Puebla

Next stop Puebla. Puebla was planned into our trip as it is renowned for its food, as is Oaxaca, which we enjoyed very much. The drive enabled us to take in the dramatic mountainous landscape that exists between Oaxaca and Mexico City. The roads tended to be lined with Agave plantations or corn and further into the mountains, tall cacti. As has become our tradition when we arrive in a new location, we had a wonder around the city. Puebla isn’t notable for anything in particular, apart from Mexican delicacies, but there were continuations of the street parties we had witnessed in Oaxaca. We also visited the Biblioteca Palafoxiana in Puebla, the oldest public library in the Americas, containing more than 45,000 books and manuscripts, ranging from the 15th to the 20th century! Elana was initially surprised by the lack of colour but then started to appreciate the age and importance of the books on display.

Puebla isn’t as quaint or sleepy as Oaxaca, but certainly isn’t as busy as Mexico City.

The following day we spent the morning at a wonderful park (Parc Ecological) on the outskirts of the city. We mainly planned it in to give Elana and Bert some time to let off steam at the park (or lots of parks within a park!), but it was actually lovely to spend time away from the hustle and bustle, there was certainly significant investment with sports facilities, boating lake, zip wires, running and cycling tracks which were well-used. In the afternoon we did a guided food tour, taking in five different eateries with our guide we had a taste of what Mexico had to offer from street food to a contemporary bar putting their spin on Mexican specialities. The highlight was the ‘cemitas’, they’re basically a massive bread roll lightly fried then stuffed with a host of ingredients, one is enough to serve a family of four! The food in Mexico hasn’t been as vibrant as we expected, and after a while it has become a little ‘samey’ (and we’ve been adventurous). There’s a lot of corn, whether as a main ingredient or the tortillas and they go heavy on the meat – the don’t understand vegetarians and we’ve struggled to find vegetables when eating out (a tricky one for Helen)! We have been taken by their guacamole and moles (kind of a refried bean dish with many regional variations and served with most meals), avocados abound roadside stalls and are the best you can taste!

The food tour opened our eyes to a wider variety of food but the jury is still out!Read more