Chiles, Broken Windows and Rebels
- Hester van den Berg
- Oct 21, 2018
- 9 min read
Hasta luego CDMX, maybe we’ll return in the future. For now, we go on exploring new places.
Leaving the big city and its smog in our rear view mirror, we headed off to Puebla.
Puebla promised to be a picturesque and colonial city, and the home town of my beloved new favorite dish; Chile en Nogada. We only booked one night in Puebla, but we regretted that a little bit as soon as we arrived. Leaving our car at the Airbnb, we immediately started exploring the city. With its colonial architecture, beautiful (and many) cathedrals and churches, and colorful streets this city is one of its kind. The lady at the tourist information told us about the daily light show on the main cathedral and gave us a map with a walking tour. Timon was immediately exited, since the walking tour would end on the old historic candy street. Walking around for an hour or so, we finally arrived at the candy street, which was a bit disappointing. Not too many shops, and the shops that were there all sold the same stuff; some cookies, nuts and a few wrapped sweets. Not to exiting compared to what we expected. Arriving back at the main square, we were just in time for the light show, which was to be honest way cooler then we expected. Since we didn’t see a lot of Puebla yet, but we liked what we’ve seen so far, we decided to jump on a hop-on-hop-off bus. Both never been on one before, we were childishly enthusiastic. Because it was at night, and the last tour that day, it was not really a hop-on-hop-off bus anymore, but just a tour through the city. Fine, we just wanted to see some more of Puebla! The bus took us on a tour for almost one and a half hour, and we saw almost everything of the city. Big recommendation if you’re ever in Puebla and forgot to book an extra day 😉. If you are a long Dutch guy you need to stay seated the whole route otherwise the phone cables hanging above the street will for sure hit you! The best part of the tour was Xanenetla hill – where you’ll find an old fort, a museum, a huge expo center, etc. – from where you have the best view on the city of Puebla. We went back the next morning to take a picture of the volcano Popocatépetl, since it was erupting smoke and ashes. We ended the night at a restaurant on the main square, at a table on one of the cute balconies where I had the best Chile en Nogada. Also, the most expensive one…
Next stop was Oaxaca, which didn’t make an all too good first impression when driving in to the city from the north east. It looked very dirty, the roads were the most terrible so far and we saw some sketchy looking people hanging around. Unfortunately, the first impression was proven right later on that first night. Our host was a very friendly women, who greeted us in person together with her son when she arrived. We told her that the car was parked on the street and she immediately said that it was not safe. She told us about a paid parking not too far from our house, or we should at least park it under the street lantern. Her son added that their car’s battery had once been stolen from their car, but that it was an old car and he thought that ours should be fine. Our Tiguan being a younger car, we had an alarm, right? We moved the car under the street lantern and explored Oaxaca’s center a little. Having had a long drive, we took a shower and went to bed. Coincidentally Timon looked out of the bathroom window while showering, and right at that moment he saw some guy trying to open our backseat door. He yelled at the guy and the guy ran away. Not wanting to take a risk by leaving the car out on the street, we decided to bring our car to the paid parking after all. Just to be sure and to be able to sleep. As soon as I approached the car, I noticed that he hadn’t just tried to open our door, but already smashed our backseat window. There was glass everywhere. Luckily, two cops on a scooter came by and helped us out. We had arranged car insurance for Mexico ahead of time and we tried to call them to help us out. Somehow, we weren’t able to call a Mexican number, but one of the cops was so friendly to lend his phone to make the call. All horror stories you hear about cops in Mexico, well definitely not true for us. The guy from the car insurance came, we got a stack of paperwork and he told us where to go and fix the window. Unfortunately for us, it was a Saturday night and every shop was closed on Sunday. We were actually planning to leave to the next destination on Monday, but it seemed we had to extend our stay a little. On Monday we brought our car to the shop, they told us they could fix it the next day. We decided to leave the car there, after first having checked out the local Volkswagen dealer (who needed 5 days to fix it). But, as you would expect how things would go in Mexico, the next day the window didn’t arrive. The next delivery was scheduled to come in 3 days later! The guys saw the looks on our faces and were so friendly to arrange an appointment at our next stop where the window could be FedEx-ed to within 2 days. That would mean no more delay for us. Also nice was that they made us a triplex window which worked great. I guess we need to learn not to schedule to much in the more southern part of the world!
