Day 51 – Driving to Puebla
Today we drove 600km. We didn’t think we’d make it the full 10 hours to Puebla before sunset considering that we’re often slower than Google Maps’ estimate in Mexico, but we made it just in time! Following a recommendation from the iOverlander app, we found a hostel called Chante 18 right outside the main historic district. Not much to note from the day except for a lot of driving and a pretty impressive mountain pass coming into Puebla. It was scary passing all the massive lorries on the hills.
Arriving at Chante 18, we were welcomed by an Argentinian worker called Mano. The sweet old lady who runs the hostel invited us to join her and the two other workers for dinner that they were just serving. We had tortillas with flavourful chicken along with avocados from the trees in the garden. They showed us how to peel the avocado with your hands and squeeze out the contents on to the taco.
Day 52 – Puebla
After a free breakfast at the hostel of unlimited toast, avocados, jam, butter, and coffee, we set out for a day of exploration. Puebla is by far the biggest city we’ve visited during our travels, but it has a nicely contained central historic district that we mostly kept to.
We spent the whole day until nightfall wandering around the city. We visited the Street of Sweets with shop after shop of typical Poblano sweets. For lunch we had Tacos Arabe, a speciality of Puebla from when the Lebanese were here. They were super flavourful and we went to a smoky little local place that we enjoyed.
For the afternoon, we went to a cafe for liquados and green juice and read our books. We’ve also been backing up our photos to our website server whenever we stop at a cafe for a while so that we have everything in case our camera is stolen.
In the evening, we went to a restaurant with a ‘Menu del Dia’. We had soup, banana rice and ribs and a small dessert, all for 65 pesos per person ($3.25/p). Finally we found a man who sketches portraits and we chatted to him as he sketched us for 40 minutes (see photo).
Day 53 – Puebla continued
This morning we went on a free walking tour of Puebla which was super interesting and we were the only two people on the tour. We started in Puebla Cathedral and found the hidden Illuminati Eye and the four angels that represented earth, air, fire, and water. We walked through the artisanal market to which we returned and spent a lot of time later buying gifts and souvenirs. There was a lot of very cool craftwork here.
The tour took us to several of Puebla’s many churches and we were told about recent earthquakes that prompted rebuilding and also how Puebla was at the centre of the historic battle of Cinco del Mayo. After the tour we did some shopping and then walked to Restaurante “La Abuelita” (the little grandmother). We had an incredible experience at this restaurant that has been open since 1920. The reason for our visit was to try Chiles en Nogada, a Poblana speciality created by nuns centuries past with the colours of the Mexican flag. A green chilli is stuffed with apples, raisins, nuts, and meat, topped with a white walnut sauce and sprinkled with coriander leaves and pomegranate seeds (this results in a beautiful dish of white, red and green). The waitress was the great granddaughter of the founder and was very kind to us. She let us sample their special mole Poblano along with another speciality, chalupas (a kind of thin taco). The lady even offered to walk us to the market nearby where we wanted to buy a tortilla press, but we managed the journey alone.
We ended the day with a simple dinner of Tacos Arabe followed by our favourite – churros with hot chocolate. A wonderful way to end our visit to Puebla. This has been one of favourite places, along with Oaxaca and San Cristobal, for wandering around, shopping, eating and lazing at cafes. It far exceeded our expectations, which were low due to us having seen the population size as 1.5 million and expecting a much more chaotic city.
