Michael

This year we took a two week winter vacation to Cholula, just outside Puebla. We had been to Puebla before but our daughter and family went to live in Cholula for nine months, which gave us the opportunity to experience life in a small Mexican city. After a week of that we went to Cuernavaca for 5 days and then flew home.

We flew from Oakland, CA to Mexico City via Guadalajara with Volaris, a no frills airline. It cost us $655 for two. We returned with Southwest Airline from Mexico City to San Francisco via the Orange County airport for $466 for two. I do not know why we did not take Southwest in both directions. I was looking for the cheapest option, so either I missed the Southwest option going to Mexico or the option did not fit our schedule.

Michael

From the Mexico City airport we took a direct bus to Puebla, and then a taxi to San Andres Cholula. Cholula is divided in two major parts: San Andres and San Pedro separated by the pyramid, with the latter the more tourist oriented part. The problem is that with the practice in the Puebla area of rationalizing the names of the streets by number and geographic location, San Andres and San Pedro have the same street names, which can lead to some confusion ( the city of Puebla uses the same street name system); thus both San Andres and San Pedro have a Calle 4 Sur running parallel 7 blocks apart.

Michael

Our daughter rented an apartment 1 block from the San Andres zocalo. It’s a 3 bedroom two bath brand new apartment, so new that my wife complained about the humidity that seemed to emanate from still curing plaster walls. Our daughter also negotiated with the landlord to have a real retaining wall build on the roof so that it could be used as a terrace—they think that the convincing point was that he could argue for a higher rent with the next tenants because of this very large terrace. As it was, friends in Cholula told them that they were paying too much for the apartment while my daughter and spouse are happy that they are renting under budget. The apartment contained no furniture. They had to purchase a four-burner gas top, a refrigerator, two double beds; have a kitchen table, a stand for the burners and a child’s bed made by a local carpenter.; and eventually buy a space heater for the 3 year-old’s room. The bathrooms have hot water, although the shower is just a trickle because of a restrictive device in the system (my assumption), while the sink runs at normal pressure. There is no hot water in the kitchen. Cholula does not have a municipal water system, all houses get their water from a well on their own property. The water is OK health wise, but does not taste great, so purified water is used for cooking and sanitizing with an added sanitizer (iodine?) the raw vegetables and fruit.

Michael

Life for a non-Spanish speaking person would have its inconveniences. Every morning around 8 a.m. one hears a car horn tune that announces the gas delivery truck (gas needs to be pumped up to a roof container); which means shouting out the window, telling them what you need, negotiating with them. The same is true of trash pick-up (paid on the spot by the bag), or purified water deliveries. It also assumes that someone is home most of the day, because not all the deliveries occur before 9 a.m.

Mexico is an industrialized nation. Puebla is said to have the second largest VW plant in the world. Yet a lot of manual labor still exists. When it comes to modern multi-storied office building construction, heavy construction equipment is used, but often not for two or three story buildings. Such a building was going up near the bus stop to go to Puebla. I counted about 40 workers on the site, including those mixing the concrete manually, hauling it up the ladders, carrying other materials such as rebars, etc. One can argue that introducing machinery for the job would be more efficient, but what would one do with the redundant workers, have them go across the border to the U.S.?

On our previous trip to Puebla I do not recall all the holiday decorations in and on the churches, but that may be because we were there after January 6. I still stand by my comment that Cholula is relatively uninteresting for the tourist, except that during holidays the churches there and in Puebla are wildly decorated. For that reason I would recommend a visit to the area before January 6. The Christmas season lasts through January 5, which is three kings’ day.

