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. 

Talking in Whistles in Xico

Had a happy lunch in Xico today at restaurant La Concordia, starting with local specialty Sopa de Xonequi, which is a soups of black beans, local Xonequi leaf, little balls of steamed masa corn dough, little squares of mexican fresh white cheese. It's  very rich and black, with fresh patted and grilled harinas 'de puro maíz, no de maseca, con un poco de la salsa de ------'  (whatever that was) she said).   

Since the tortillas were being made right then and there, we were eating the soup and then mole and trout to her rhythm of tortilla patting, pat pat pat pat PAT!, with gentle,accordion and the ch-ch-CH, ch-ch-CH clicking rhythms of norteña  music in the background  

The town is very proud of its bullring and its 'running of the Bulls' event and its waterfall and its mole but we are the most fascinated that everyone knows how to talk in the soft, gentle language of whistles.   It's done very quietly, I guess because the sound does carry far if loud and the conversation is meant only for the person near you (often, that we can't see) or the one you are searching for,  these days everyone is using it.. Our waitress said they hold classes in it during January maybe cause there is less field work then, between coffee harvests or something like that.  We passed a girl about six or seven softly whistling to call a parent we could not see.  

Here is a link to a documentary of Chinantec people, a few mountain ranges south in the state of Oaxaca, speaking this way (there is a YouTube clip at the bottom to the David Yetman, In The Americas TV documentary about it. It's so fun to hear!  There is a lot of birdsong in these towns too, so it's very easy to get faked out!  Is that bird talking about us??!!

http://web.sbs.arizona.edu/college/news/ua-researcher-produces-documentary-endangered-whistled-speech

Some views.  The town's cathedral,

Some countryside (the bananas are there to shade coffee growing below them)

Some of the great food and its prep

Some Cowboys (!)

Neat plants

Street scenes

¡Que viva Veracruz!

Veracruz.  Who in their right mind would come here? Its glories are long past, there's drug crime and kidnappings, are we taking our lives in our hands? 

There's no place like this! Once the gateway where everything important from Asia trans-shipped here to Europe by coming overland from Acapulco, and also the place Cortes camped for months while making up his mind what he was gonna do about Montezuma's empire, it's still a place of importance, and such a great blend of everything... And especially, seafood and music!  There's not a lot to do here besides eat, sleep, seek out music, seek out beach restaurants, eat, drink, and people watch!  It's so cool for that though.  People are having such a good old time.  The vendors are one community, the visitors are pretty happy, and the air is warm.  

We've got a lot of great photos of folks, and mostly folks here are welcoming but quite politely or even actually ignoring us. Except when they see Craig's new local soccer team t shirt, then they get all happy. Wow, you, the only gringo in town, know that the Tiburones, The Sharks,  "ate a lot of chicken" last night? 4-0, wasn't that cool? 

(Craig in his new t shirt, next to composer Agustin Lara, who was a little unconventional)

It's also the source of great strains of music.  Cuban-Mexican-Caribbean romantic songs like the so campy "Besame Mucho" got famous in the U.S. partly because Augustin Lara, a very talented local boy, got started composing and womanizing here in Veracruz's bordellos and then got famous on Mexican Radio station XEW and then  ultimately Walt Disney fell in love with his music enough to use it in a movie called The Three Caballeros.   I just learned all that today but we do LOVE Agustin Lara. Solamente Una Vez (just one time) and Mujer (woman) are among his hundreds of classics.  And he loved the beautiful ladies!  Here are a few of his lady loves

Did they (did the ladies know how to pose and dress back then, or what? )

