Tlacotalpan portales, photo by Porfirio
Castro Cruz

Danzón: Martha Gies & Daniel Rergis, photo by Rosario Hall

The state of Veracruz, which curves around the Gulf of Mexico on the country's far eastern shore, is rich in history and varied in landscape. Here, tropical coastal lowlands rise quickly to jungled forests of the Sierra Madre Oriental. The city of Veracruz, halfway down the gulf, is Mexico's most important working port, a city with a proud legacy of having repelled invaders from Spain, France and the United States.

Traveler's Mind has taken students to the lazy river town of Tlacotalpan, with its brightly painted houses and Arabic-style portals; to the Colonial capital of Xalapa, set in a mountainous coffee-growing region near Pico de Orizaba, Mexico's highest mountain; and to the colorful, raucous port of Veracruz.

Veracruz is famous for the unique variety of its musical traditions, including the witty jarocho music played on jarana, requinto and harp; the romantic love songs of Augustin Lara, a Veracruz native who became Mexico's most famous popular composer; and several tropical dances of Afro-Caribbean origin, such as the sensuous danzón, danced nightly in the plazas of the port.

 

La Catrina, etching by Jose Guadalupe Posada

Musical Veracruz, photo by Porfirio Castro Cruz