Michael

What we saw in Puebla and had not see before were the Amparo museum and the Bella museum. The latter has some interesting stuff, but it is a personal collection of late 19th early 20th century decorative arts, some interesting musical instruments and a collection of crystals. The house itself is of little interest except for the original office, although it has nice art nouveau interior glass panels. No photography is allowed in the museum, which looks old and worn, even though it used to be closed every January for renovation. On the other hand, the Amparo museum is a jewel, if only for its pre-Hispanic collection; we spent so much time in that section that we never got to its 16th to 20th century collection. No flash photography is allowed. It has a café on its roof, giving a roof top view of Puebla, but the food is absolutely forgettable.

We ate well in Puebla, while in San Andres it was local food: a soup restaurant, a tacos restaurant, eating at the markets—good places that are not destinations. In Puebla there were three restaurants that I would recommend as destinations: Solo Veracruz es Bello Restaurante (Call 9Norte and Avenida 2 Oriente, near the Paseo Bravo and the train museum) which is a fish restaurant with excellent food. An other was Restaurante La Noria (http://www.restaurantelanoria.com/bienvenido/carta ) where we had an excellent meal for 3063 pesos or $171, tip included. It is fairly close to the ferris wheel and reservations are essential. Parked in the street were several black SUVs with their drivers—our daughter-in-law figured they were either the cars of politicians or narcos. The valet parking was full of Mercedes and BMWs, which gives an idea of the strata that this place caters to. http://elmuraldelospoblanos.com/ is definitely worth it, and is more accessible in that it is in the center of Puebla. Lunch for four cost us 1989 pesos, or about $115. This restaurant offers a wide range of artisanal beers.

This about covers the Puebla section, and I did a longer report on Puebla in 2009 (http://www.fodors.com/community/mexi...nuary-2009.cfm ). I combined the photos of the two trips into one album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...4048/show?rb=1 but separated out Cholula to form a new album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...0244/show?rb=1

Michael

From Puebla we took a bus to Cuernavaca where we stayed for 5 nights at the Hotel Antigua Posada for $372. Breakfast was completely forgettable, the rooms are small, but the place is spotless and close to downtown. It is charming in its layout, but we are not the type to sit around its lovely courtyard. The shower worked well and there was plenty of hot water. The hotel provides a bottle of purified water every day, presumably because one should not use the tap water even for brushing teeth. There is cable TV, but all channels are in Spanish with the exception of the Sundance channel programming; no news but lots of old movies.

From the street Cuernavaca is not a pretty town. Traffic is heavy, the sidewalks are narrow, and the town itself has little of the appeal of Puebla, or even more so, Oaxaca. But it was used as an escape from Mexico City by prominent people, among them Dwight Morrow, American ambassador to Mexico. His house was a gathering place for prominent expatriates and visitors, among them Charles Lindbergh who married his daughter. The house is now a very good restaurant. Robert Brady was an American who settled in Cuernavaca in 1962 and whose house also became a focal point for prominent visitors. These two house (and our hotel) give an idea of what was attractive (and may still be for a portion of the population) about Cuernavaca. It was all behind walls, and the ordinary tourist gets to experience none of that. The streets and blocks are long, so aside from the parking lots that have taken over some the central space, we get little sense of what could have been behind the façade of the houses in previous times.

This not to say that Cuernavaca should not be visited. It can be used as a base to visit the surrounding area. We used it to visit the Xochicalco ruins and Taxco.

Michael

Finding the local bus to Xochicalco is no mean feat when one does not speak Spanish. Various guidebooks and on-line discussions indicate how to get there, but none give a perfect explanation. Here is an attempt to clarify the situation:

