Tuesday 18 May 2004 PUEBLA
Arrived after two bus rides (164M$ each) totalling several hours and three taxis (85M$0 between bus stations and hotels, the last part to Puebla being luxurious of the standard you would usually find in Mexico. Joan records bone dry fields, a cart used for spreading manure, stubble fields being burnt off in a hazy fume stretching to far off hills, but more fertile land with rose gardens as we neared Puebla.
Initial night at the Colonial hotel which was M$570 for a poor room with small widows and a smelling like a hospital. Sought better tomorrow but found Los Angeles and Sovereign were full until happily settled in the friendly 3 star Royalty, right on the zocalo for M$ 640 including breakfasts.
Mole Poblano for dinner for the first time at Santa Clara, a Mexican speciality of chicken in a spicy chocolate sauce, too sweet for our tastes.
19 May
Walked to find the Ex-Convento de Santa Rosa and Museo de Arte Popular Poblano but had to wait with three Mexicans and a French family in a lovely courtyard for a wonderful guided tour in Spanish - no photos allowed.
We saw the huge tiled kitchens where mole poblano was first made, the large pottery bowls used when cooking for the nuns, the stone stands and rolling pins for making tortilla but the most amazing were the tiles themselves from floor to ceiling blue and white with bird motifs and yellow blue and green floral designs. The next room even had pictures entirely made of tiles.
There were rooms of basket work from woven rush mats. A 10x 12 feet room upstairs for baby orphans in folding cradles, some babies had been left at the door because their mothers were unmarried and couldn't afford to feed them.
Joan records a dinner set of fine china with a lilac motif, especially beautiful clay trees of life from Adam and Eve onwards and beautiful embroidery.
After the convent was closed the building was used for housing the mentally insane
On leaving we went into the church next door with people praying to Santa Rosa and she noted a teenager cross himself as entered the door.
After lunch we went to the absolutely first class Amparo museum where the Colonial part had painted wooden carving and a Dutch painting on wood of Francis of Assisi praying in front of a small crucifix with stigmata on his hands and cat-o-nine tails which to Joan implied flagellation - a fascinating view of a saint she always thought of as having an idyllic life. The section on ancient
Mexican history was fabulous, concluding it's 6 pm and raining but we should return.
Sheltering from the rain we found our first good coffee in an Italian Coffee bar.
A good jazz quartet were playing from 8 to 11pm in the street under the covers outside our hotel, led by an alto sax with a fine young American playing keyboards, plus bass and drums on backing track. We talked a lot to the American who initially came to Puebla for 3 months to learn Spanish but is still here 3 years later now teaching English at Puebla university. He gave two particularly good recommendations of must visit places in Mexico all of which we followed up, Jalapa for music and Altimevaye for access to Popocatepetl, and Cuetzalan.
20 May, Searching for El Popo
Taxi to side street stop of ORO buses to Atlizco where several people were very helpful in getting us to take a taxi of colour denoting that it was authorised for the particular bus station for Altimevaya, as recommended by the jazz pianist.
A lovely ride with well tilled fields and well marked with signs saying 'ruta evacuacion' possibly because an eruption of Popocatepetl was thought imminent, passed lots of restaurants offering trout. Ironically it was from this bus that we got our best view of the volcano at 9:30am but didn't bother to photograph it then, on our return it was too dark.
When the bus stopped at Altimevaya after enquiring the times of return journey we had a nice chat with a fellow selling chicken fom the back of a van, all the meat looked very fresh.
He pointed right to the fish farm but we left to the church on the hill and on arrival found ourselves on a very uninviting square with a derelict building with broken windows where martins and sparrows were nesting made special by an enormous ancient cypress tree.
We climbed the mountain road for two hours hoping to get a view of Popocatepetl but in vain.
When we reached a plateau our view of it was blocked by high trees and increasingly dense cloud and the high peak behind it to the north. Since the sun was in the west the mountains were little but silhouettes.
Disappointed we decided to descend through a beautiful wild countryside. Joan recalls lupins, penstaman, trailing verbena, cornflowers and a thorny white poppy like flower.
In Altimevaya we fed on trout, the local delicacy, with a delightful salad of cucumber and lime. Joan's day was made by seeing a humming bird at work in the garden of that restaurant, a grey stoat on the wall, and lots of orange and yellow swallow tailed butterflies on the flowers. It was an idyllic place.
