Tuesday, July 17, 2012
We walked around the grounds of Trinidad complex before breakfast and saw old textile machinery. 
Once on our way I got us side tracked, when I saw a huge sign for "Zona Textil". Being a fibre artist this grabbed my attention. However, two zebras also attracted the attention of the municipal cops who pulled Ken over for turning right on a red light - the fine was they told us was 4500 pecos - wow that was scary! This is a shake down.
Ken mentioned the federal police and talked them down to $200 pesoes. Ken is getting good at this, last time was $400 pesoes. We made a plan for if we are involved in this situation again.
We drove around Tlaxcala - great Centro Historica - crowded and no parking. The previous incident turned us off this place. We walked the university grounds and were on our way.
The ruins of Cacaxtla was our next destination. There was a drive out in small town Mexico to get to Cacaxtla and it was really hot outside our van. We did not get lost but were dubious of the wisdom of Google Maps.
The pyramids are special because they had big remnants of wall paintings.
On our drive to Chulula, where we planned to spend the night, we again used Google Maps doubting our wisdom.
We discovered rural Mexico is lovely but dirt roads are not and our van does not want to be exposed to them. We saw horse pulling carts and up close views of fields of corn and horses.
We chose not to go into the ruins in Chulula after walking by them, but did go out for supper there near the ruins.
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| Chicken soup served with lime, onion and coriander |
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
We left our dubious campground in the sun and headed straight to the comfort of the Camino Real Hotel in Puebla's Centro Historica.
This hotel was a convent started back in the 1500's restored lovingly in the 1990's. We checked in and were off to the Zocola for a walk including passed the main cathedral constructed in the mid 1500's. We toured the San Pedro Musium of Art (no picture taking allowed).
It is housed in the old Hopital of San Pedro. The religious oriented paintings were from the 16th century, it also housed big pharmacy jars and other vessals which were on display.
We toured the governor's mansion, went to the tourist information booth.
We went to Mercado de Artesanias and went to the Barrio del Artista (you can see artists doing art).
Thursday, July 19
This is the day we celebrate our 26th Wedding Anniversary!
It is difficult to know how to dress in an unfamiliar area such as Puebla - watching locals helps and weather forecasts (if you check them). We walked around the block and came back. We decided to change for a hot weather day.
We started off our well planned day at Museo Bello y Ganzalez. This was the former home of a textile magnet and the donee of the home and his various collections of art, musical instruments, Talavera pottery, glassware, carved furniture - many artifacts. To see the house itself with masks on the walls and the hunting scene stained glass was more than worth the price of admission.
Sorry, we could not take any pictures.
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| Museo Bello y Ganzalez |
At a certain time each day Uriarte Talavera factory, founded in 1824, gives tours of their authentic workshops. It was a well conducted tour showing the process in overview form then taking us through the entire workshop. The workshop was a maize of smaller studios showing the artist s painting, using the potter's wheel, etc. Exceptional quality of Talavera!
Ken bought potato chips made fresh in a vat of oil right in front of us. We also went to the street of dulces (candy). Good thing we'd eaten. We toured another Talavera workshop and sampled liquiors and mezcal.
Then we realized we had not gone to the Museo de Arte Contemporarleo. Great work and did get pictures from here. Even saw work by an artist called Luca Bray (Mexicano).
It started pouring while we were in the museum in a fashion you might never have seen. We waited for half an hour before braving the elements and getting wet and cold in our attire for hot weather. We hid out in a coffee shop over hot chocolates, hailed a cab, and headed home for a hot shower.
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| Waiting in the rain with everybody |
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| Lobby of the ex covent |
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| Restaurant Association dinner was held here, noisy bunch but left early |
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