Pooh-ebla

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Tina Writes

Its been 6 years since I wrote a blog! I think i've forgotten how but I realised i've still got it when I came up with this most excellent title. Soooo up we got ready to travel to Puebla on the bus. We had our most successful breakfast yet as we were getting the hang of it now. I had looked into getting a public bus to the big bus station but we didn't have any coins and it looked like it would take just as long to walk, so we walked the 30 minutes or so with our packs on, phew! When we arrived it looked as though the station was closed for refurbishment or something. We couldn't find a way in and the places that looked like entrances has signs saying things like 'closed' and a bunch of Spanish we couldn't understand. We just hung about what looked like it might be the temporary place the buses would be at, hoping somebody would maybe point or something for us. Eventually we walked back around and I asked someone at the public bus ticket booth by pointing my phone at him with the translated English. Rob cant do this, he finds pointing his phone at people without saying anything to be uncomfortable. I am not exactly overjoyed with it myself but needs must. He spoke English! Very rare! We were shown where to go and as it turned out we just didn't walk around far enough because it looked like a dead end but in fact lead to a kind of tunnel into the big station. Now we had to buy the tickets. Not being able to speak Spanish is a big problem here. I guess we should have expected that but as we have travelled through South America and not ever had this kind of problem, we didn't really expect it of Mexico. Anyway, we muddled through and got our tickets (about $500 each). The 2.5 hour journey flew by with some interesting scenery along the way.

It looked like it was fairly easy to catch a public bus from nearby the station to our hotel, so we set off out the station toward the bus stop. As we turned a corner I hear someone saying 'habla espanol', 'habla espanol' and then 'do you speak English'. We turn around and this woman stops us and says 'please you need to be careful, it dangerous here. Its dangerous for me and I live here'. So thats us absolutely shitting ourselves. We tell her we are looking for the bus stop to get the historic centre and she leads us back and asks some people who point where we should go. We thank her and off she goes. At this point we just turn around and go straight back the the big bus station and get a taxi. It was not a good start to Puebla. This is the kinda thing that sends Rob into a meltdown.

We arrive at the hotel and the very friendly, English speaking receptionist welcomed us. We tell him what occurred and he seemed a bit surprised and assured us the area around the hotel was fine. I suppose its a bit like me seeing a couple of daft tourists with their backpacks on walking around a bad part of Glasgow. I won't name the parts in case of insulting anyone who may read this but you know what I mean. I think i'd stop them too and ask if they needed some help and get them out of there before they got bottled with a full glass bottle of Irn Bru (i've seen this happen, not to a tourist though lol). Compared to seeing a couple of backpackers in the town where you wouldn't bat an eyelid. I had messaged the hotel the day before asking if they could assign us a quiet room since our hotel in the city had not been the best 'sound proofing' wise. They graciously accepted my request and gave us a choice of the two 'quiet' rooms they had. One was at the back but the restaurant was above it, so we might here scraping chairs in the morning. We have had a room like this before,in Vietnam I think it was. A bloody nightmare! Or the other room which only had a queen bed and a single bed in it. That's the one we chose. Thank god I had messaged ahead for this as most of the room looked on to the road and as it turns out this hotel, just like the one in the city, has absolutely no soundproofing. I have come to the conclusion that unless you pay at least £100 a night, you aint getting soundproofing, no matter where you are. The howling dog and screaming children were a fabulous addition to our stay here. Its ok though, you'll be out most of the time I hear you say. Yeah well we will get to that.

