The NYTimes has a column called "36 hours in...." We could call the following couple of posts "8 hours in uplands Veracruz". Everything you see is within twelve miles of our house along a route that pretty much goes out and back. We drove from our house to Xico to Xico Viejo to Matlalapa and back, taking small detours here and there. As you'll notice, a lot of the pictures make the weather look cold and gray. It WAS cold and gray. Jacket weather. When we got back to Xico for an early supper/late lunch, we and everyone else ate in our jackets. There is no central heating here.
One of our games here is to see how many backroads to the main bulk of Cofre de Perote we can find. Below is a link to a map of our area. You can find Xalapa, Coatepec, and Xico on it, and if you veer west a bit, you can see Cofre de Perote. But the other places we went which lie in the folds of Cofre are not shown. You can get a good idea of our route, though, if you go to Xico and let your finger wander sort of south and southwest just a tiny bit. As the title of this post says, we were never more than twelve miles from home. It was quite a trip though we found no route to Cofre de Perote via Xico Viejo y Matlalapa.
At the top of Xico -- the far end from where we live -- we stopped to take a picture of the sign that lists the towns beyond.
Don't even try to pronounce the names unless you are Mexican, except maybe Cruz Blanca. The man at the left was waiting for the bus to Xico Viejo, the man on the right for family to come give him a ride. We gave the man on the left a ride. His name is Vicente. He turned out to be an abogado, a lawyer, who dealt in property issues which makes him a Notary Public, here a somewhat fancier lawyer. He was on his way to his cabañita in Xico Viejo from Xalapa where he and his family live. He was bringing wood stain for the people working for him When we got to his place, we parked and went to see his place. To get to it, we crossed the property of a trucha farmer who also owned a little restaurant. Here's the front of the restaurant:
This is the very, very narrow footbridge you need to cross to get to Vicente's. Rita wouldn't get on it until Jim was in front of her and I behind. She did go back over it by herself when we left.
Here are pictures of Vicente talking to his head albañil or construction worker and of his house as well as a view from his property.
Vicente told us "this is your house". He told his workmen not to challenge us if we stopped by when he wasn't there, that we could visit any time we wanted. If we buy property in and around that area, we will contact him. You might notice that he is diverting the stream for a short distance. He wants to stock a couple of trout (trucha) ponds. Pretty soon the area will be drowning in trout ponds: the government has been pushing it as a means for local folks to make some money, and it is, but there is not an endless market for trout. As you may have read on John Calypso's blog, www.vivaveracruz.com/blog, there are five trout farms right around our house here in Colonia Ursulo Galván. The basic assumption I think is a good one: this is a fertile area, excellent for small-scale agricultural projects of a specialized nature such as high quality organic coffee, fruits, dairy products and trucha. However, someone needs to do some planning! This leads me to this whole microfinancing fad. There is an article about it in The New Yorker on October 30 (I just got the issue last week). Not a bad idea as one tool, but, good grief, what an unexamined thing to be doing all over the place! Probably I will not be able to resist saying more about this later.
From Vicente's, we wended our way towards Matlalapa. Here are some photos from that stretch:
These crosses are on the side of the road facing down the valley towards Xalapa.
Just another view (she said, tongue in cheek)
A pretty entrance to a house in a pueblita along the way.
A pretty little store.
Matlalapa is almost at the end of a winding dirt and rock road that stretches all the way from Xico. It is small and very poor. Here you can see a view of the main church. IN front are some orange I think school buildings, and along the road a little white-painted wood house. Most of the houses are like this: wood slat houses with dirt floors. It was gray and cold there: winter has come early. 
In this view of a small homestead in Matlalapa you can see several horses in the foreground. I doubt you can tell, but they have wooden saddles typical of the area. The horses are well-fed. They are essential.
If you click on this link, you will see a picture I stole from a local newspaper which shows some women in Matlalapa gathered around a fogón, a wood stove for heating, in one of the houses. Download women_inside_a_fairly_typical_house_in_matlalapa_around_a_wood_stove.doc
Although they do get freezing temperatures in December in Matlalapa, this year it arrived in November. As you can see, you have to stay pretty close to the stove to get any warmth since the wind rushes through the spaces between the planks in the wooden walls.
Here is a bit of translation of the article that accompanies the picture: (From EL SOL DE IRAPUATO, Nov 16 2006)
"AT night, everybody gets into bed together, husband, wife and kids, and whoever else is living with them to stay warm...To warm the bed, they put a pot of boiling water at the foot before getting in. ...
"For a woman here, this how the day goes: you wake up at dawn to light the stove to make tortillas and warm the coffee and in the process, get yourself warm. Then you send the kids to school while you continue doing your own chores.
"And while you do your stuff, this is what the weather does: in the morning, there is dense fog, at midday, it dissipates a bit, and then during the afternoon, it begins to descend from the mountains covering trees and houses equally.
"On the road, a young girl and her little brother, both carrying red backpacks. Their knowledge of Russia is only what they know fromt heir textbook, but they are pretty sure that the climate in Russia must be like that in their own pueblo at the times when ice has caused the death of various animals and even some people.
"En Matlalapa the men awaken between four and five in the morning, have a cup of coffee and eat some tortillas and frijoles. Then they go to their fields, worried that the low temperatures may have killed some of their corn, chile and bean crops...."
You may wonder how chiles survive such a climate. The chiles at higher altitudes are called extranjeros and are different from those at lower altitudes. They have black seeds and are fairly large and roundish, mostly yellow and red when ripe. Jim is trying to grow some here, but it may be too warm.
Around Matlalapa, the crops grow at crazy angles as you can see in the picture below of a dead cornfield just below a towering cliff. 
The newspaper article goes on: "'The children for their part ,'says Señora Juárez, grandmother of twelve, 'are accustomed to a harsh life and they keep playing in spite of everthing. Near her, a number of children seem to affirm her words. While some tumble around her playing among themselves and laughing, others wipe their dripping noses, red from the cold. In the next room, the youngest grand child sleeps enveloped in several blankets.
"Concerning the low temperature, Sra Juárez says, 'This is the way it is year after year. So we just wrap ourselves up to keep warm.'
"The women...have to put up with the freezing water which runs through the river where every third day they go to wash their clothes. They do it near middy when for a short while, the son sends out some rays dispelling the mist.
"The old people are accustomed to pas the day sitting very close to the stoves in their kitchens, as close as they can get so they can warm their tired and sick bodies."
When Jim and I were on our way out of Matlalapa, we started down the long, cobbled main street. Maybe fifty feet ahead of us, a small girl at the side of the road turned at the noise of our car and panicked. She is not accustomed to strange traffic. She tore full speed across the road and fell flat on her face. She got up and made it to the other side, where she stood huddled, facing away from us. We stopped to see if she was all right. The look of sheer terror on her face convinced us that we should not even get out. We drove a bit further and looked back to make sure she was okay. Sure enough, someone had come out to help her.
THis is all for now. More on the next post on this trip.