Emma and I arrived in Veracruz this afternoon at 1 pm. It was an easy bus ride on ADO, one of the many luxury Mexican bus lines. We went to the hotel where we thought we would have stayed, the Hotel Imperial, but soon realized it was not for us. The lobby felt like an underground parking lot and the bathroom in the room they showed us looked worse than any dormitory I have seen before. I faked a phone call telling us to leave and meet someone else, and we scrambled out of there quickly. Thanks to Emmas good eye for nice things, we quickly spotted the Hotel Diligencias across the zocalo. My grandparents had recommended it to us, so we checked in and could relax.

We went downstairs to a restaurant called Villa Rica, which specializes in seafood. I had coconut shrimp, which came with a tamarind dipping sauce and a coconut dipping sauce. The tamarind one tasted like BBQ, and the coconut was super sweet, yet irrestistble. We also shared a crab salad with red onion and jalapeno and a plate of fried plantains.

We then went to the office of the Secretary of Tourism in Boca del Rio. The guy there, Hernan Cortes, could not believe we had actually found them. He said that we were the first tourists to make our way over there. Honestly, we were surprised ourselves, because it was on the 4th story of a building in a mall, and not conspicuous at all.

Anyway, after some investigation about our episode, we ended up walking the malecon all the way back to our hotel and finding the danzon in the zocalo. From what I learned from Carlos, our 80+ old dance instructor, the Danzon began in France in the 1700s. It was then taken to Cuba, where it took on its Latin rhythm, and then came to Veracruz with the wave of Cuban migration in the late 1800s. Anyway, tonight there was a live band playing and lots of cute old couples dancing in the main square. I was lucky enough to have been invited to dance by Carlos, an elderly gentleman with impeccable manners. Not only do the men invite you to dance, but they hold your hand while escorting you to AND FROM the dance floor. They are not finished until you are seated again after the song is over.

After the danzon ended, we headed over to Plaza de la Campana, where we listened to Son Cubano. Emma was getting extra special attention from Carlos, who was teaching her how to dance. One dance, while I was with Carlos, another man escorted her to the dance floor. Well, you should have seen how jealous Carlos got, because he made sure Emma knew that she did not have to dance with other men if she did not want to. When the other man came back to ask her to the floor again, Carlos told him that he did not want him messing up all of his work. It was very funny. We were lucky that the other man had a sense of humor and did not start a fight with our dance expert extraordinaire.

It was a magical evening, with lots of live music on every corner, and people dancing with real feeling from their hearts. If you ever come to Veracruz, make sure it is a Saturday!