Puebla, I can’t feel my face…

We rolled out of Teotihuacán early in the morning, so early that we decided to take the free road to Puebla.  It was only about 137 Km or 70ish miles so it should have taken us about 2 or 3 hours, that was even factoring in getting lost, which we try not to do.  Almost 5 hours later we rolled into Puebla, we hadn’t taken into account the Topes.  It was still an easy enough drive and Gretta Garmin got us right to our Hostel, a cute enough little place with parking for our truck about a block away, a first floor room with a courtyardish place right out front. 

 

We settled in and took a walk around 3:30, up to a huge park two blocks away.  At around 6 we decided to get something to eat, they have two different types of tacos from a spit there, the first our favorite Al Pastor and the second wasn’t pink but is now my new favorite.  The problem was by the time we were done with the first taco the second was cold, not just chilly, cold and not just cold, ice cold.  Puebla was cold, and not just chilly, but I can’t feel my face cold, or finger’s or toes cold.  We quickly retreated to the hotel room and planned out our next day.

Usually when getting to a place I get on line, figure out what we want to see and then in the morning we head out, here we ran into the first problem with the hotel, their wifi was out.  We switched to the backup plan of finding a map and figuring it out as we go and hit the hay fairly early.  Around 6 AM (our usually early riser get out the door time) we were getting ready to take the doggies back up to the park, find some coffee and get going when we ran into problem number 2 with our hotel.  They had turned off the water!  Because the temperature dropped down below freezing the night before, they completely shut down the water to the whole place.  This wasn’t much of an issue as there was no way I was showering that early in the morning, but toilets need water too.  We woke up the Senora of the hotel and she said the water would be on in a little while and off went to take care of the dogs and get coffee, but the gate was locked, which meant waking the Senora again and then again a ½ hour later (it took us that long to find the coffee) by which time we really couldn’t feel our face, fingers, toes or ears.  Man when I say Puebla is cold I mean it.  By 10 am we decided we were done with Puebla (the temperate didn’t get much about 45 there that day according to weather.com) and we decided to take off for warmer Oaxaca. 

We carried everything out to the sidewalk where I sat with the stuff and two dogs while Fritz walked the short block to get the car.  About 20 minutes later he came strolling back, without the car.  The Garage was closed and no one had any idea when it would be opened.  I really wish that I had a picture to share of “homeless Trisha” sitting on the street, shivering, with two dogs on her lap, or better yet a picture of the various strange looks I got from the people who made rather large circles around me as they walked by.  About an hour later, someone opened the garage, not the company that ran it, but a man with a key who had his car parked there.  We jumped on that opportunity and rescued our vehicle and escaped from Puebla.

The drive from Puebla to Oaxaca was great, there are quite a few funky little towns in between and a huge market where trucks sell their wares right on the side of the road.  It made up for the lack of cultural experience we had in Puebla, though one day we might go back, but not until summer!