taco's & toucan's travels ~ 2019

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DAY 18

Week 3

PUEBLA DE ZARAGOZA (Puebla, MEX)

Monday April 1^st, 2019

TODAYS MILEAGE – 125 miles / 201 kilometres

TRIP MILEAGE – 14,131 miles / 22,742 kilometres

Heading out of Mexico City, bound for parts relatively unknown to me, I thought I’d share with a couple of observations with the America’s most populous city. The 5 days I spent there were filled with a tremendous amount of museums, churches and so called national monuments, in which I seemed to have covered more territory on foot than the early Spanish conquistadors.

It’d be fair to say that the large Police presence i.e. officers on most street corners, is a little unsettling and takes some getting used to. Having said that, I didn’t feel any unease or threat to my wellbeing, even though I ended up in a couple of areas that the hotel staff said I was “loco” for cutting through, to get where I wanted to go. Ignorance can be bliss at times, but no excuse if you get into shit though.

Amenities and utilities wise – the city looks to be a decade behind in any investment. but the streets were really clean and not smelling of sewerage, uncollected rubbish or pet excrement.

I personally loved wondering around the older tree-lined suburbs and being left alone by the many street vendors, who were out simply trying to make an honest dollar.

I’d love to spend some more time exploring the city, but don’t see myself planning a trip to specifically do that. I enjoyed my time in town and have a new appreciation for the country and the people by watching the locals go about living their respective lives.

As for today – we saddled up at for an 8AM departure and after a brief stop at the Centro Cultural Tlatelolco (University Cultural Center Tlatelolco) to check out the ruins of Piramide De Tlatelolco (Tlatelolco archaeological site) and the Templo de Santiago Apóstol (Church of Santiago Apóstol), we were back on the road, struggling with bumper to bumper traffic in trying to exit the city that spans 1,485 km² (573 mi²).

We headed an hour and half northeast into Teotihuacan and stopped at Artesanias Premier where the local host – Jesus, provided an interesting, informative and educational presentation as to how important the cactus was to the original settlers, as well as the numerous uses of the plant in their everyday lives.

From there it was a short 15 minute ride over to Teotihuacán Pyramids where we spent the best part of a couple of hours exploring the 20 square kilometre (8 mi²) site that once had a population estimated at more than 100,000 people living there between roughly 1,400 to 2,100 years ago.

The site is only 40 kilometres (25 miles) northeast of modern-day Mexico City and hosts over 4 million visitors a year and I was fascinated as to the building and scale of the site – well worth the visit. Fortunatley for us, we hit the site on a 'quite' day, so there was none of the usual 'combat tourism' that plagues most popular attractions around the world.

After a late buffet lunch at the local El Jaguar Teotihuacán, where I was well chuffed with the selection and range on their salad bar. The experience was soured slightly as I took some umbrage to them presenting a bill that included a tip of just on 27%. It’s not the monetary amount that gave me the irits, it was the fact that the “optional” charge was not explained to anyone and expected to be paid. Even after I objected, they did not remove the tip amount from the change I received back.

We left Teotihuacán around 2PM and headed for the city of Puebla de Zaragoza and arrived at the Hotel Gilfer just on 5PM, which would be our base for the next couple of nights.

At the completion of our orientation walk with our CEO – Jumanji, a couple of us took up her suggestion and tried the local specialty of the city of Puebla - "Exquisitos Chiles en Nogada" at the locally renowned Restaurant El Alfeñique. The meal consisted of large poblano chiles stuffed with chicken mince, vegetables, fruits and almonds, bathed in a nogada sauce of cheese & walnuts and then topped with pomegranate kernels. It was simply delicious, although a little sweet for my tastes.