The bus line that services that area is the Lasser bus line. It is located above the central food market, Mercado Adolfo López Mateos. One follows the main street along the central market to a three way intersection with the statues of two horses in the middle. According to Google map, all the streets surrounding the market are called Adolfo López Mateo, so it useful to remember that from the bottom of the ravine one walks on the street that goes up the hill, not the one that follows the river. Go to the right and the Lasser bus station will be about 100 yards out, across the street if one stayed on the sidewalk to the right of the horses. The bus ride will take about 1.5 hours, and the bus is labeled Xochicalco which is both a town and the ruins. Do not get off at the town. Ask to get off as soon as you see the sign announcing the ruins, or once the bus has gone over the crest. That’s when I realized that it would not stop. I got up, and the bus driver immediately let us off. From there one has to walk back to the museum to get tickets. The return bus stops at the crest of the hill, at the entrance to the ruins. Any directions saying that one should get off in Cuentepec, a few kilometers farther down the road and the end of the line, is adding time and cost to the excursion. We were lucky and the return bus came within 10 minutes. Otherwise it might be possible to find a taxi (but none are standing there, in the middle of nowhere) for about 500 pesos if I remember correctly the conversation I had with a French couple that took that option.

Xochicalco is definitely worthwhile. It is similar to Monte Alban in that both are constructed on top of a hill overlooking the surrounding area. There are ball courts, some amazing carvings that in their complexity exceed Monte Alban’s, and are reminiscent of Uxmal. The museum is an architectural jewel with an interesting collection of statuary that was found on the site.

Michael

It was raining on the day we went to Taxco, so we missed the optimal view of the city in sunshine. We were not interested in the silver shops, but did visit the William Spratling Museum which was a disappointment although it has a few excellent pieces of his. It is easy to get lost in Taxco. We had a very general tourist map of the town, and with the steep hills and las of street names on the map, we got way off track in going to a restaurant. But we did come across the local market, which is more like a souk than markets on level land. The hilly aspect of the town add a third dimension to what is a two dimensional map. Taxco would be very enjoyable on a nice day, the heavy rain made it disappointing; it is no fun to dodge the waters running down the streets, and the umbrella obstructs the view unless one deliberately tilts it to look upwards.

We enjoyed Cuernavaca. The market is interesting—we enjoyed goat tacos at a stand there, in spite of the owner’s skeptical look at us tourists. We approached the market from the bottom, but returned via a covered walkway over the ravine which contains the non-food stands. The path twists and turns and eventually ends up on a street that is at about the same level as the zocalo. If one follows that street, one has to go down and up again to get to the zocalo. But there is a <i>passage<.i> on that street that weaves its way through the middle of a block and which exits on a walking street that leads straight to the zocalo. There is a craft market next to the palacio Cortés, but it seemed to contain pretty much the standard tourist stuff.

The two museums to recommend: The palacio Cortés as a historical museum of the area and the Robert Brady house which has an incredible collection of mainly folk art. The claim is that this collection has been maintained exactly as it was displayed when Brady was alive, and I can’t imagine being a guest in what is essentially a museum, but then I would not have qualified. The jardin Borda is closed until late Spring 2016.

The cathedral has interesting frescoes and is an interesting mix of old and new; the nave is old and the choir is new.

We had some nice meals in Cuernavaca. Two were in the former house of Dwight Morrow (Restaurante La India Bonita), another one was in Casa Hidalgo (1128 pesos or $63 for two, tip extra) across the plaza from the palacio Cortés. For good cheap food, I would recommend the Casa Taxco on Hermenegildo Galeana, especially their fixed price lunch menu. We had drinks at le Pastis bistro on Miguel Hidalgo (almost opposite the cathedral) which seemed to have an interesting dinner menu for those wanting a change from Mexican food.

These are the photos of Cuernavaca and Taxco: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...3392/show?rb=1

Michael

My apology for the final italics. I normally try to preview the thread before posting, but it would not show me the preview, so I gave up.

Michael

I am asking to have the thread deleted so that I can make the necessary corrections.

Travelbound44

I am trying to put a trip report on Fodor's but am having trouble getting it to submit or preview. When I hit the buttons, nothing happens. Are you experiencing the same thing? If you found a way around the problem, can you share it with us? Thanks in advance for your help.

Michael

I started adding the report paragraph by paragraph, and for some reason the amount of text kept on increasing with each submission to the thread, as you can see from this report.