Today we decided to stroll up to the aqueduct. This is outside the Centro Historico, but through a very lovely, quiet neighbourhood crisscrossed by canals, green and full of trees. We stopped for lunch at a superb little place with an outdoor garden overlooking one of the (dry) canals and ringed by old stone arches. […]
First day off
Saturday late morning. We left to explore the town and saw, as we passed the entrance, that the botanical garden was open. This is inside the walled grounds of old Dominican monastery and we had heard both that it is very good and that it has limited timings, so we went in. It turned out […]
Oaxaca
We have arrived in Oaxaca. Yesterday, after breakfast and coffee we went off to the bus station and embarked on the 4 1/2 hour journey south and west. The landscape changed along the way, from the dry plateau of Puebla to become more hilly. Then the hills came closer to the road, and started varying […]
Disentangling
The end of our second-last day in Cholula, and while the excitement about Oaxaca is building, so is sadness at leaving. One settles so easily into little routines and habits that then disappear entirely, from knowing exactly which point on the dial of the stove to prepare my tea in the morning, to the habit […]
Clinging on
The European election results are in, with no surprises and will be interpreted by everyone as they think best. I voted for the Greens as the Remainer party that also had a coherent EU manifesto that I largely agreed with. I’d hoped they’d pick up a third London seat, but oh well. All in all, […]
Good grub
Work was frustrating yesterday as I somehow lost an entire day’s work: a document got corrupted and when it was revived all my edits had disappeared, despite having been saved many times. Anyhow, in the evening we went for our usual coffee to Bartolo (superb and lovely people), and then on for a stroll up […]
Culture traitor
We got a ride to the Puebla outlet mall, not because we intended to shop or even step inside but because we were to be collected from here. Our hostess was waiting and we drove up to San Rafael Tenanyecac, a small village quite near Cacaxtla. Along the way we passed the black obelisk from […]
Up and up
We went up to the top of the pyramid to the yellow Spanish church. There was a good view of Cholula all around, and even the volcano’s outline appeared through the haze, startlingly tall for something that is invisible for most of the day. An open space on the San Pedro side was divided in […]
Joining the wave
In the mid-morning we went out for lunch and walked past makeshift roofed veranda outside someone’s house with a table and a pan set up outside and a handwritten sign saying ‘pulque, michelada’. The food looked delicious so we decided to eat there. It turned out to be excellent: a couple of quesedillas filled with […]
Mexican baroque
This morning, after a lavish breakfast composed from our purchases from the market yesterday we went down to Santa Maria Tonantzintla, a church which used to be a temple to a mother goddess until it became a church of the Virgin. It is covered in ornate, baroque plasterwork, yes, Mexican baroque. There is ornate plasterwork […]