Veracruz, Mexico

I went on a weekend trip to Veracruz, a coastal city that´s about 3-4 hours away from Puebla. It was one of my most successful trips so far because I made a lot of friends and it was a great adventure. It was my first time using couchsurfing to stay with locals. Because I stayed with a local, I got a really good idea of what life is like there.

I had an interest in visiting Veracruz after dating someone that was from there. He was always talking about how amazing it was and how the beaches were the best in the world. Things didn´t work out between us, but he did make me very curious about Veracruz.

I´ve heard a lot of mixed reviews about it as a place. There were other friends that I spoke with that told me that the city was dangerous and that the beaches were ugly. Other friends went and had a really good time.

I was a little apprehensive to visit as a solo female traveler and I was definitely nervous to stay with a man host from couchsurfing. However, I ended up having an amazing trip and I was so glad that I got the chance to explore a new city.

I took the earliest available bus to the city of Veracruz. I accidentally took the budge bus so it ended up taking 2 more hours than I had originally expect. So if I had to do it over again then I would have double-checked how many stops there were.

I arrived in Veracruz at about 10 in the morning, then I took a taxi to go stay with my host from couch-surfing. His name is Miguel and he´s lived in Veracruz his whole life. He was super interesting to talk to.

His mom was kind enough to have a warm breakfast to welcome me to Veracruz. I was pretty tired from the long bus ride so I was really happy to eat a lot of yummy food.

After eating, Miguel and I went on a tour around Veracruz. He showed me around the historic district and pointed out some of the architecture.

One of Veracruz´s claims to fame is that it was the first site that Hernan Cortez arrived at when he landed in the Americas. The European influence is extremely noticeable in the architecture.

I really enjoyed walking around the city center. It was a lot different than anything I had expected.

We met up with a couple of other couch surfers and walked out to the port. I took pictures of the boats. One of the other couch surfers went shopping and I bought some nieve.

The guy that I dated was always talking about how great the nieve is. I didn´t expect to like it because I´m normally pretty picky about my sweets. I love me some chocolate but I´m not too interested in anything else.

I tried the nieve (snow) from Guero Guero. It´s famous there because they´ll shout out Guero at anyone passing by. From what I understand, guero loosely means a person with light skin or blonde skin. It´s meant to be complimentary. The shop keepers shout out guero, guero, guero in order to get people´s attention. It´d be something like, ¨Hey, beautiful, come here and buy my snow cones.¨

We met yet another couchsurfer and then went over together to the market to get some lunch. As a coastal city, Veracruz is very well-known for its seafood. While there, I tried a cocktail of shrimp. It was so good. I still fantasize about it.

After lunch, we picked up some beer and head to the beach. There´s a lot of really cool beaches to choose from in Veracruz. I didn´t think they were too crowded and it was super pleasant. My ex told me that the beaches in Veracruz were the best in the world. That´s definitely not true. The beaches are nice, but there are better beaches in other parts of Mexico.

We just chatted about our travels and played soccer in the sand. We watched the sun go down and walked along the board walk.

I got some esquite. Esquite is basically corn mixed with mayonaise, cheese and salsa. I´ve had it before but I´ve never liked it very much.

We then walked over to the mall so that one of the girls could get some food. I played my gringa card and got ice-cream at McDonald´s. No shame.

After the ice-cream, I was pretty tired so Miguel and I went back to his house. We´d been having so much fun that we forgot to eat dinner. Like a good Mexican mom, Miguel´s mother offered to make us something to eat. But like a good Mexican son, Miguel could see that she was comfortable watching her show and didn´t want to disturb her. We went out for street tacos and then I immediately crashed.

The next day, I needed to return to Puebla at 3 in the afternoon so we didn´t have a whole lot of time. We went out for coffee and walked along the beach.

A couple of other couch surfers came to join us again. This time, my new friend, Sergio brought his guitar and played music for us while we sat in the sun.

Around 2:30, I left for my bus. I picked up an order of tacos al pastor and settled in for my long journey home.

I was happily surprised by Veracruz. I tend to put myself in high risk, high reward kind of situations. To be honest, they don´t always ban out but this time definitely did. I took the risk of visiting a place that people warned me might be dangerous and staying with someone that I didn´t know. But, I ended up making lots of new friends, exploring new beaches and creating memories that will last for a lifetime. So, in this case at least, the risk paid off.