Hotel del Portal Puebla

... market day in Puebla. Omigosh I could have spent the entire day there! Carman, I was thinking of you the entire time! There was so much amazing pottery and wonderful paintings! And jewelry! And food! And scarves! And purses! I wish I had a bigger suitcase... and more money! (Or my parents! Haha!)

And that airplanes did not have weight limits or certain flight restrictions :)

Ronja and I also got our picture taken on a nearby bridge - a popular site in Puebla due ...

... issue or the other. The issues were fairly simple and designed for young children: Do you help around the house? Do you like to be active?

We first arrived at the school, called La Ciudad de los Hereos (The City of the Heroes) and were greeted by the popular cartoon characters I mentioned in my last post. They serve as role models for children. We met our helper and aid, Juan Carlos, and went into our classroom. It was a colorful classroom with bean bags ...

... the end of the tour and it was a such a cool experience to actually walk on the grounds of a historical fort. With an actually moat!


After our great tour, we went to the chiclet factory in Puebla! Cadbury owns the rights to chicklet gum and other gum such as Trident and Dentyne Ice. In fact the Trident and Dentyne Ice in your purse was made in Puebla as all Cadbury gum is made in Puebla. We saw how the gum is produced and were given great give-aways - bags full ...

... out, have coffees, etc. Most of these squares are surrounded by restaurants and are a great spot to eat, drink and people watch. After looking at yet more churches, all getting ready for semana santa, we went to piramide Tepanapa. The spanish had built a church on top of a hill, not realising that it was infact an only pyramid, what idiots! We climbed the pyramid, on the way up, Luz (Marianas friend) made me stop and try some grasshoppers and worms from a food vendor ...

Puebla est la capitale de l'Etat du même nom, située à 110 km de Mexico, encerclée par les volcans Popocatepetl, Iztaccihuatl et Malinche. C'est la quatrième plus grande ville du Mexique, où se situe l'usine Volkswagen qui produisait les célèbres ...

... and it reminded us of North NZ so much, quite bizarre really. Next, on turning a corner within the forest, there was suddenly a huge snow capped volcanic mountain dominating the landscape ahead of us, we were so surprised it really took our breath away, just stunning! The mountain is known as 'Princess Mountain' and its name is 'Iztaccchihuatl,'(not hard to spell at all!). Apparently you can climb it but its tough and takes 4 days.....if ...

Today as you may be able to see i have been diligently trying to catch up here, and have been sucessful. Liliana also came over and we re-worked our schedule and did further research on our trips to Oaxaca, the town with many silversmiths and a trip we are taking later this week to see a musical preformance and festival. (soda)

Today I attended a conference (speaker) with Lili and Lewis at Lili's college. The speaker spoke about the Lady of Guadalupe. I gathered this event is/was very important in history and it is also celebrated in many other countries near Mexico. The second one i am not totally sure about, i could have interpreted wrong, it was in spanish. I know from Lili that the Lady of Guadalupa event happens in Mexico City (the capital) durring the week of ...

... on the bus to Puebla hoping to have a better time than I had in Montreal by myself earlier in the year. These fears were soon dispelled as there are so many people doing the same trip, all with the same guidebook (Lonely Planet - be it in English, French, Spanish or Italian) and we stick out so easily (so much for blending in with the locals given my skin colour) that it is quite easy to strike up a conversation. It helps that I speak English, French and ...

... children working in their parents shops or begging. In contrast the other town made sure their children were in the classroom and lived a more conservative lifestyle. During the Mayan route I saw some amazing archaelogical sites. Palenque was the first and probably my favourite. White temples set in the lush green jungle. The setting really made this site. And some of the bas-reliefs were amusing, especially one of a god smoking a suspicious substance. So it seems that the Mayans ...