, the state of Veracruz has a
ton of shoreline along the Gulf of Mexico! So much! I'm sure there's tons of great
beaches here, in this state! So the more we drive and walk around the city, the more
I'm questioning if there's something that happened with the real estate
market, both commercial and residential. We're seeing tons of "for rent" "for sale"
signs on buildings! A bunch of abandoned construction projects - like buildings
they built halfway and appeared to have stopped working on all together. I know that's
not uncommon, in Mexico, for that to happen. Because there's usually limited
financing and it's all financed with cash. But, there is a ton of it going on here!
So my guess is, there was pretty recently a real estate crash here, and they're
just starting to recover from it. But I don't know, I can only find out so much
in just a few days. And this is without talking to anyone.
These are just personal observations.
So can you give the folks at home your
final thoughts on Veracruz? Okay, so this might not be our favorite city ever in
the world. But what I can say is that the people here, everyone that we've been
interacted with, are super nice, polite, helpful, pleasant.
I was sort of expecting
this to be a super dangerous or like questionably safe state. Because that's
what we've been told in comments and like about driving and stuff like that.
So, as far as safety, despite us staying in a very sketchy neighborhood. [Laughter] That outward
appearances would give us the indication that it's not the safest. I've never
actually felt in danger. I don't think there's a lot to worry about, and that
could be because there's just not a lot of people in the city. You say
there's not a lot of people in the city, there's not a lot of people walking
around. I mean, it's a very populated city, how can that be?
Yeah, tell me! Help! How? I don't know.
But do you agree? Do you think? I think there's plenty of traffic.
But, there were some parts. Like walking down the Veracruz malecon. Passing by
almost nobody. That was - that was kind of weird having the Malecon all to
ourselves on a Friday. Just one more thing I don't quite understand about the
city. How about prices? We didn't really explain that.
Going from like a scale of one, for the
cheapest place we've stayed in Mexico, and ten for the most expensive. Being Play
Del Carmen, just to clarify. Yeah. I'd probably say this is around an 8,
8.5, 9. Your average cup of coffee in other cities it might be
around 20 pesos. Here, you're probably looking at thirty or thirty five pesos. It just.
I mean, I think it's almost sad that this used to be
Probably a really popular destination. And now it's
like where'd everyone go? What happened? The buildings are
crumbling. Like what happened here?
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