Jalapa and Jalapenos

We are now in the town of Jalapa, the state capital of Veracruz. This is a town up in the mountains, at about 3500 feet altitude. There is a fantastic archeological museum, a beautiful plaza, and lots of nice old buildings. About 800,000 people live here. There are also approximately 14 billion cars. I have never seen so much traffic in my life. Most of the main roads are so blocked with traffic that it is just a lot faster to walk anywhere then to take the bus. We read in the paper today that in the last year the number of cars here rose 20%!!!!

Jalapa, also spelled Xalapa, is famous for the japapeno pepper. It comes from here, somewhere. But the people are also called jalapenos.

But even with all the traffic, noise and diesel fumes, this is still a nice town. Tonight is the big night for the Virgin of Guadalupe and there is a whole set up in the town with carnival rides for the kids, lots of booths selling candy, tacos, Guadalupe trinkets and various cheap crap. Unfortunately, no Virgin of Guadalupe boxer shorts like we saw in Merida last year. We will be heading down to Guadalupe Land in a couple of hours for the big show at midnight.

Today we went to the fantastic archeological museaum. This is one of the nices museums I have ever been to. Really bright, with lots of windows and some fantastic things. The most amazing were the HUGE Olmec heads, about 10 of them, throughout the museum.



As we were heading back into town we happened onto a little food stand. This place proves that some of the best food in Mexico can be found in the little stalls that all over the place. There was a little old lady making some tortillas out of masa, as fresh as you can eat them. We had a couple of quesadillas, filled with some kind of green vegetable, some meat and fresh local cheese. On this we sprinkled some great hot salsa. It was soooo fricking good and only 7 pesos each (50 cents). We also had a gordo, which is a thicker tortilla with the meat and cheese spread on top. OHMYGAWD. When you come to Mexico DO NOT BE AFRAID TO EAT STREET FOOD. If the place looks clean and the people look clean, too, you will be okay. Except for Oaxaca, which is a place that is almost impossible to have bad food, I have been much happier with the street food then the restaurant food. And a meal on the street is usually about 20% of the cost of a restaurant meal. And more fun, cuz you are usually chowing down with the locals. They know their food and if there are a lot of people around a food stall you know it will be good. Tonight, at the big Guadalupe hoop de doo we will be eating tacos and what have you with the locals and, guaranteed, we will be the only foreigners there.