A Weekend in Puebla

Puebla is a really nice city. We should go.

Anyone who knows my husband, Bruno, knows that to hear these words coming out of his mouth is sort of jaw-dropping. To say he’s more of a small-town kind of guy is a massive understatement.

So when he returned to our campground in Cholula from his first dentist appointment in Mexico’s fourth-largest city, Puebla caught my attention. We’d had vague plans to visit on a day trip by taking the new Puebla-Cholula scenic train, but it was more because of its proximity to our campground than any idea that it was a must-see city.

It seemed that Bruno needed a root canal and several more appointments at this Puebla dentist. So we tossed around the idea of all going into the city on one of those appointment days, getting a hotel room, and spending a few days visiting the city. When I found the perfect Air BnB, brand new and right in the center of town, we knew it was meant to be.

I could tell, right from the start, that Puebla was hopping. The traffic just to get to our apartment was insane, and the shops and sidewalks were bursting with people. When we took a mini-exploratory walk around the neighborhood, we ended up on a pedestrian-only street that was brimming with people, buskers, music, and hawkers selling everything from balloons and plastic knick-knacks to bags, handicrafts, textiles, and food.

When I say food, I don’t just mean tacos. Cut-up fruit is sold, sprinkled with multi-colored sugar; chips and popcorn with various salsas squirted on top; crispy deep-fried pig skin; soft and hard ice cream and popsicles; churros y chocolate; nuts and seeds; sweet pastries like gorditas de nata; and all the variations of meat and tortilla you could think of, all washed down with an agua fresca of the day.

It was a lot to take in, especially since Mexicans seem to love blaring music and firecrackers. Worried about my baby’s ears and my hubby’s head, we headed home for a quiet evening in our luxurious digs, but not before trying some kind of vegetarian antojito, or snack.

The following morning we headed straight for the zocalo, a Mexican architectural feature in essentially every town that equates to a centrally-located town square. There’s usually some greenery and a bandstand, and there’s always a water fountain. This is fortunate for Phoenix, who gets so mesmerized with the flowing water that he could easily spend thirty minutes standing at the edge and watching.

A zocalo is a great place to people-watch, and even without a child, I have a feeling Bruno and I would have spent a fair amount of time at Puebla’s. It’s surrounded on all four sides by majestic, almost-European buildings, most of them showcasing intricate tiling on their facades. On one end of the square is la cathedral de Puebla, a gigantic 16^th century Baroque building that towers over the rest of the city.

But with a toddler, the zocalo comes to life on a whole new level. First of all, it’s so satisfying to watch Phoenix scurry around all the open space, taking in all the action (because there’s always action at a zocalo). He is so curious and excited, taking everything in with a careful eye, and mesmerized by so much more than simply fountains. Mexicans seem to be very family-oriented, and there are young families and children everywhere, so one of the things that Phoenix watches most is the other children.

It’s an added bonus that having a toddler gives us a chance to interact with the locals. Phoenix gets a lot of attention wherever he goes in Mexico, so, apart from adults cooing over him, parents with kids of all ages urge their children to come over and greet Phoenix, and, often, caress his skin. I can’t tell you how many kids Phoenix has held hands with or blown kisses to. It’s a lot, and it’s almost always in a zocalo.

From the zocalo, we made our way into the cathedral, which isn’t the first Mexican cathedral I’ve seen with a strange interior design. The pulpit (or altar), where the priest gives mass, is in the exact center of the church, so that we could walk the circumference of the church, behind the pulpit. Along the walls are various mini chapels with all sorts of religious images and art. In this cathedral there was also a raised section for the choir, surrounded by four gigantic organs. I can image how powerful the music must be in this space.

Next, we really wanted to visit the Biblioteca Palafoxiana, the first public library in all of the Americas. It has over 45,000 books and manuscripts, some over 500 years old. The texts are organized according to topic, all of which (as far as I could tell) are religious or philosophical. The classification system is all hand-written, and the spines of these oversized books remind me of a spell book straight out of Harry Potter. It was pretty cool, especially since Phoenix is now obsessed with books and got really very excited about the whole place.

A pleasant surprise was that, in the courtyard below the library was a concert. A classical mariachi orchestra began to play, accompanied by an operatic-style mariachi singer. Suddenly, traditional dancers marched out on stage, all wearing colorful traditional outfits and showcasing Mexican culture through the ages. As a music-loving family, this was possibly the highlight of our time in Mexico.

The following morning was Bruno’s dentist appointment, so Phoenix and I went in the opposite direction of the zocalo and stumbled upon a market hall with row upon row of restaurants serving the region’s specialties (often mole poblano, a, sweet-savory sauce usually containing a nut, a fruit, chili pepper and spices like cinnamon and cumin). After a little walk through a park, Bruno joined us, mouth half-frozen, for an afternoon of aimless wandering.

This wandering felt so familiar, as Bruno and I had always conducted our tourism in this aimless sort of way. It was comforting to be wandering again, but it also felt new, because now we have Phoenix. But not just baby Phoenix – walking toddler Phoenix! Walking toddler Phoenix is a lot more fun to wander with because he, by nature, is a wanderer. He takes a few steps, stops, looks around, takes it all in, and takes a few more steps in whatever direction and toward whatever thing calls to him.

So Phoenix fit right into our style of wandering travel, which this afternoon took us behind the zocalo to what I can only call the bohemian section of town. Here, shops were more boutique than tourist kitsch, buildings were painted in attractive brights and pastels, and on John Lennon Lane, young bohemians sold jewellery or jammed on drums, guitars, and flutes. Phoenix jammed right along with them.

Puebla is one of the most important Spanish colonial cities in Mexico, as well as the site for the infamous battle of Cinco de Mayo, but we didn’t get to any of that stuff. We spent our time taking in the squares, interacting with local kids, aimlessly wandering the streets and soaking in the rather stunning architecture. We made sure Phoenix caught both his naps, which actually gave us a much-welcomed chance to relax for a couple hours during the hot afternoons before heading out again. And we were home each evening for a quiet dinner as a couple and an evening of surfing YouTube on the giant TV.

It might seem strange to choose YouTube over Cinco de Mayo historic sites, but we do things differently now that we are parents. We arrive somewhere new with little expectations and no check-list. We visit places that are “kid-friendly” and integrate tourism into our life, rather than the other way around. Instead of must-see sites, we get our greatest amount of joy from watching Phoenix discover the world around him. And at the end of a day, our exhausted, new(ish)-parent selves are quite happy to eat dinner in our pyjamas!

Bruno was right – Puebla is a really nice city, and we had a fun weekend away. It might sound strange to say, but as I mentioned in my last blog post, I’m once again happy that Bruno needed a root canal!