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***WARNING *** PARENTAL SUCH-N-SUCH***
This was written a bit tipsy by all parties concerned. But too good to edit.
Day 1 6/28/12
We arrived at the airport at one-ish for the flight to Toluca, MX. An uneventful flight except for the free scotch. Did you catch that? Free Dewars! Southwest airlines ain’t got nuthin’ on Interjet. Upon landing, the storms started. Serious storms while we got searched and immigrated. Then we waited a good hour for the one-man rent-a-car to complete our transaction. The storms continued to rage as we left the airport and searched for our cheesy hotel. Thank goodness we found a Soriana (HEB equivalent) and loaded up on chips, beer and tequilla. This proved to be a life saver in the following days. We found the hotel and basically confined ourselves to the 40 square feet of bed and bathroom. Cheap flight toToluca does not include culture, good food, entertainment or anything worth writing about, so…
Day 2. 6/29/12
Yum… continental breakfast. Sanka coffee and a banana. We fled Toluca for Puebla, eventually. In classic Sharon and Donnie style, we drove in the correct direction but not necessarily to the right town. An hour or so later we ended up in Chalma. We intended to go there but not for a couple of days. Go ahead, get a Mexico map. Looks simple doesn’t it? Walk in our shoes and you’d end up in Chalma. Chalma and the surrounding area is beautiful, magical and a welcome sight for lost eyes. Actually, we first got to Aquaquate, the village with a welcoming spring of fresh water from the base of a huge cypress tree. “Believers”go to this sacred water, then have a pilgrimage up and down the hills toChalma. The pilgrimage ends at the Cathedral where the “Black Christ” was built by Spaniards in the 16th century. There are a few other “Saints”involved but we don’t need to go there right now. We also purchased a 2 liter Coke bottle of pulque and had a great lunch of pork and rice in salsa verde. After a few hours we left for Puebla, again. It was a meer 10 minutes till we got lost again, somewhere in a national park, (a park wasn’t in our travel plans). Nice drive though. “Magically” the road dumped us into the ritzy part of Cuernavaca. Not that we were trying to go there but… one lost road leads to another which led to Tepoztlán. Nice town embraced by mountains and the eventual road toPuebla. We didn’t realize we would drive by the base of the volcano “El Popo”. A nice surprise indeed and a good photo op. We arrived inPuebla a little late for our taste and near 9 o’clock, found ourselves in a hyper-bustling downtown. Tired and road weary, we found a “LaQuinta”. It’ll do. Hot water. Good bed.
Day 3. 6/30/12
Upon waking we looked for our free breakfast. We were again lost, this time in our hotel. To get to the restaurant we had to go down two floors catch another elevator, go up three floors, across the indoor 7th floor swimming pool, yell“Marco” then be seated by our waiter “Polo”. Breakfast was great-ish. SinceDonnie went on strike as a driver, we took a cab to downtown central in search of “El Nino Ciego”, (blind baby Jesus). We found it. Pretty eerie. We proceeded to visit a dozen or so cathedrals, each more magnificent than the previous, and with their own “I’ll out do your Jesus” attitude. We saw blind Jesus, crawlingJesus, eyes rolled in back of head Jesus, “I gotta take this call on my cell”Jesus and black, “commin’ to get-cha” Jesus. Jesus H. Christ! Enough Jesus’s. We prayed for a cab. It took us off to a circus that just happened to be across from the hotel. Lions, Tigers and Burros! Oh, my! It was a good day.
Day 4. 7/1/12
We got out of Puebla fairly early and headed toward Chalula. You may be impressed that we didn’t get lost. This is the oldest town in the Americas, founded somewhere around 500 AD-ish. Nice town with beautiful cathedrals. We would have liked to have gone there originally had we of known. Low key. Nice folks. All around calm and cool. Around noon we headed back towards Cuernavaca and into the twilight zone of D&S travel. We managed to turn a one hour drive into a 4 hour extravaganza of “do we turn here”? Eventually, Cuernavaca was on the horizon and we found a lovely hacienda-turned-hotel near the Zocalo. We have learned that “a good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” Cuernavaca brought us good food, political excitement, (it’s election day) and a decent buzz. Good thing we stocked up on day one. They don’t sell alcohol on election day OR the day before. Maybe the new El Presidente will change that.
