great times, smelly beaches

After a 12 hour bus ride through the night, we arrived at Veracruz, a coastal city known for its distinct cuisine and happening night life. The day of our arrival and one of the reasons for our long journey was El Dia de la Independencia, the Mexican independence day. It is a big deal here in Mexico and the whole city is decorated in red, green, and white. They shut down all the streets around the Zocalo and set up a big stage where there would be live music and dancers all night long. The streets around the Zocalo were packed with people celebrating and huge screens around the city were showing the performances that were occuring on the stage. Dancers in traditional Mexican dress swirled around the stage while the stiffling heat forced us out of the area to a cooler location. This location happened to be a trendy air-conditioned  bar that handed us free shots of tequila as soon as we walked in. The celebration did not end for us until the sun came up in the morning. The next day we eventually got out of bed and dragged ourselves to the beach, which in no way met our standards for cleanliness. We walked through the sludgy sand to the eerily warm water and made it just 10 minutes before we walked across the street to the luxurious Holiday Inn pool. Afterwards, we spent the night drinking with our new friends at the bar, and have now vowed to not drink another sip of alcohol in Veracruz. Tonite, a movie will do.

Well, our attempt to take it easy last night and movie it up failed miserably. Our friends came and practically dragged us out of our room to a bar they frequent. This is no ordinary bar; this is a magical secret bar that sells beers for 1 peso apiece. One peso! Thats about 10 cents a beer. We would have never found it if we did not befriend some locals who let us in on this Veracruz secret, untapped by tourists, and we ended up salsa-ing the night away. Unfortunately for us, our bus to Oaxaca left at 8am this morning but we made it- barely.