December 29, 2025: De Puebla a Tehuacán

Hola from Tehuacan! (First one thing I forgot to mention in my last post from Puebla: There are supposedly 365 churches in Puebla (so you can visit one each day of the year),

Taxied from the hotel to the Hertz Rental Car in Puebla. We, along with the taxi driver were perplexed when the address from Hertz took us to an abandoned garage. But we all soon figured out that Hertz was one block further. In typical Mexican fashion, it took a while to get the car. Lots of paperwork; loss of signal for the credit card device, and doing it all in Spanish (very fast Sapnish). I will say that in the end we all understood each other and the Hertz guy complimented me on my Spanish! But in reality, we didn’t really understand how to sync my phone and Apple Play to the car so it worked intermittently on the 80-mile drive to Tehuacan. Then again, I often have trouble with Apple Play in rental cars in the states, so who knows. The car guys took dozens of photos of the car to have a recort of any scratch so that we won’t be charged if it looks like we caused a scratch. Frankly, I couldn’t even see some of the scratches that they noted.

Anyway, about 45 minutes later we were on the road, with our little silver Dodge compact (with automatic transmission). Mike is doing the driving and I am the navigator.

The drive went smoothly on a mostly two-lane in each direction “highway” with periodic tolls (no transponders, just pay as you reach the toll booth. Before we got to the highway, we were on some large streets with about three lanes in each direction, Cars and trucks were driving pretty fast and at every red light there were young children trying to get money—each outdoing the other: juggling, riding a unicycle, dancing. The kids were about six years old and they straddled the traffic lanes. We had about three tolls in the 88 miles, totaling about $10 USD. It’s been a while since we’ve driven in Mexico, but we knew what it would be like…so no surprises. Drivers pass even if there are double lines and they often pass even when there are signs posted saying no passing. Big trucks also try to pass (even oil tanker trucks). Mike did a great job—only passed when it was legal and even then was extra cautious. We were slowed down for about 20 minutes because of an accident, but otherwise it was smooth sailing (sometimes “nail-biting,” but not too often). Weather was good, and we drove mostly through small villages, cactus “forests,” and hills. Tomorrow is the tougher driving day as we go over the mountains to get to Oaxaca.

As we neared Tehuacan (a stop we are making only to break up the 5-hour drive between Puebla and Oaxaca), I typed the name of the hotel into the GPS and we followed the local streets as directed. We supposedly arrived at our hotel (there had not been a lot of choice as to where to stay), but it was a decaying neighborhood and the building that the GPS said was the hotel had barbed wire fencing and looked like a house, not a hotel. I said this was not correct. Mike initially said, “It’ll be fine.” But we couldn’t find any evidence that this was a hotel. So we typed in the hotel again in both of our phones and we got new directions about 17 minutes away.

We followed those directions and wound up on a street called “Calle Tehuacan” which was just a dusty and rocky narrow road with stray dogs roaming about. We agreed this was wrong again. We started to call the hotel, but we needed to be somewhere that we could describe to the hotel so they could help us. We saw a Pemex (gas station) on the GPS map and headed there, figuring we’d find two major street names. We phoned the hotel and managed with my minimal Spanish and the hotel staff’s minimal English. This time they sent a link to a map through WhatsApp and we were on our way. They also told us that there was hotel parking requiring us to enter on a street perpendicular to the hotel address. We did this and parked, only to find that we were in the wrong lot. There was another lot specifically for the hotel about 50 feet down the street. After that it was totally easy. And we are here.

We are at the Gran Hotel Mexico by Solaris in Tehuacan. Don’t know why it was so difficult for GPS to find. It is literally in the middle of the city, on a commercial street. Gran Hotel is sort of like an upscale motel but instead of being linear it’s a square with a courtyard (and pool in the center and the rooms wrapping around, It’s a historic property and beautifully landscaped. Rooms are less than $80 USD/night, so it’s a far cry from the Puebla hotel. And it has all the updated electronic stuff you could want.

Tehuacan is definitely a blue-collar working class town, lined with inexpensive chain stores and non-descript shops and restaurants. It’s known for its mineral springs and much of the bottled water in Mexico is from here. It also has an important cluster of poultry producers, and is one of the most important egg-producing regions in Mexico. Its population of less than 400,000 earns salaries far less than the average Mexico City of Oaxaca salary.

Once settled, I strolled to the Zocalo and visied the majore cathedral, which was —naturally— Baroque, but less than the Puebla and Oacca cathedrals.A service was underwy and while many Mexicans are no longer practicing Catholics, the cathedral did have a set of followers who were engaged in the service.

We checked out the cathedral and then walked through the Xmas market surrounding the church, and then walked through a lovely government building that had amazing murals throughout the structure, depicting the history of the town.

By 6:30 the temperature had dropped considerably and the town took on a really dramatic feel. We strolled past the church again and it was lit so as to look quite different than it had a few hours prior. And then after a brief stop at the hotel, we headed to dinner.

We ate at Casa Vieja, a mainstay in the city located within an 18th century eatate, so the building is hundreds of years old. It’s known for its traditional menu and also its colonial charm. Food was fine and extremely cheap. We had two main courses (which were pretty large, 3 glasses of wine, bottle of sparkiling water, and dessert…. the bill was about $45 (USD) with tip!! And best of all, it was a five minute walk back to the hotel. The drive and the long day are beginning to take their toll…so I’ll sign off now.

Best –

Fern

PS Tomorrow we do the drive through the mountains.