On our return to Puebla I checked out the availability of buses to Cuetzalan and found Via goes hourly on Saturday and Sunday but didn't locate the once daily first class company. Joan was shattered but we somehow we refreshed ourselves by another trip to the 'Italian coffee company'.
21 May A leisurely breakfast and walk down the 5 May to the Museo Casa Jose Luis Bell and son mahano next to Templo de Santo Domingo. A wonderful private collection of three generations of the Bell family whose fortunes had come from materials and cigars. According to Joan the women taking us round spoke in Spanish but slowly so even she could understand (starting from French and Latin) but we some English when we had not understood. It included, china glassware made in Puebla, carved chairs and settees, a bed after Napoleon Italian glassware and dining suite, Miesen china from Germany Wedgewood deep blue Etruscan ware, a cabinet of Japanese china, paintings by Morales with some from Italy, Spain and Flanders, a cabinet of paperweights and a beautiful set of miniatures.
Our guide suggested we went round the church next door. It too was very beautiful in a less ornate style not seen often enough in Catholic Churches.
The Museo Bello was closed for redecoration so Brian decided to buy a pair of spectacles in Spanish we can pick them up on Sunday.
We lunched in a cheapy restaurant not expecting the fabulous meal of prawn (Joan's favorite food) soup, pasta, chicken and mushroom and milk jelly all for 26 pesos (must have been good value for her to make such a note). Then down 5 May where Brian played emails for three hours - I guess my notes of this holiday are still out there!! The hotel restaurant was very full so we decided on an early night and settled for a 7am call and left our ready to catch an early bus to Cuezalan
Sat 22 May Cuetzalan
A wonderful bus journey to the Sierra Norte de Puebla on highway 129, a plateau of fertile plains - still mostly horse plowed and tilled by hand. Mainly maize with some corn, broad beans and alfalfa.
The roadsides are looking green instead of brown as we get to Zaragosa and start to climb into lush green trees full of Friesian cows. The 45 degree hillsides are full of maize already with cobs and hassels on top, observable as we travel up and down the increasingly cloudy skies.
We are glad we left our heavy rucksacks behind for the long humid climb from the bus to the a zocalo, a pretty square with tall trees a wrought iron grandstand, a big old church and a clock tower. The square and main street still rising was full of stalls selling meat and vegetables, flowers and were pestered a little to buy local crafts.
We looked at several places before deciding to stay at the Posada Cuetzalan, a good choice with two courtyards and a swimming pool.
After lunch walked around town climbed above the Lourdes like church as far as a coffee plantation full of flowers and buds. Had coffee in a small shop which boasted of its own beans but it was not up to the standard of the Italian Coffee Shop in Puebla.
Whilst Joan was writing this diary I obviously lied down for a sleep as I almost certainly had during the four hour bus ride. In the evening we went to the pena for a Mexican social evening and learned that night was to be a performance by flying men around the 100ft tall concrete pole in the nearby square, there is a similar wooden pole on the zocalo which presumably is no longer used. We found a table nearby ordered food and beer and by the time it was dark observed that three men in costume were already climbing the tower. One man stood at the square top the other four were attached upside down by their feet on ropes at the four corners. As they swung ever out and round the ropes were lengthened and the man at the top beat on a small drum, just before reaching the ground they took up an upright posture landed took off their velvet caps and came round the audience using them to collect spectacularly earned money.
In the street we saw a man selling models of the flying four.
When the men were fully extended the dark was suddenly expunged by a spectacular 2 feet diameter light which flew off into the night sky.
Our conclusion was that initially as they climbed they had wound their ropes around the tower ready to release in the swinging descent. The rest of the evening a singer with guitar entertained the mostly 20-30 year old crowd, obviously very funny but the men took the brunt with the girls particularly tickled.
Sun 23 May, Market Day in Cuetzalan
Traffic was heard from6:30. here were so many stalls and people dressed in white from thee surrounding area. Embroidered tortilla envelopes,bamboo and string serviette holder formed like letter racks, woodcarving.
At all started at breakfast time when a woman arrived selling a bunch of exotic flowers for just 50p according to Joan I got it for 10 pesos (may be help in aligning the currency in this blog 1 Mexican dollar equal to £5?).
