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Published: September 19th 2019
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Unfortunately today we say goodbye to Benjamin and Wilko stays with us. After the usual 1/2 hour of arguing we finally agreed to do a walk from Roma up to near Centro.
Mexicans are not only short, but there are more dogs than Mexicans (and they aren’t for eating). Any walk in the city is like an encyclopaedic excursion through different dog breeds. Today we even saw a blue cattle dog!
We walked through the redlight district (pretty tame) checked out some lovely plazas and Art Deco and colonial style buildings. At the Plaza de la Independencia they had a publicdance thing which was fun and most of the streets are blocked off for the independence celebrations. The winged statue of liberty has been defaced by feminist protestors, I'm pretty sure they been deal with appropriately.
Aryton picked us up to take us to Puebla, I think Becs had a chat to him about speed limits and acceptable multiples thereof. As expected the traffic is ridiculous, lots of very slow old trucks and Aryton was extremely skilled at dodging the trucks and overtaking in the newly created 3rd lane.
The hotel in Puebla is the Casona de los Sopos . This weekend is Mexico’s independence celebrations when they started their war against the Spanish. The main square in Puebla has been closed off and market stalls have been set up all around the plaza. Because it’s a long weekend a lot of the museums and churches are closed. The Museo Amparo is open. This is a modern art gallery which was quite interesting with a rooftop terrace that gives a view across the city.
I have to take back my comment about the lack of machine guns. As we were driving in to Puebla a Hilux with a machine gun in the tray (kind of like an ISIS set up) drove past with a couple of cops smoking in the back. There are police everywhere and they have an annoying habit of randomly turning their sirens or lights on every 5 minutes. Also there are a lot of different police. Municipal Police, Turisto Police and Federale Police.
Lunch was at a taco joint in the Plaza but they had run out of seats so we had to order a coffee in the place next door so we could so we could sit down.
For dinner tonight we decided to go street food. The stalls looked great I had a Bistek taco and then we had Enshaladas with cheese an zucchini flowers. Catherine did point out that the girl preparing the zucchini flowers changed her baby’s nappy before serving us.
We then tried to find a bar where we could watch the independence day celebrations. After a confusing situation where the lady from the bar had to get the guy from Subway to interpret we got a table. I think Louise had to drink a whole bottle of Tequila as part of the deal.
The President of Puebla State came out on a balcony and rang the bell, apparently a Jesuit priest rang the bell (not this bell another bell) to call the Mexicans to arms to overthrow the Spanish. Then he says something in Spanish and the crowd chants “Viva” then he says something else in Spanish and the crowd chants “Viva”. It’s a bit like the prayers of the faithful. Once he finished the crowd waved their flags and those with guns fired them in the air. At first it’s a bit confronting but you get used to it. I think it would be a great addition to the Australia Day celebrations.
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