Xalapa (pronounced Ha-la-pah)

Monday 17th and Tuesday 18th of July

Next day we left for Xalapa. In Xalapa I knew a girl whom I met through a website, believe it or not. I don’t usually operate that way, I swear, but after trying a bunch of different things in preparation for the trip this seemed a shot worth taking. I met Karla through couchsurfing.com. This website is an online community of travelers and backpackers who offer their couches and hospitality to travelers who happen to be in the area. It’s a worldwide community. I set up my profile and started sending emails to everyone offering to take up to 3 people on our route who didn’t seemed too sketchy. From the ones I picked, only a couple wrote back, one in Xalapa, Mexico and another one in Playa del Coco, Costa Rica. We exchanged a few emails and chatted online a little before we actually met. We first met with Karla that day, when we arrived at Xalapa, 1 hour west of Veracruz, around 9pm.

Karla took us in for a couple of days and offered to be our tour guide. As soon as we got to Xalapa we went to get something really Mexican to eat. We got some late-night tacos at a stand right on the street. Very local thing to do. Hey, you gotta try everything. Having grown up in a 3^rd world country myself my stomach is strong enough to take some stuff, but this was pushing it. Luckily we were all fine afterwards. Next day Karla took us to a little town called Xico, very charming. Over there I bought a great fruit liquor made out of maracuya, a very acid fruit with a delightful flavor. Afterwards, we headed for the Texolo falls. They were very nice falls in the middle of the vegetation. We had some lunch on the same town right after that, and we kept enjoying the Mexican cuisine. That night we made plans for the next day as we left Xalapa, and Karla’s father, who was a retired History Prof. gave us a lot of useful information about the culture and the sights around so we could have our options. The final decision was to take another day and head to the ruins of Palenque and the Agua Azul falls.