Monday 7 July 2003
This morning was very sunny and hot. We had breakfast in the city center on a balcony right at the Zocalo square. Despite the fact that the restaurant did not serve breakfast and their coffee was bad, the location was nothing else than perfect.
Our poor Spanish was not any good, so we were excited of the result when we accepted the waiter’s recommendation. It turned out to be a kind of brown bean soup with bacon and the typical “salsa verde” with pepper, onion and coriander. A chef’s surprise right from the morning so to speak.
Later we went by the “Calle 2 Norte” and examined the house “Casa de los Muñecos” with the satiric tiles. The owner of the house put these satiric painted tiles to abuse the local bigwigs as revenge for being sent to court for having built his house taller than theirs. The tiles are still well preserved and a funny kind of history to watch. We continued to the “Museo Amparo” that housed a nice collection of pre-hispanic art. The museum is located in a nice old colonial building with beautiful woodcut furniture and fantastic stucco. Unfortunately, we had to pay to photograph, which is a bit against my principles at least when the receiver is not a poor person. Usually Mexican museums allow photographing if you do not use flash or tripod.
A taxi brought us to the large outdoor railway museum “Museo Ferracarril” to see old locomotives, wagons and other effects from the heydays of the railways in Mexico. The museum was lay out around the old train station, but unfortunately temporarily closed. The taxi ride was interesting though, as we drove around the city’s outskirts and passed both nice facades as well as poor and worn-down quarters.
Then it was time to return by bus to Mexico City. Somehow it felt awkward to leave this oasis of idyll, beautiful buildings, charm and nice atmosphere. This city is really a place to fall in love in, at least the city center. The historical center of Puebla is to could somewhat be compared with Firenze and Venice and is defiantly a “must-see” for everybody who visits Mexico.
When we entered the outskirts of Mexico City we examined that rain stains dropped and later when we arrived at bus station it rained cats and dogs. The rain was completely insane. The roads were white of giant hailstones. Fortunately, the bus stopped under a small roof allowing us to continue by foot without getting soaked.
Our walk back home took just as long as the bus trip. After having studied the rain with fascination for a while, we succeeded finding the subway connection we needed. About 20 minutes later the subway started to move. We heard an announcement in Spanish and half the passengers left the train. We looked for somebody to translate, but it seemed that no one was able or interested in doing so.
It turned out that this announcement was about the cancellation of the entire blue line that was flooded, which implied our end station. We had nothing else to do than hit the street and walk all the way back to the city centre carrying our entire luggage. Luckily, the weather changed and we could walk in dry weather together with hundreds of local Mexicans who were friendly and helpful guiding us the right direction.