The waiter told us it was called the torch flower symbolising the Olympic Torch. Joan records she loved it. 'it's in a water bottle at the moment opening more every minute, it's 6 inches across and 4 high on a very long stem'. Which magazine would rate it a 'best buy'.
The local people are small, some very thin and wiry but others quite fat, most are barefoot all are either buying or selling wonderful fruit and vegetables and handcrafts but some men obviously sit and chat!
Some of the fruit obviously imported like Canadian apples and some we do not even recognise. Joan's notebook has sketches of the pole act, the torch flower and local people of either sex. Lots of green and red chilli peppers some flat and black though not sure if roast, dried or smoked. The meat looks clean, fresh and sweet but doesn't attract flies. Joan saw some vanilla pods and hoped to see some later just before returning home.
A man with a live turkey , looking happy enough though its head and feet were poking out of a square cloth. Babies and toddlers were being carried Welsh style in cotton shawls. We bought bananas and some churros. By midday it was getting hot and humid and the sky was clouding over. The huge ..... are starting to circle overhead, there are some yellow birds, song-thrush size with dark blue wings and eye stripes resting in the trees with red flowers in the zocalo.
There are three people in the pool I wish I had my bathers she wrote. Swallows are flying down to scoop beaks full of water and I have just seen a humming bird up close 'two in one holiday, wow'. Back to Puebla tomorrow.
24 May Puebla Again
Breakfast at our little restaurant overlooking the zocalo. Some still selling meat or flowers but all the steps in use yesterday for the market are empty and clean, the bandstand is deserted but my yellow birds are feeding their chicks in the tall trees, the log tailed black birds as noisy as ever.
We make our way down to the bus station passed nursery/junior school at playtime using merry-go-rounds and climbing frames. The boys wore shirts and long pants the girls in lacy dresses everyone in beautiful white, the thought of them being muddy obviously made her think of grandson Joe Browett.
As the bus drove out of the village we noted several coffee plantations, even places roasting the coffee beans, but yesterday to our taste it was thin tasting. Joan enjoyed every minute of the four hours especially that high through the rain forest.
Back in Puebla we take back our large rucksacks and our boots each still with the $50 notes in their inner-soles for security a memory of the £5 mum had sewn into my shorts as fall back on my first cycle tour to Europe with Keith Upstone 50 years previously. We had a different room on the second floor with less steps to climb, but with less light. We went back for my new specs and wondered if the woman was beginning to despair of us ever returning, but they were fine and she gave me a small leather purse for coins which I am still using more than a decade later.
We lunched at the same cheap restaurant it really is good the girl recognised us from a few days earlier. This time it was me who ate the poblano chicken in over-rich chocolate sauce leaving me in no great hurry to repeat it. Italian coffee shop for teatime and cake and then more jazz by the same pair outside the hotel. At the next table there were four young Japanese all jazz enthusiasts.
Joan concluded we will never forget Puebla and it did remain in my memory but it's a lot sharper for having read her notes. For blog reconstructions so far I have used almost exclusively my notes (they scarcely exist for Mexico holidays) - Joan's records are different and with much clearer descriptions.
Arrived after two bus rides (164M$ each) totalling several hours and three taxis (85M$0 between bus stations and hotels, the last part to Puebla being luxurious of the standard you would usually find in Mexico. Joan records bone dry fields, a cart used for spreading manure, stubble fields being burnt off in a hazy fume stretching to far off hills, but more fertile land with rose gardens as we neared Puebla.
 |
| PUEBLA CATHEDRAL |
Initial night at the Colonial hotel which was M$570 for a poor room with small widows and a smelling like a hospital. Sought better tomorrow but found Los Angeles and Sovereign were full until happily settled in the friendly 3 star Royalty, right on the zocalo for M$ 640 including breakfasts.
 |
| OUTSIDE ROYALTY HOTEL PUEBLA, Start of Car Rally |
Mole Poblano for dinner for the first time at Santa Clara, a Mexican speciality of chicken in a spicy chocolate sauce, too sweet for our tastes.
19 May
Walked to find the Ex-Convento de Santa Rosa and Museo de Arte Popular Poblano but had to wait with three Mexicans and a French family in a lovely courtyard for a wonderful guided tour in Spanish - no photos allowed.
There were rooms of basket work from woven rush mats. A 10x 12 feet room upstairs for baby orphans in folding cradles, some babies had been left at the door because their mothers were unmarried and couldn't afford to feed them.
