Veracruz trip 11307
Datelline: Xalapa Veracruz
2th day search for Tex Rainbolt
I finally arrived in Veracruz having left at 7:30 the previous night and arriving at 1:30 pm in Veracruz. That.s a lot of sitting.
My knees would start hurting eventually, and I would have to move, Arrived in Xalapa at 4:30pm and ensconced myself in a hotel,
The Acapulco. It’s about a mile straight up Ave, Dr.Caudillo. a nice place but I had to change rooms to get one with a good working toilet.
Thanks to the Chinese with their 50 cent toilet lids, most anywhere you go now in Mexico the toilets have lids. Civilization is arriving.
I have two big problems in Mexico, among others. It’s kind of absurd, but I have a lot of difficulty with Military Time. The 24 hour clock.
It’s used by the bus system and in other ways. I’m always counting on my fingers from 12 oclock onwards or backward from midnight and I still get it wrong. Also the phone system gets some getting used to. Landlines are dialed one way and cell phones are dialed another way
from payhones and if your local it’s one way, in the state another way and internationally another way.
Well anyway this very nice girl helped me out. She had a cell phone, dialed it for me, refused any payment and I
managed to hook up with my friends in Xalapa. She spoke very good English and was becoming a computer programmer. She had on
some silly T-Shirt saying in English “Girls Rule” or something like that.
Xalapa is a University Town and has it’s own type of semi Mexican Beatnic charm. I guess you could call it Me-tnic or Mexnic, or
whatever. Noringa (not her real name) and Flroringa met me at Cafe Lindo a restaurant bar performing coffee house sort of in downtown Xalapa. Noringa is an identical twin, she’s five minutes younger than her sister, Floringa. We got caught up to date on our lives. Noringa had a boyfriend that wanted to get tos serious too soon. She told to him to back off. But I have a feelling the story is not over yet. Floringa is married to a Canadian guy, they have one son. He works in oil exploration and the oil exploration companies keep him pretty busy. He was supposed
to be in town, but was called away at the last moment. I had been looking forward to a Mexican-Canandian BBq, but It turned out to be the third one I missed. El Canuck (not real name) is a hell of a bbq chef.
There is a little Cuban bar in Xalapa, and yes it is owned by a Cuban Expatriate. Unlike Cubans in America, you can find in Mexico and latin America what are called Fidelistas. (Supporters of Fidel Castro. The club owner has many rare pictures of Cuban revolutionary pictures, featuring of course, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Fidels Brother Raul and many others. I can barley understand Carribean sing-song Spanish though I am conversant in Mexican and Spain type Spanish. So I thought foregoing any political type of discussion was the better part of valor. Your humble reporter being a stranger in a strange land. sometimes they will have a Cuban dance reiew show in this tiny tiny bar. Sometimes they
will pass a guitar around to whoever can play. Of course they have cuban rums. liquors, etc which are all illegal to possess in the United States. But of course not in Mexico, which tries to get along with everybody, more or less.
Will be in Veracruz,Veracruz in a day or two to continue the search for Tex Rainbolt.