Puebla: The Elusive City

Disclaimer: for story telling purposes, most of the photos dumped are near the bottom 👇

Mexicans take their holidays very seriously.

It was November 4th. Mom and I were sitting in my hostel room looking at bus schedules for the 5th, which all read, "No seats available." We were supposed to be out of Oaxaca and exploring Puebla the next day, but that obviously wasn't going to happen. We found The soonest bus on the 6th at noon, with six seats available, but we knew it would only be available for a short time.

The bus station from our hostel is one and a half kilometers. I admit my first thought was to walk, but it was 10:00 at night, and Mom was smart and insisted on taking a taxi. So we went on a late-night errand to buy bus tickets to get on with our lives despite the holiday spirits that caused everyone in Oaxaca to want to travel to Puebla as well for some reason.

In the morning, we checked out and tracked down another hostel in good hopes that they would have space, which they did. Although the room was designed to sleep four, we had everything to ourselves. We should've stayed at this hostel in the first place. It was WAY

quieter. It also had a nice mirror! (The things you notice, eh?)

Although, the chances of you getting locked out of your room in the middle of the night were higher.

It was around 2:30 am when I heard a rattling from someone trying to get into our room. I raised my head and looked around. Mom wasn't in bed, so I assumed it was her, out for a late-night bathroom break. I got up and walked towards the door that was still being wrestled with.

"Mom?" I asked.

"I can't get the door open!" She whispered exasperatedly.

I tried opening it on my side with no luck. The lock had two bolts, but the key only moved one, and I couldn't move the other from the inside. Mom was turning the key every which way.

I put my face up to the window beside the door. "You're going to have to go downstairs and get someone from reception to come and help." I couldn't help but laugh as I said it. It was our last night in Oaxaca, the night we weren't supposed to spend here, and this is what happened.

She went downstairs, and I grabbed my phone for a light to try and see the lock better, but what I saw was baffling. The second bolt we had been struggling with for the past 5 minutes magically retracted, and the door swung open without a problem. I ran downstairs to call the false alarm, and we returned laughing to our beds.

I'm still trying to understand why or how that happened.

We had a lazy morning the next day, waiting until our 4-hour bus ride. I wish we had walked around that morning because that 4 hours turned into 7. We spent the last three in painfully slow traffic getting into Puebla.

We were supposed to meet someone at a cafe around 5:00 to pick up a key and find out where the Airbnb was, but when we got there after 8:00, the cafe was closed, and we had nothing but a vague street address. We stopped at another cafe, a late-night cafe, and sipped on hot chocolate to get their wifi password to try and get in contact with our hosts. We decided to risk it and try and find the place on our own.

There's a particular look about people when they're lost. As much as one tries to hide it, it's obvious. And here comes the second travel angel we've encountered.

A man came out from the hotel we had just passed, white-haired, fair-skinned, and with small, squinty, good-spirited eyes. "Are you lost?" he asked in English.

My first reaction is to say no, fake confidence, and continue looking for the address. The numbers are getting smaller; I'm sure it's just a few doors down. But I end up saying yes. We explain our situation to him, and he immediately starts walking up and down the street, trying to aid us in our quest.

We got to talking, as you do. He invited us to his Facebook page, where he has an extensive list of things to do in Puebla and the surrounding area. People who work for Tripadvisor are natural tour guides and know the best places for coffee and tamales.

It took us only a little while to find the door. The door was barred and locked and unwelcoming. We stared at it for a few seconds. The man pointed to a little button on the side, a doorbell.

"Are you Laura?" We asked the lady who answered.

"Si, si!" She replied.

We say goodbye to our travel angel and step into possibly the cutest and most romantic accommodation where I've had the pleasure of spending a night.

You wouldn't know it from the outside, but once you step through that front door, it opens into a courtyard big enough to fit three cars. There must've been a dozen doors at least, each leading to their separate apartment. We were on the second floor in the corner, one far from the street. It was so quiet.

Laura gave us a very extensive tour. She ensured we knew where the couch was, the glass table in the living room, and the computer desk. She pointed out all the kitchen utensils: the cups, plates, coffee maker, blender, waffle maker, etc. The bathroom, the bedrooms, no room left unmentioned.

Finally, we could get some sleep.

In the morning, we had to figure out how to reach Cholula, one of Puebla's outskirt towns. Mom had booked a tour with an archeologist to see the Tlachihualtepetl Pyramid, also known as the Great Pyramid of Cholula. It's the largest pyramid by volume in the world, with the broadest base.

Most of the structure is only recognizable as "that big hill with the giant church on it in the middle of an otherwise flat town." But there was an excavated section on one side where you could see the different layers of the pyramids built on top of each other.

Before building any pyramids, the Aztecs would look for a sign to know where to put it. When they saw an eagle sitting on a cactus devouring a snake, they knew it was the perfect spiritual place to erect a temple to the gods. But then, instead of building another beside it, they would build on top of the one already there because that was the spot with all the godly significance. Each time, it would get bigger and bigger. They estimate that Tlachihualtepetl is a stack of 5-7 pyramids.

Pretty cool, huh? Yeah. Let's go back to Puebla now.

It's such a cute town known for its churches. They say there are 365, one for each day of the year, but officially, there are only 288. From any viewpoint, you can see countless church towers poking out above the city skyline, all hazy from the smokey spewing from one of the volcanoes that surrounds the area.

But its charm comes out at night. Downtown, especially, they have all the churches and buildings lit up, the narrow cobblestone roads dancing with fairy lights, and all the window balconies full of plants that hang down, trying to brush the top of your head.

It's also a very sweet town. We saw so many creperias and walked down the Calle de Dulces (street of sweets), lined with traditional Mexican sweet shops. I spent too much money here.

In the morning, we had a few hours before we had to catch our bus to Mexico City. Having seen so many last night, we decided we would have crepes for breakfast. It must be popular in Puebla for a reason, right? Except that half of them weren't open, and half only existed in the realm of Google Maps. So what do you do when you can't find any crepes? Just eat churros instead.

Even though we only spent one and a half days here instead of our original plan of two, it was the perfect amount of time to wander around the cute city without getting bored. However, I'm sure there are plenty of other nooks and crannies in Puebla that we would have discovered had we stayed longer. I'm satisfied with what we saw of it.