Tuxpan Musings

So we made it to Tuxpan, arrived at 2:45 am and walked to our hotel...well once we found one...had to wake the poor guy up, but he was still pretty amicable once we told him we were Canadian...nice card to play when travelling by the way.

We walked around town a bit...nice place, but a working town and not much on tourism...tourism for us north americans anyway. The place has not been touched by the ex-patriot fanatacism that has been sweeping the country, especially places like San Miguel. Spoke with the locals...mine and Gregs Spanish is getting pretty good, we even try to speak Spanish with each other, results are not too bad. Need another month here and we would fit right in with the locals.

Most noteworthy, this towns claim to fame is that it was the location Fidel Castro chose to plan his take over of Fenucido Batista in Cuba, as it was the most direct route for hm to travel to his home. In fact he rented a house here to do all the planning...must of been pretty cool...Fidel, Raoul and Che all hanging out in Mexico planning the revloucion de libertad in Cuba.

Hit the beach and walked...probably 5 clicks..like I said, this is not a tourist town...for the locals it is...the beach is covered with beach front palapas,restaurants and bars...mostly closed..but there are crews running all over the place cleaning the beach...must have been one hell of a weekend...too bad we missed it. Greg went for another walk and I sat and watched the water and as usual got taken away by it.

AS usual when being hypnotized by the water, I lost all track of time and did not realize I was BELOW the high water mark...and yep as ka would have it the tide came in...made it just in the nick of time.

This country is one of extreme contrast...abject poverty to the powerfully rich....world class arts, literature to corruption at the lowest levels...world class technological advances and construction practices that would make the leaky condo owners in BC blush with embarrasment at their whinning and complaining. Yeah I like this place.