Veracruz & the Gulf

The Gulf lowlands were the heartland of the Olmecs, often called Mesoamerica's mother culture. From about 1400 BC they built ceremonial centres at San Lorenzo in southern Veracruz and later La Venta in Tabasco, and carved the colossal basalt heads of their rulers, hauling the stone from the Tuxtla mountains. Later, the Classic Veracruz culture built El Tajín in the north, which flourished from around AD 600 to 1200, and the Maya built Comalcalco in Tabasco from fired brick for want of stone. By the time the Spanish came, the Totonacs held central Veracruz under Aztec tribute.

Hernán Cortés fought the Chontal Maya at Centla in Tabasco in 1519, where he was given the Indigenous woman later known as La Malinche, who became his interpreter. He then landed on the Veracruz coast, founded the Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, won the Totonacs of Cempoala as allies and marched inland. The port of Veracruz became New Spain's gateway to Europe — the only legal port on the Gulf for much of the colonial era, fortified by San Juan de Ulúa, raided by pirates and ravaged by yellow fever. Enslaved Africans were brought in through it, and in the early 17th century the escaped slave leader Yanga won recognition for a free town that still bears his name.

The port was the stage for foreign invasions: the Spanish held Ulúa until 1825, the French bombarded it in 1838, US troops landed in 1847 and occupied it again in 1914. In the 20th century oil transformed both states, from the fields of northern Veracruz to Tabasco's offshore finds of the 1970s. Tabasco is the home state of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose government built the Olmeca oil refinery at Dos Bocas.

The Gulf coast has a Caribbean ease that sets it apart from the highlands. Veracruz's people, the jarochos, are known for their loud humour and late nights, and the city's heritage mixes Spanish, Indigenous, African and Cuban influences. Son jarocho, the local folk music played on the small jarana guitar and the harp, gave the world La Bamba, and its community fandangos, with dancers stamping on a wooden platform, are strongest in the Sotavento region around Tlacotalpan. Danzón, a Cuban ballroom dance, is danced by couples in Veracruz's main square on many evenings.

The Totonacs of the Papantla area keep the ceremony of the voladores, the flyers, in which four men tied by ropes spin down from a tall pole while a fifth plays flute and drum at the top; it is on UNESCO's intangible heritage list. The Totonacs also first cultivated vanilla, which grows in the Papantla hills. In the Huasteca of the far north, Nahua and Teenek communities play son huasteco with violin and falsetto singing. Catemaco, by its lake in Los Tuxtlas, is known for its healers and brujos, who hold a gathering each March.

Veracruz's Carnival is among the biggest in Mexico, and Tabasco has its own traditions, including the marimba and the dance of the pochó, a masked carnival dance from Tenosique.

Veracruz has about 8 million people and Tabasco about 2.4 million. The port of Veracruz and neighbouring Boca del Río form a metropolitan area of close to a million, Xalapa has around half a million, and Villahermosa about 700,000 in its municipality; Coatzacoalcos, Poza Rica, Córdoba and Orizaba are the other cities.

The economy leans on the port of Veracruz, one of the country's busiest, and on oil and petrochemicals around Poza Rica, Coatzacoalcos and Tabasco, where the state oil company Pemex is a dominant employer. The mountains grow coffee around Coatepec and Huatusco, the lowlands sugar cane, citrus, bananas, cattle and, in Tabasco, cacao. Xalapa is a government and university town, with the Universidad Veracruzana at its heart.

Days start early to avoid the heat, with long, social breakfasts at cafés such as the traditional coffee houses of Veracruz, and the evening is the time for the malecón and the plaza. Tabasco lives with water, and its repeated floods, including the disaster of 2007, shape planning and politics; insecurity and the ups and downs of the oil industry are the other constant concerns.

Veracruz cooking is built on seafood and the Spanish port. Huachinango a la veracruzana is red snapper baked in tomato sauce with olives, capers and mild chillies; arroz a la tumbada is a soupy seafood rice; and the coast serves shrimp cocktails, ceviche and chilpachole, a spicy crab soup. Breakfast brings picadas, thick corn tortillas with a pinched rim topped with salsa, and gordas, small fried corn cakes. The jalapeño chilli takes its name from Xalapa, and the smoked jalapeño is the chipotle.

Coffee is grown around Coatepec and served in Veracruz's cafés as a lechero, a glass of strong coffee topped with hot milk, ordered by tapping a spoon on the glass. The torito, a sweet drink of cane spirit shaken with fruit or peanut and milk, is sold along the coast. In the Huasteca, the zacahuil is a huge tamale baked in a wood oven for feasts.

Tabasco eats from its rivers: pejelagarto, the armoured tropical gar, is grilled whole or shredded into empanadas and tamales, and freshwater turtles and river fish were long staples. Cacao is the state's pride; the Comalcalco area has chocolate haciendas, and pozol, a cold drink of ground maize and cacao, is drunk through the day across the state.

In the north of Veracruz, El Tajín, a UNESCO World Heritage Site near Papantla, has the Pyramid of the Niches, carved ball-court panels and the palaces of Tajín Chico, and the Papantla flyers perform at the site and in the town. On the central coast, Veracruz city has the island fortress of San Juan de Ulúa, its malecón, the aquarium and the old port area, and the ruins of Cempoala lie to the north.

Inland, Xalapa's Museum of Anthropology holds Olmec colossal heads and the region's finest pre-Hispanic sculpture in a hillside building; coffee towns such as Coatepec and Xico lie close by, with waterfalls and cloud forest. Further south, Orizaba sits beneath Pico de Orizaba, or Citlaltépetl, Mexico's highest mountain, which rises on the Veracruz–Puebla border. Tlacotalpan, a UNESCO World Heritage riverside town of colourful arcaded houses, lies on the Papaloapan, and Los Tuxtlas has Lake Catemaco and its boat trips, rainforest and the Eyipantla waterfall.

In Tabasco, Villahermosa's Parque-Museo La Venta displays Olmec heads and altars moved from the La Venta site among tropical trees. Comalcalco's brick pyramids lie to the north-west, and the cacao farms around them welcome visitors. On the coast, the Pantanos de Centla Biosphere Reserve protects the Tabasco wetlands, a maze of marsh, lagoon and mangrove where the Grijalva and Usumacinta meet, rich in birds, manatees and crocodiles.