I’ve gotten behind on my blogging! Here’s an entry I wrote last week:

Last Saturday, October 1, Margarita and Joaquin took Miriam, Doña Tere, and me to Naolinco (now-LINK-oh), a town of about 10,000 people located 20 miles from Xalapa (or so one website tells me although I thought the trip was longer than that--maybe because the mountain road taking us there curved and twisted so much.)

The countryside is beautiful between Xalapa and Naolinco, and I saw lots of dairy cows standing or lying in lush green pastures. As we traveled up the mountain, a light fog descended, and the air cooled. We passed through several smaller well-kept towns, Coacoazintla [kwah-kwah-SEENT-lah] for one, on our way.

When we got to Naolinco, we didn’t stop but went to the waterfall with a large viewing area on the outskirts of the town. But when we walked to the edge, we could see nothing but an impenetrable wall of whiteness. It reminded me of the white opaqueness of a North Dakota snow storm except that the temperature in Naolinco was balmy, not frigid. Clouds and fog utterly erased the view in front of us although we could hear the sound of the waterfalls—there are actually two of them—somewhere below us.

So to stall for time in the hope that the fog would lift, we got back into the car and took a little trip to a nearby village, San Miguel Aguasuelos, which is known for its light-colored pottery. We were told that there'd been a big fiesta the day before, which explained the dearth of pieces in the village gallery and store. But Maragarita, Joaquin, and I all bought a few things: I chose a jug-shaped flower vase and a clay crucifix. None of the pieces we saw was glazed, however, which makes me wonder if they hold water for any length of time.

Then we headed back to the waterfall--actually there are two of them--outside of Naolinco in hopes that the fog had lifted—and it had. Here are some photos of what we saw and of us.

After that, we all agreed we were hungry, and it turns out that Naolinco is a great place to eat. We stopped at a restaurant called Doña Josepfina adjacent to the town plaza. Luckily we got there before the rush because a half hour later, there wasn’t a table to be had.


I loved everything about this restaurant—the cut-paper decorations hanging from the ceiling; the large niche holding a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, adorned with fresh flowers, and, below it, a lighted candle; the arches of the large dining room; the musicians playing South American music (this Joaquin told me; I wouldn’t have known the difference) shortly after we arrived; and of course the food. I ordered sopa con garbanzos, a garbanzo bean soup—here’s a picture of it—and I believe I could eat that soup everyday for a month without tiring of it. Next, I had breast of chicken with mole, which arrived with a huge amount of rice. There was so much food—and the sauce was so rich, not to mention that I’d just downed a big bowl of soup—that in spite of its deliciousness (if this is a word), I could barely eat half and ended up taking most of it home.

After eating, we returned to the restaurant’s entrance where all kinds of candy and bread were sold, and we all bought some. Candy is one of the things Naolinco is known for.) I bought some dulces de leche in different flavors—lemon and chocolate turned out to be my favorites—but I ended up throwing them away a few days later because they were too sweet for me.

Then we walked to a nearby shopping mall and browsed, finding shop after shop of shoes, purses, belts, and other leather goods. Those dairy cows I saw en route to Naolinco will ultimately contribute to the leather economy here, for which the city is well-known. Joaquín told me that Naolinco has begun to suffer, however, from the influx of cheap Chinese imported shoes and leather goods. What a shame if this prosperous Mexican city ceases to prosper and the people of Naolinco who tan leather or make shoes, boots, belts, and purses or who sell them in their small shops lose their livelihood to globalization.

After our tour, we piled into the car and drove back to Xalapa. It was a lovely day.