This is the Veracruz chapter from Lonely Planet’s Mexico guidebook.

Imagine a mini-version of Machu Picchu but without the tourists, a ballroom dance with a sexy Afro-Cuban twist and a mountain as fickle and majestic as Kilimanjaro – you’ll find all this and more on Mexico’s central Gulf coast, where the runaway juggernaut called ‘global homogenization’ gets stopped in it tracks.

• decipher a triumvirate of Mesoamerican cultures in Xalapa’s Museo de Antropología
• maps
• watch grown men fly at a one-of-a-kind voladores ceremony in Papantla
• transport
• plug into the urban energy of Veracruz
• restaurants & accommodation

Coverage includes: Veracruz City, Central Veracruz, Central Coast, Cardel, Xalapa, Around Xalapa, Córdoba, Fortín De Las Flores, Coscomatepec, Orizaba, Pico De Orizaba, Northern Veracruz, Tuxpan, Poza Rica, Papantla, El Tajín, South Of Papantla, Southeast Veracruz, Tlacotalpan, Santiago Tuxtla, Tres Zapotes, San Andrés Tuxtla, Catemaco, Reserva De La Biosfera Los Tuxtlas and Acayucan.