Orizaba

Orizaba was more a culinary experience than everything else.

Iron Palace

H. had told me that it would be really worth to try the omnipresent shrimp cocktails which up to that moment I had avoided due to their "particular" (read: disgusting) appearance.

Iron Palace.

Well she was right - it is good. And good was also the impression of the "Iron Palace", designed by no one else than Mr. Eiffel and directly imported from Belgium.

Close to Orizaba, there are two small villages - one famous for its flowers (Fortín de las Flores), the other for its delicious bread (Coscomatepec). Hello - flowers and wood-fire oven-baked morsels?! What else can one want? Pure bliss it was!

Fortín de las Flores also boasts North America's highest railroad bridge (131m): The Metlac Railway Bridge. I "climbed" it and was slightly scared about the (non-existent) security measures which would prevent anybody from accidentally falling down the bridge...

Although Orizaba is a really nice city, there is not too much to do in the evenings, and so I grew a bit bored...

After hours of searching I finally found a book store and bought not only Tolstoi's Anna Karenina (in a great Spanish translation which is not too hard to read - probably easier than a "proper" German translation would be) - but I also found a 30 year old book about the history of corn in Mexico.

The book was talking about malnutrition and parts of the population which were starving... tell you, the book was "only" 30 years old. Meanwhile Mexico munched itself up to the world's "biggest" country. Amazing, how things can change in such a little time frame...

North America's highest railroad bridge (131m)

Not secured at all...

... but a great view!

I went to Coscomatepec to try the famous bread, and in the bakery they gave me as a present this beautiful "Rosco de Reyes" - fresh from the oven!

"Cosco"'s famous bread - not bad, not bad!

Cosco is also famous for its leather saddles.

First time I tried a Mexican shrimp cocktail. Later I also tried it in other states and concluded that the version of Veracruz as shown here is actually my favourite one.

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