Joan records a dinner set of fine china with a lilac motif, especially beautiful clay trees of life from Adam and Eve onwards and beautiful embroidery.
After the convent was closed the building was used for housing the mentally insane
On leaving we went into the church next door with people praying to Santa Rosa and she noted a teenager cross himself as entered the door.
After lunch we went to the absolutely first class Amparo museum where the Colonial part had painted wooden carving and a Dutch painting on wood of Francis of Assisi praying in front of a small crucifix with stigmata on his hands and cat-o-nine tails which to Joan implied flagellation - a fascinating view of a saint she always thought of as having an idyllic life. The section on ancient
Mexican history was fabulous, concluding it's 6 pm and raining but we should return.
Sheltering from the rain we found our first good coffee in an Italian Coffee bar.
A good jazz quartet were playing from 8 to 11pm in the street under the covers outside our hotel, led by an alto sax with a fine young American playing keyboards, plus bass and drums on backing track. We talked a lot to the American who initially came to Puebla for 3 months to learn Spanish but is still here 3 years later now teaching English at Puebla university. He gave two particularly good recommendations of must visit places in Mexico all of which we followed up, Jalapa for music and Altimevaye for access to Popocatepetl, and Cuetzalan.
20 May, Searching for El Popo
Taxi to side street stop of ORO buses to Atlizco where several people were very helpful in getting us to take a taxi of colour denoting that it was authorised for the particular bus station for Altimevaya, as recommended by the jazz pianist.
A lovely ride with well tilled fields and well marked with signs saying 'ruta evacuacion' possibly because an eruption of Popocatepetl was thought imminent, passed lots of restaurants offering trout. Ironically it was from this bus that we got our best view of the volcano at 9:30am but didn't bother to photograph it then, on our return it was too dark.
When the bus stopped at Altimevaya after enquiring the times of return journey we had a nice chat with a fellow selling chicken fom the back of a van, all the meat looked very fresh.
He pointed right to the fish farm but we left to the church on the hill and on arrival found ourselves on a very uninviting square with a derelict building with broken windows where martins and sparrows were nesting made special by an enormous ancient cypress tree.
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| ALTIMEVAYA, OUR WALK STARTED AT THIS DERELICT BUILDING |
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| WE WERE WALKING CLOSER TO DANGER |
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| JOAN POINTS IN DIRECTION OF POPOCAPEPETL |
When we reached a plateau our view of it was blocked by high trees and increasingly dense cloud and the high peak behind it to the north. Since the sun was in the west the mountains were little but silhouettes.
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| LOVELY OPEN MOORLAND |
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| JOAN REVELS IN WILD FLOWERS |
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| WILD FLOWER WITH BEETLE |
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| NEARING ALTIMEVAYA ON RETURN |
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| CYPRESS TREE AT ALTIMEVAYA |
 | |
| IRONICALLY SAW SNOWCAPPED FLAT TOP of POPOCATEPETL FROM PUEBLA BUSSTATION |
21 May A leisurely breakfast and walk down the 5 May to the Museo Casa Jose Luis Bell and son mahano next to Templo de Santo Domingo. A wonderful private collection of three generations of the Bell family whose fortunes had come from materials and cigars. According to Joan the women taking us round spoke in Spanish but slowly so even she could understand (starting from French and Latin) but we some English when we had not understood. It included, china glassware made in Puebla, carved chairs and settees, a bed after Napoleon Italian glassware and dining suite, Miesen china from Germany Wedgewood deep blue Etruscan ware, a cabinet of Japanese china, paintings by Morales with some from Italy, Spain and Flanders, a cabinet of paperweights and a beautiful set of miniatures.
Our guide suggested we went round the church next door. It too was very beautiful in a less ornate style not seen often enough in Catholic Churches.
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| PUEBLA, CHURCH NEXT TO EX-CONVENTO |
The Museo Bello was closed for redecoration so Brian decided to buy a pair of spectacles in Spanish we can pick them up on Sunday.
 |
| PUEBLA CENTRE, AVENIDA 5 DE MAYO? |
Sat 22 May Cuetzalan
A wonderful bus journey to the Sierra Norte de Puebla on highway 129, a plateau of fertile plains - still mostly horse plowed and tilled by hand. Mainly maize with some corn, broad beans and alfalfa.
