Catemaco, Veracruz....a mystical place

Catemaco is a short 90 miles south of our beach side campground near the City of Veracruz. As usual the ninety miles took us twice as long to drive in the RV’s as it would have in the car.  Gotha love those Tope’s (speed bumps), bacha’s (pot holes) and slow moving Camiones (trucks). The Campground is  a lush, green spot to relax and do some lawn chair bird watching.

We decided we needed a week in Catemaco to experience all it has to offer and still have pool and beach time. First order of business was to hire one of the colorful boats for a tour of the lake and a visit to Monkey Island. We did see Monkeys quite close but we didn’t get a really good picture of them.

Lake Catemaco is a large crater lake.  We were told that it is 6 miles across.  Our guide spoke no English, so Ron interpreted for him.  Interesting... he probably was making it up as he went along.

A fisherman or maybe I should call him a diver. Men  snorkel dive out of these row boats. They dive down and catch herring size fish in nets. We probably saw a dozen such fisherman on our tour around the lake.

Every outing seems to end in an open air eating establishment and this was no different. On the menu at Lo Ola was a picture of a dish make from the fish the divers were going after. Very fresh, I’m sure….They made a nice picture all floured and fried with their little heads and tails attached. We all ordered beef and chicken!

After a day around the pool we were off to find the town of Tlacotalpan.  Tlacotalpan was designated as a United Nations World Heritage Site in 1998, it was not a disappointment.  What a lovely town!

The town has a Caribbean feeling about it.  Even the residents playing domino's on the square appeared to be of Cuban descent.