On the Road to Jalapa

Alejandro and I are taking a weekend trip to Jalapa, the capital of the state of Veracruz.  (The official spelling of the city is Xalapa, but I still prefer the old spelling which gave its name to the jalapeño pepper.)  Regular readers of my blog may remember my friend Irma who lives in Ohio but who was born in Jalapa.  This summer she has been visiting her old home town, and Alejandro and I decided to go see her before she returns to Ohio at the end of the month.

The journey to Jalapa is approximately a four hour drive.  We got a late start, and did not leave Mexico City until 4:00 in the afternoon on Friday.  Our route took us east through the states of Tlaxcala, Puebla and into Veracruz and passes within sight of five of Mexico's highest mountains.  Unfortunately, the day was overcast and we were unable to see any of those peaks.  However, the drive was still scenic, and we were lucky that we only hit one short spell of rain.

    

Shortly after entering the state of Veracruz, the twisting highway descends steeply more than four thousand feet to Jalapa which is located on the lower slope of the Sierra Madre Mountains.  

We reached the city limits just before nightfall.  Jalapa has grown tremendously since the time I first visited it almost fifty years ago.  It now has a metropolitan population of over 800,000 people, and the traffic was terrible as we drove to our hotel.  We thought that we were back in Mexico City.

Today Alejandro and I will visit some of the sights in Jalapa, and later get together with Irma, her nephew and his wife for dinner.  Perhaps we will indulge and have "chiles en nogada"!