¡Saludos desde Puebla, Tierra de la Talavera! (Land of Talavera)– December 27, 2025

After an early breakfast we left Pug Seal and headed to Puebla. For probably the first time ever, we hired a driver to do the 5-hour trip. (We will rent a car as we leave Puebla and drive ourselves back to Oaxaca–breaking the trip up by staying a night in Tehuacan, which is about half way). The driver just drove, no tour or explanations, which is what we requested…. just driving, although we chatted a bit along the way. His English was OK, although not deep enough to manage political discussions or complex issues which was fine. We learned that he is from Puebla and often drives 10-12 hours a day. When he picked us up in Oaxaca he had just come back from Puebla — so 10 hours of driving for him. He’s not too enamored with Scheinbaum, as he thinks there are lots of promises and she’s not deliveringl And he feels the government gives people too much and they abuse the social services. On the side he teaches English to young kids–kindergarten age, who he says don’t pay attention. Prior to this, he worked in a call center…

Anyway, the drive from Oaxaca to Puebla climbs about 2,000 feet to 7,100 ft in altitude so it goes through mountains with lots of curving roads and it’s mostly a desert landscape filled with cactus. We arrived in Puebla at 3:00 and checked into La Purificadora Hotel–a 17-year old hotel built into an 1800 water purification plant. The architect was Legoretta, although Mike says his son was the architect and not Ricardo Legoretta (who Mike met in the 1970s and who died in 2013). Anyway, it’s quite a switch from Pug Seal — with soaring ceilings, glass stairs, fire pits in the lobby, and huge rooms. We were upgraded to a 600-sq ft room with an outdoor jacuzzi on our private deck which stretches all around the room which is lined with windows.

But we only stayed in the room for a few minutes and dashed out to get a sense of Puebla–a city of about 1.5 million in a state of about 3.5 million. The historic center of the city is a World Heritage Site. We quickly left the hotel to get a sense of the city. We walked from the hotel across one very broad boulevard and we were inside the historic center. (Our hotel borders the center.)

We headed for the Zocalo which was as bustling as Oaxaca’s main square, and even more so. Lots of people, families, and street performers. Like all Mexican cities the main cathedral sits on one edge of the Zocalo. Like the Oaxaca cathedral, this one is also from the 1500s (and 1600s) and is Baroque (I’d say Baroque on steroids).Puebla is also the home of much of Mexico’s famous talavera pottery and ceramic, so throughout the city you see ceramic tiles on buildings and streets. Thus it was no surprise (well actually I was pretty surprised) to see the large nativity scene in the cathedral made of talavera ceramic. But I guess they couldn’t resist, so they added all sorts of blinking lights.

Having again had our fill of religion and Baroque architecture, we stopped into the cultural center which was an interesting space and home to an amazing library that must belong to the church. By then it was getting dark and we headed back to the hotel to unpack a bit and to get ready to head out for dinner.

We ate at Custodia, a small, elegant restaurant situated inside a very small hotel in the historic district. After margaritas (each restaurant has their own recipe it seems) we had wonderful squash blossoms. The dish was called “Little Indian girls dressed in corn tempura” — the English translation. Basically squash blossoms with cheese sitting in a red sauce. Then we had the Manchamanteles with pork shank, caramelized pear, pineapple and banana; apparently, if I understood correctly, the confit pork shank was marinated for 8 hours. It had a sweet mole of fruits. And then we had the octopus dish which was cooked in pineapples. Custodia did not disappoint, except for the terrible hokey Christmas music playing in the background, after the pianist left. Oh I forgot they brought out a complimentary starter that was some kind of Mexican cheese mixed with banana and fried. Very yummy.

We taxied back to the hotel (only a 7 minute ride0 because the temperature had really dropped. Then our new adventure began. Our room–the large terraced space– was freezing cold. We tried to up the heat without success. Then we called downstairs but since it is only a 26-room hotel, the “engineer” was gone for the night. The staff came up to set the thermostat and assured us in about 15 minutes the room would be warm. But after waiting about 30 minutes we realized the problem was more serious. It was about 58 degrees in the room and it wasn’t getting any warmer. They then called the engineer to come out but Mike said it seemed to him that the system for that room was broken and this would not be a quick fix. And Mike also realized that we had no hot water in the room. So at about midnight we packed up and changed to the only room available—which is certainly not a desireable room. It’s fine, but not what we booked. We’re too tired to change again tomorrow so we will stay put. But management will certainly hear from me. I guess we could have slept in the jacuzzi which had been all fired up. So much for high end hotels!

That’s it for me… It’s after 1 am here and I haven’t unpacked anything. We had planned a pretty long day tomorrow– so much to see in Puebla.. but I think we will probably sleep later than normal.

All the best-

Fern