We dumped our stuff and went to find some food. We were in the mood for some.....Tacos. I quickly googled 'best place to eat Puebla' and up came a place really close so we walked along to that. It was fab. The waitress even tried to help us with our lack of language and effectively ordered for us and she chose well. A couple of tacos and a burrito each. Both delicious. We then went for a wee walk around and found a lovely street that was obviously for tourists as it only sold the usual tourist stuff but the street was all tarted up Mexican style and looked really nice. We found our way to the square which was surrounded by lots of restaurants and they were setting up some Mexican decorations. I think there must be some sort of festival or something going on as I keep seeing a lot of decorations and decoration shops but I cant find anything on the internet about anything in particular. Ive found this travelling malarkey to be pretty exhausting. I cant handle the heat at all and i'm old now of course, so back to the room we went for some shut eye. In the morning we had the usual misunderstandings trying to order breakfast but what we got was very good, eggs and mole is yummy. We then headed out and took a walk to the funicular. It was meant to open at 10am but was closed when we arrived at 10.15. It opened at 10.30 though, so it was fine. The funicular only takes 10 mins and it was pretty cool to see Puebla from so high up. We play a Playstation game called Tropico and it was fun seeing all the stuff that appears in that game, from crazy big monuments in the middle of motorways to volcanoes looming over the city. At the top of the funicular where lots of museums and sightseeing type stuff but all of them were closed because 'COVID'. Mexico seems to be where the UK was a year ago. Masks are worn everywhere all the time, even though they don't actually have to wear them. Its a pain in the backside if i'm honest, especially in the heat. So we headed back down and got an Uber to Cholula. When I researched Puebla, I didn't realise that most of the stuff you want to see is actually in Cholula which is about 15 minutes away by taxi. We probably should have stayed there instead. We visited the church on the hill which is very pretty but is of particular interest because the hill is actually an ancient pyramid. It wasnt discovered at the time the church was built by the Spanish, they just thought it was a hill and its totally overgrown by grass and well, looks like a big hill. They have excavated something like 5% of it, and the bit they have excavated looks pretty cool. You had to pay to see this bit, which we didn't do because you could just look over the fence. We then had a stroll around the tourist stalls and decided to get an ice cream. This ice cream stall had Blue Cheese flavour, which Rob got of course. I got a cone with Cappuccino and Kinder something or other flavour. MMMMM yummy it was. It was hot, damn hot. So we stopped for a drink and I had a cocktail. As soon as I finished the cocktail, I felt a bit shit. That's normal for me tough, sometimes alcohol just doesn't agree with me and I get terrible heart burn and feel broken. So we got an Uber back to the hotel. Couldn't have timed it better as the full effects of what I now realise was poison flavour ice cream came to fruition. WITH AVENGENCE. After the many trips to the bathroom where the eye of a needle skills were displayed, I lay in bed furiously shivering and shaking, freezing cold but felt hot to the touch. I think I might have lost a stone in 24 hours. Benefits. The next day was a write off. We should have been on a bus to Oaxaca. Our hotel was booked there and too late to cancel so we'd need to pay for that, bummer. But there was no way I could be on a bus for 5 hours. So Rob arranged for us to stay another night in Puebla with the howling dog and the screaming children. Someone else somewhere is writing a blog right now about how bad the soundproofing was in Hotel Nube with the howling dog, the screaming children and the comedy, Dumb and Dumber style toilet noises resonating throughout the building. By the early evening, I felt a bit better and Rob was going nuts in the room, so we ventured out to get something to eat. This was a dangerous thing to do but I really wanted to try the Chile De Nogada which is the speciality in Puebla. Its a giant chilli (not spicy) stuffed with raisins and meat and stuff, covered in a sweet white sauce, sprinkled with pomegranate. It was ok. Back to the hotel to continue the comedy noises and to sleep. Fingers crossed for the morning, so we could get to Oaxaca. This delay meant we only had two nights in Oaxaca, which isn't enough. Three nights isn't enough but thems the breaks. By morning, I reckoned i'd be ok. I felt much better but was still hitting that needle eye perfectly. We headed to the bus station and I bought some Immodium just to be safe. Imagine I had to use the loo on that bus! IMAGINE! The bus journey to Oaxaca was fabulous. The scenery was spectacular as we passed through mountainous areas covered in cactus and giant birds of prey hovering in the sky. The Immodium did its thing and the journey passed by so quickly. Now we need to make the best of Oaxaca.

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Comments

[Jean kearney]

So we just looked over the fence
Sounds good you can just imagine the kind of background noises you’d hear in Mexico

[Louise]

🌮 🌮 🌮

[so sweet]

Good blog
THAKS FOR SHARING THIS BLOG