Catemaco is a small town on the edge of Laguna de Catemaco located in Southern Veracruz. It is home to many of Mexico's wealthy citizens and hosts an annual witch doctor convention. This convention is held atop the 'tree less mountain' with 17 of the local witch doctors.

Our experience
Upon our entry to the town we were waived down by an enthusiastic Mexican cyclist (official Mexican tour guide). He then escorted us through the streets of the town by clearing the people from the road by waiving a little red cloth iaround. From that time on, he was by our side until we left Catemaco. This demonstrates the enthusiasm with which foreigners are met.

In the evening we ate at a lakeside restaurant. I was served arguably the best fish meal I have ever eaten (pan fried sea perch with garlic and rice. For a person that doesn't like seafood this is a weighty statement). We quickly learned the significance of certain foods in the Mexican diet. i.e. beans, rice, chili and limes (limon).  All of  which we became quite familiar by the end of the trip.

After dinner several members of our group went to a local bar. Normally only men and prostitutes attend bars in most parts of Mexico and we noticed that there were a lot of young teenage boys present. Our reception may not have been all together welcome, regardless we stayed for a while even though we had a hopeless waiter whose gender or preferences were debatable. To this day we are still debating if it was a waiter or waitress.

We also let off some fireworks from our hotel balcony some of which accidentally landed on nearby tin rooves.  Although disappointing in their artistic flare were really loud. Such fireworks had been going off all day.  At the time we were not sure as to the exact reason for this. It was the 12 December i.e. Guadalupae day but it also appeared to have been a general past time for locals from late November through until the New year.

Mineral Masks

Monkey Island
We travelled to monkey island by boat. There had been an attempt to establish a monkey colony for Research/preservation purposes on this island however this hasn't quite worked. Now the island serves mainly as a tourist attraction.

Nanciyaga
This Olmec village tour detailed old Olmec traditions, and is the location where Medicine Man starring Sean Connery was filmed.

We were able to sample the mineral mud mask and drank the mineral water from the region which was very strong with a semi-sweet taste. This is thought to be a 'fountain of youth'.