Who You Whistlin' At?

"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page” - St. Augustine

We are now traveling around the mountains of Veracruz state, searching out nice villages. First up is the Pueblo Mágico of Coatepec, about 10 miles outside the state capital of Xalapa. We are about 3500 feet in elevation in a high jungle...a perfect place for growing coffee. And guess what? This place is famous for its coffee. Just walk around town and there are many, many little cafes serving espresso, cafe Americano, cappuccino and lechero. The coffee does indeed live up to its reputation; its rich, dark and oh so good. 

We arrived Sunday at noon and the town was packed with people in the main square.  Sunday service was happening in the cathedral and there were lots of people selling toys and kid's stuff, as there were many, many families roaming around. The streets were quite busy with cars, but we noticed everyone was very polite, letting pedestrians cross the streets. We walked around all of the streets surrounding the central area and it was very nice. 

Besides coffee, Coatepec is famous for its orchids. On every street corner were vendors selling orchids and other plants, many right out of the back of their cars. 

Of course, we were soon visiting the town market, which is a must for us every time we arrive in a new town. This one isn't big, but there are nice stalls of vegetables, dry goods and fish. 

For dinner, we decided to go local and ate in a small taqueria. Of course we were the only non locals there and had a nice meal of pozole and a local dish called a memela, which is a pizza like concoction with a thick crust, tomato sauce and cheese and spicy meat on top. This was eaten to the very loud blaring TV, which had on a "Fast and Furious" movie. 

We are staying at a great little hotel, Pasada Coatepec, located in an old coffee plantation house. There is a nice courtyard and the room is huge, if a bit dark. Our bed is gigantic and comfortable and we got a great mid week rate. 

Today, our second day in the mountains, we took a short bus ride to another Pueblo Mágico, Xico. This lovely town is famous for its own kind of mole. But something else happened here that quite surprised us. 

A few months ago, we were watching a TV program about a small town and n the mountains of Oaxaca, not far from here, where the locals have a special whistling language. Over the years, this whistling developed into a whole language...just whistling. Different notes and sounds the whistlers make can mean a whole sentence and they all understand each other. This whistling language almost died out, but was now being taught and thus revived. When we were walking around Xico (and it also,happened once in Coatepec), we heard men whistling. At first I paid no attention, but Amy said that was definitely the whistling language, as it apparently happens all over these mountain villages. 

For lunch we had the famous, delicious mole and a nice trout in garlic sauce. This was accompanied by the best tortillas I have ever eaten, made right there next to our table.