"Veracruz town, San Andres Tuxla & Catemaco" Estado de Veracruz-Llave by Vikingvicki

The first part of my trip to Mexico was spent in Veracruz, where I was lucky enough to experience the biggest carneval in Mexico.
Veracruz isn't really a tourist destination ( except for the carneval). It has a large port and a naval academy. But there aren't really any great beaches, there are a few a little out of town but that's it.
The centre of the town has it's Zocalo, which has colonades leading up to it, which are full of restaurants. This is also where the coronation of the carneval King & Queen take place, get there early if you want to be close to the stage, where after the coronation they also have a band playing. But do note that if you are in the Zocalo and you want to leave before it's over it's a nightmare trying to get out as it's packed, even the side streets leading up to the zocalo. There are also video screens erected outside the zocalo so you can see.
Other than for the carneval I don't think I would go back to Veracruz, there isn't much to see there.

Son recital in San Andres

San Andres Tuxla is really off the beaten track. It's about 3 hours by 2nd class bus south from Veracruz. It's located in "the switzerland" of Veracruz state ( that's mountainous region to you and me). It's a lovely little town surrounded by green hills, (this is a tobacco growing region & you can visit cigar factories there if you like). I went there in order to use it as a base to go to Lake Catemaco & Salto de Eyipantla - a waterfall.
( see off the beaten path tips). There isn't much to do in San Andres but relax & walk around. On Sundays there is usually something going on in the Zocalo, when I was there there was a son recital & some little girls dancing to it.

Lake Catemaco

Catemaco is a sleepy little place on the shores of Lake Catemaco ( 4th largest lake in Mexico).

I went to Catemaco purely to see if I could find any whitches or shamans which my guidebook had told me about. In the true naive Anni way, I for some reason expected to find them just sitting out in the open waiting for me !!!!!!!........................ funnily enough I didn't see any ;-)
I had a lovely walk around the lake. You can also take boat trips out onto the lake, there are touts there trying to sell tours out to see the monkeys that live on an island in the lake, but they are meant to be living in peace ( they belong to a univerity) but the boat people feed them to make them come out for the tourists & I don't like that sort of thing.