Up In Coffeeland

Flying to Mexico is always a bit exhausting as I usually end up getting only a couple of hours sleep on the plane. This trip was no exception.  We arrived in Mexico City at 5am, caught the 7am bus to Puebla, and by 10am we were exploring this wonderful city in central Mexico. Puebla is famous for many things, but mostly for its beautiful talavera and mole poblano.

Talavera is pottery. Here it is first class stuff, mostly hand made and hand painted. Te good stuff ain't cheap, but what really nice artwork these days is?  We spent the first morning walking around town, going in practically every talavera shop we saw. Funny thing is, we didn't see anything we liked better then the talavera we got years ago in Dolores Hidalgo, a town near San Miguel.

In between talavera shops, we went into this little chapel, the Templo de Santo Domingo. You could say this chapel is ornate, but that would be putting it mildly. Seriously, this chapel was the most ornate thing I've ever seen. So much carved gilded wood, little statues, tile work, you name it. Gold everywhere. It was amazing.

After a well deserved nap and some more walking around, we went for dinner to the Mural de Puebla, which got a good write up in Lonely Planet.  This restaurant is famous for its seasonal dishes and we were lucky to be here for the delicious Huaxmole, which is a wonderful goat dish.  There is a long history about this dish, but in short, for hundreds of years there was a specific time of year when goats were brought into town and slaughtered and the meat sold to rich folks. But the poor got the not so good bits, including the hip. These folks made this wonderful spicy broth and cooked the goat in it.   And of course now, this is a great delicacy and is no longer for the poor, at least in restaurants where it can be a bit pricy. The goat is oh so tender and the broth is a beautiful red color and spicy. We washed this down with an amazing mescal from Oaxaca, the smoothest most delicious mescal I've ever had. We followed this up with a 5 mole sampler, which included the mole poblano, plus 4 others, a green, a red, a yellow, a light brown and another I can't remember. This was washed down with a Shiraz from northern Mexico that was delicious!

Today we are in Cuetzalan, a beautiful in northern Puebla state, about 4 hours from Puebla. It has been pouring rain since we've been here, but we've still explored the town, which is famous for its coffee. In fact, this town got rich on coffee over 100 years ago.  The people here are very friendly and tomorrow there is a big mercado where indigenous people from all over the region come and sell stuff, including hand made huipiles, which Amy just loves. Tonight we are going to a concert and dance show where we might see the Voladores!