When we were in Coyolillo this past Spring, the govenor of Xalapa literally fly into the mountain village of Coyolillo on a shiny, high tech, red helicopter and persent a scale model of a new zocálo to the “royal court” of the “Fat Tuesday.”  See photo –

We wonder if it is now under construction?  finished? ready for carnival next February?

 Does anyone have any photos of it?

The village of Coyolillo did a great job with carnival.  Here is a video of two their young people “polka” dancing

Stephen – http://www.Genuine-Tourist.com – reporting from Baraboo, WI, USA

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way . . .  to Tlaxcala, Xalapa, and Veracruz    .”

Yes, we are returning to Tlaxcala and Veracruz between January 22nd and April 30th.  We plan to start by getting a brief two day tour of Mexico City by our esteemed guide, Robert Cox, the Mexico-Mystic,  –

 

 http://mexico-mystic.blogspot.com/2008/09/mexico-mystic.html. 

 

Then we will travel to Tlaxcala for several weeks/months stay.  At some point, we will visit the beaches north of Veracruz and travel through Xalapa one or two times on route, I figure. 

We had planned to be in Tlaxcala this October and November (right now ;-(   However, air plane tickets were toooo high, so we stayed home and spent the alleged money on a new roof for our house and some carpet for our basement.  Since then, the price of plane tickets have dropped, so we booked flights on Northwest Airlines via Detroit to Mexico City. 

Now, we booked on Northwest at some peril to ourselves because one of my relatives is a former striking mechanic with Northwest Airlines and all family members are supposed to avoid flying with them.  We are not only supposed to refrain from flying with Northwest, out of respect for his lost job, but also because he doesn’t think the planes will stay in the air with only 300 mechanics instead of the usual 3,000!.

Oh well, I guess the pocketbook always gets one’s vote, and they were the cheapest.  And, yesterday, gas went below $3.00 a gallon in southern Wisconsin, although it is still higher in our town than other places.

I am trying to decide whether to bring my computer with me on the trip.  When I bring it, I am able to post on blogs directly “from the field,” but it is a heavy load, and I hear now about some possible problems at the border with laptops.  Last time my individual total luggage weighed almost 100 lbs ;-(    This time I would like to keep it under 50 lbs total, BUT my packed laptop alone is almost 20 labs ;-(

If you haven’t notice, I have posted a LOT of video about southern Mexico on YouTube.  You can see it (and even ME) by going to – 

http://ca.youtube.com/results?search_query=Silversard&search_type=&aq=f

So, even In the “best of times and the worst of times” we plan to follow our “addiction” cravings and return to Mexico this winter.  We did purchase round trip tickets so we can get back to USA even if the economy further melts down, but then I don’t think I would mind being stranded in Mexico either

Stephen, Genuine-Tourist, reporting from Baraboo, WI, USA

Stephen and Patricia on Banks of Rio Copalita in Huatulco

Silversard (Stephen) and MsSardo (Patricia) are two very excited people because WE are just about six months out from living in southern Mexico. Here is the Plan. We “leave on a jet plane” for Veracruz, Mexico, on 01-29-08, where we will spend a few days snorkelling before traveling by bus to the mountain city of Xalapa. Upon arrival in Xalapa, we hope to take up residence in the city for one or two months. We have never been to Veracruz or Xalapa and thought it would be nice to start our retirement in two new places in Mexico.

After some time in Xalapa, we will travel to Oaxaca City, a city that we have visited several times. We are interested in Oaxaca City for a possible residence but will be in a traveler mode on our first trip, attempting to see more of the Central Valley at a more leisurely pace than in times past.

At some point in our explorations, we may branch out from Oaxaca City and travel to Puebla. We have heard that the city has many nice parks, and we know from experience some very nice people. Upon arrival in Puebla, we will be at about 6000 feet which should provide some relief from the warming temperatures.

We may then turn our attention to a small city named Tlaxcala just a short distance to the east of Mexico City. We would like to meet Bob Cox, an expatriate, who lives nearby and is a professional “genuine tourist” guide. In recent weeks he has set up his first Yahoo Grupo about Tlaxcala, which you can check out at –

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TlaxcalaTourism/

Of course, it may be even hotter by then, so we thought escaping to Tlaxcala at 7,200 feet may be offer some relief. If not, I suppose we could just go higher. Regardless, we will return to Oaxaca City by late May because we will need to fly back to Chicago, USA, in order to re-unite with our family and spend some of the summer traveling in the western USA.

Our travels would not be complete, however, without spending some time on the southern Pacific coast in Huatulco, near Santa Cruz. We have been visiting Huatulco since 1998 enjoy its small town, laid back atmosphere. We hope to spend some time visiting with Roberto and Pauline of Hurricane Divers. Roberto also recently launched at new Yahoo Grupo website at –

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hurricanedivers/

You might want to check out all of his newly posted underwater videos.

You can follow us in our travels by checking us out at –

http://www.genuine-tourist.com

because it will direct you to websites that we are posting on during our travels. Yes, sometimes it will take you to Xalapa (Jalapa) or Veracruz or Oaxaca City or Tlaxcala or Puebla or Huatulco . . . just try it and see, after January 29th. Look for messages and photos posted by “Silversard” or “MsSardo.”

Stephen, AKA, Silversard reporting as “Genuine-Tourist.com”

Above Photo — Stephen and Patricia at a primary school in Huatulco area

Our blog has been at rest for a while but it is time to wake it up from its sleep. Yes, we are “pregnant” for Xalapa City. This very night, we booked our tickets for the first leg of our journey to Veracruz in late January 2008.

Oh . . . I forgot to show you the happy couple. The following is a photo of us at my spouse’s annual dental Christmas party.

We have only one more party to go, this December, and then we leave on a jet plane to Mexico.We get to Mexico as often as we can. In fact, we just returned from a trip to the southern Pacific side where we dropped off school supplies to areas schools.

We will use this blog to detail our preparations and eventual travel to Xalapa City. We plan to survey Xalapa City and Oaxaca City and wrap up our first tour in Huatulco visiting a lot of old friends. We probably will return to Xalapa and/or Oaxaca City later in 2008 to take up residence for many months. We have no plans to buy any property, but rather prefer to explore Mexico, Haiti, and north Brazil, if time and money hold out.

I would also like to remind you of our Yahoo Grupo “Visit Xalapa,” which will continue to be an electronic assistant to find others interested in Xalapa City and act as a repository of information for all of us. Please check it out using the links on the side of this blog.

More to come from this Genuine Tourist . . . Stephen

Earlier this week the Visit Xalapa Yahoo Group was formed. To date our members include two expats who live there, one who has been living there for 30 years and one who has been living there for three months. Another has visited several times. We are fortunate to be starting out the group with this much expertise!

Click to join the Visit Xalapa Yahoo Group.

Today is the birthday of the Visit Xalapa website. Xalapa is the capital city of the state of Veracruz in Mexico AND the place where some of us are thinking of living in the future.

We have another domain URL at http://www.VisitXalapa.net, which will bring you directly to this site if you care to use it.

You may want to visit our sister Yahoo Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/visitxalapa

However, it is our goal to make this the main Xalapa site in the near future.

Marie/Stephen