The roadsides are looking green instead of brown as we get to Zaragosa and start to climb into lush green trees full of Friesian cows. The 45 degree hillsides are full of maize already with cobs and hassels on top, observable as we travel up and down the increasingly cloudy skies.
We are glad we left our heavy rucksacks behind for the long humid climb from the bus to the a zocalo, a pretty square with tall trees a wrought iron grandstand, a big old church and a clock tower. The square and main street still rising was full of stalls selling meat and vegetables, flowers and were pestered a little to buy local crafts.
 |
| CUETZALAN TOWN CENTRE |
 |
| POSADA CUETZALAN |
Whilst Joan was writing this diary I obviously lied down for a sleep as I almost certainly had during the four hour bus ride. In the evening we went to the pena for a Mexican social evening and learned that night was to be a performance by flying men around the 100ft tall concrete pole in the nearby square, there is a similar wooden pole on the zocalo which presumably is no longer used. We found a table nearby ordered food and beer and by the time it was dark observed that three men in costume were already climbing the tower. One man stood at the square top the other four were attached upside down by their feet on ropes at the four corners. As they swung ever out and round the ropes were lengthened and the man at the top beat on a small drum, just before reaching the ground they took up an upright posture landed took off their velvet caps and came round the audience using them to collect spectacularly earned money.
 |
| MODELS FOR SALE including one of THE FLYING FOUR |
When the men were fully extended the dark was suddenly expunged by a spectacular 2 feet diameter light which flew off into the night sky.
Our conclusion was that initially as they climbed they had wound their ropes around the tower ready to release in the swinging descent. The rest of the evening a singer with guitar entertained the mostly 20-30 year old crowd, obviously very funny but the men took the brunt with the girls particularly tickled.
Sun 23 May, Market Day in Cuetzalan
Traffic was heard from6:30. here were so many stalls and people dressed in white from thee surrounding area. Embroidered tortilla envelopes,bamboo and string serviette holder formed like letter racks, woodcarving.
 |
| CUETZALAN STREET SELLER, DAY BEFORE MARKET DAY |
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| THE TORCH FLOWER, 'WAS SHE EVER PLEASED'! |
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| CUETZALAN STREET ON SATURDAY MARKET DAY |
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| OPTING OUT of CUETZALAN MARKET, as on my dining room wall |
A man with a live turkey , looking happy enough though its head and feet were poking out of a square cloth. Babies and toddlers were being carried Welsh style in cotton shawls. We bought bananas and some churros. By midday it was getting hot and humid and the sky was clouding over. The huge ..... are starting to circle overhead, there are some yellow birds, song-thrush size with dark blue wings and eye stripes resting in the trees with red flowers in the zocalo.
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| CUETZALAN SATURDAY MARKET |
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| GARDEN OF 'POSADA CUETZALAN' OVER LOOKING SWIMMING POOL |
Breakfast at our little restaurant overlooking the zocalo. Some still selling meat or flowers but all the steps in use yesterday for the market are empty and clean, the bandstand is deserted but my yellow birds are feeding their chicks in the tall trees, the log tailed black birds as noisy as ever.
We make our way down to the bus station passed nursery/junior school at playtime using merry-go-rounds and climbing frames. The boys wore shirts and long pants the girls in lacy dresses everyone in beautiful white, the thought of them being muddy obviously made her think of grandson Joe Browett.
 |
| CUETZALAN SCHOOLCHILDREN AT PLAY ON MONDAY |
Back in Puebla we take back our large rucksacks and our boots each still with the $50 notes in their inner-soles for security a memory of the £5 mum had sewn into my shorts as fall back on my first cycle tour to Europe with Keith Upstone 50 years previously. We had a different room on the second floor with less steps to climb, but with less light. We went back for my new specs and wondered if the woman was beginning to despair of us ever returning, but they were fine and she gave me a small leather purse for coins which I am still using more than a decade later.
We lunched at the same cheap restaurant it really is good the girl recognised us from a few days earlier. This time it was me who ate the poblano chicken in over-rich chocolate sauce leaving me in no great hurry to repeat it. Italian coffee shop for teatime and cake and then more jazz by the same pair outside the hotel. At the next table there were four young Japanese all jazz enthusiasts.
 |
| PUEBLA CENTRE, AVENIDA DE 5 MAYO ? |
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