Another great contribution by Veracruz to the world was "la Bamba" which is well - sort of a bastardization of the local style, Son Jarocho, Son (meaning song or sound or style of music) Jarocho (which means, a native of Veracruz!).  Son Jarocho is part Huastec Indian part African Slave part Cubsn-Spanish criollo part who knows. Delicious rhythms, sometimes moving from 3/4 to 4/4 or adding extra beats to measures just like Hawaiian composers sometimes add the odd 5/4 beat to a mostly 4/4 song.  And it uses an odd instrument combo (harp, tapping heels, a jarana which is like a baritone uke, and a guitar), beautiful girls in very lacy dresses, and lots of repetition with puns.  Like Hawaiian puns kinda sorta.  It's such a lot of fun. La Bamba doesn't capture half of it,  if you want to see it in Northern California try to catch Cascada de Flores when they play at the Freight.  Some other local Bay Area groups,specialize in it too. 

Son 

The third musical blessing from Veracruz by way of Havana and Merida?  Danzón!  Stately dignified couples who may have danced together all their lives, pretend to barely to know each other yet flirt outrageously just like tango, to the music of big bands as smooth and warm as they can be.  We get to see some Danzon tonight. Can't wait! 

Danzon

After we enjoy Veracruz's other gift- red snapper Veracruz style, Huachinango a la Veracruz..

You hear a lot of other special Caribbean stuff here. Lots of Marimba, lots of Cuban jazz. And lots of mariachi and nortena and just now what sounds like Lebaneee-inspired Mexican hip hop.  And Cumbia. And salsa.  Todos vamos a bailar.  Music whenever you turn around.  Even at the beach.  Especially at the beach! 

Jesus de las Conchas

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” 

― Robert Louis Stevenson, The Silverado Squatters

We have arrived in the gritty, loud, non touristic city of Veracruz, right on the Gulf of Mexico. It's a major port town here, with large container ships in the harbor.  But amongst the hard working stevedores and oil businessmen, is a town you can really enjoy, at least for a day or two.

We arrived at 11pm and after checking into our hotel and went straight to the zocalo for dinner. There just happened to be a HUGE soccer game between the hated Mexico City team and the local Veracruz team, Los Tiburones (the Sharks). The Tiburones won 4-0, so there was a lot of celebrating!  There were hundreds of people in the square (zocalo) drinking copious amounts of cervezas. There were also 8 or more bands playing various kinds of music; Cuban jazz, Mariachis, Norteño and the local Son Jarocho. At most points they just kind of all blended together, but sometimes you could actually hear a song, mostly from the loud Mariachis. Next to our table, a young woman was singing along to the sad Mexican songs of love lost. She seemed to be crying and laughing at the same time. 

We both ordered a gorgeous fresh crab soup in a spicy red broth. You knew it was fresh by the little bits of crab shell in the soup. This was washed down with cold Negra Modelos. Yum!

This morning we had breakfast at the Cafe de la Porroquia, a 200 year old institution in this town. Very professional waiters are constantly flowing around this large cafe, their job is to keep up your "lechero" full. The lechero is the milky coffee that is served here. They put some espresso in your glass, then the waiter comes and pours hot milk into the glass, raising his milk kettle up so the milk flows down from on high and creates the froth. 

We ordered our breakfast, Amy had eggs and refried beans and I had huevos Oaxaxenos, and then the music started. A group of five musicians and two dancers played the local Son Jarocho music. It was fantastic!

The rest of today has been spent walking around town, going to the Augustin Lara museum, dedicated to the great composer and musician who was from here and finally to the very local Playa del Villa, the city's beach where all the locals come down to cavort in the sea. We had a nice lunch of octopus and conch, mine in an ajiillo sauce and Amy's in tamarind and chipotle. And as is always best when you eat fresh fish, our toes were in the sand. This place is about as far from Cancun as you can get. No lobster skinned tourists (except for us) here, all local folks cavorting in the shallow water. Hawkers hawk everything from shave ice to jewelry to cheap watches. What an amazing place to people watch!

There are a lot of kitchy souvenirs you can buy here, but possibly nothing as kitchy as Jesus de las Conchas, Jesus of the Shells. Well, it's Easter and I guess anything goes.