Zocalo (written Monday night, 2-12; btw, Happy Valentine's Day!)

It is not everywhere you can sit in a town plaza at a table outside at a restaurant and be surrounded with live mariachi music from multiple bands playing one after the other. The 69 degree air here in Veracruz wafts of fresh bread and other delicious local cuisine. Behind me a solo guitarist sings to a gathering of three friends, seated at the table with them. To my right a band plays loud and confidently a traditional mariachi song to a party of Mexicans in from Mexico City passing the evening before Carnaval kicks off tomorrow with the children’s parade.

Behind me, the light and sound technicians are fine-tuning the main-stage of the zocalo, or colonial plaza, where the main presentations, such as the crowning of the Carnaval Queen, will take place. Lining the zocalo are “portales”, or restaurants, bars and hotels, whose tables spill out into the open air of the plaza for patrons to enjoy the atmosphere in the plaza--music, vendors, perfect weather and all.
The city of Veracruz is winding up for the main event. Visitors arrive from all corners of the republic, and from the US, and Europe to enjoy Veracruz’s Carnaval, the best one north of Rio. Vendors cruise the portales pedaling selections of watches, nuts, DVDs, credit for your cellphone, shirts, belts, bracelets, and even the chance to pass a bit of electricity through your arms and chest to invigorate yourself.
One of the bands plays a popular “nortenho” tune called “On my knees I plead you” (De rodillas te pido by Alegres de la Sierra), about how he had an “adventure” with a woman, and now he asks forgiveness of his girlfriend, describing how he thinks about her all the time, he misses her kisses, and he wakes up in the middle of the night terrified, calling her name, hoping she is not with some other man.
A girl comes up to me and starts singing a song, almost just saying the song. I recognize her before I even lift my head from the screen to look at her. She came up to me a couple weeks ago when I was here, and I had her sing me “La Bamba”. I thoroughly enjoyed that and paid her peso for it. This time I asked her to sing me “On my knees I plead you”. She smiled, said that she did not know it, and asked for a peso. I told her I loved the song and I would pay her twenty or even thirty pesos ($2-$3) if she learned it and sang it to me. She was amused, and eventually moved on.
Now the band plays another hit favorite of mine, “To not see you” ("A no verte," K-paz de la Sierra), how the guy would die if he could not see her. This song is of the style Duranguense, similar to nortenho, but with more drumming (and originating in the northern state of Durango). The music just goes on and on. When one band stops, the next one starts. If they are far enough apart, two or three bands, or more, will be playing all at once, tableside for their delighted audience.
This place is like no other I have been to. I will enjoy my time here while it lasts. As an aside, I will enjoy it more knowing I biked here from my house.