That was the negative part of our Oaxaca experience. Of course, we didn’t just sit back and
wait for our new window to arrive. Since we were supposed to only have one day in Oaxaca, we wanted to use that day to visit Monte Alban. Monte Alban is, like Teotihuacan, an archaeological site of an ancient Mesoamerican city. This site was special because it was built on top of a mountain and they leveled out the top to build on. From there you had a nice view on Oaxaca. This visit was on the Sunday, and we didn’t have our car fixed yet. We had a very cool car, with a garbage bag in our backseat window. Not that we stood out in the crowd though, lots of Mexican cars have at least a huge crack in their front window.
Then we suddenly had two extra days to fill. First extra day we drove through the Oaxaca Valley to Santa María del Tule, Teotitlán de Valle & Hierve el Agua. In Santa María del Tule you can find on of the thickest trees in the world, and in Teotitlán de Valle you still see weavers working in traditional ways on authentic weaving machines. Hierve del Agua is at the end of the Valley, and it consists of some mud pools and petrified waterfalls. What we wore most surprised by is that where in Yellowstone you would see a thousand signs saying “don’t step of the boardwalk”, since the hot springs and geysers are very dangerous. But at Hierve del Agua people are actually swimming in the pools. The main difference between the two places is that the pools at Hierve del Agua are cold. They smell the same though... The other extra day we went to a cafe at the main square, where we took out our laptop and sorted out our photo’s. We also met a friendly couple from London (the guy was originally from New Zealand) and that night we had a nice dinner with them. It’s always nice to meet other travelers and hear their stories.
From Oaxaca we drove off to Tuxtla, where our car window would be delivered the next day. We drove there through the mountains, it was a beautiful drive. We arrived in Tuxtla a bit earlier then expected, so we decided to go to the car shop and check if they already had the window and the time to put it in. We are two impatient Dutchies… No seňor y seňorita, the window would arrive at 10am sharp the next day. In Tuxtla we didn’t do a lot, it started raining and we only went out for dinner to one of the plazas. Even though it was raining, a mariachi band was playing, and people were dancing. They don’t seem to care about the rain a lot. The next morning, we arrived at the car shop at 10 am, and the window was there. Yeah! They needed an hour or so to fix it, so we went to a coffee shop close by. One of the guys at the shop was also so friendly to fix our loose wheel arc, which had gotten loose on the way to Tuxtla. They were joking about drinking a beer, and since they helped us out in many ways, we decided to buy them some. I think I’ve never seen a guy so surprised and happy at the same time.
With our car fixed that morning and not knowing how long it would take, we decided to have our stop not too far away. We went to San Cristobal de las Casas, which turned out to be a very lovely town. Ever since we entered Mexico we noticed a lot of street vendors and people coming by your restaurant table to sell you handmade jewelry, shawls, candy, etc. But what I noticed as well was that it’s not just adult, but also children who are selling. Children who should be in school but aren’t because they need to help their family by making some money. I decided to buy a wristband from a small kid, whenever I would run into one. So, in San Cristobal I had to live up to my promise and I bought one from a small girl. I let her pick out the prettiest one, and after I paid for it she ran away happily to tell someone (her mother maybe?) that she sold one! I’m not sure if that should make me happy or even more sad.
From San Cristobal we were back on our originally planned route to Palenque. With not a lot of route options, we had to cross a small town called Ocosingo, which was 2 hours from San Cristobal. Arriving at the border of the town, there was a small traffic jam. Some guys standing besides their cars, told us that there was no passing possible. It seemed a truck somehow got on the road sideways and that it was there for blocking everything. Since the guys were not very friendly to help us out, we looked at our dear friend Google Maps. There was a small back road, going around the whole fiasco and we decided to take it. The gate at the end of the road was unlocked, so we could easily cross it to the other side. Happy to have somehow found an alternative route and being able to proceed our trip we fist bumped and said proudly “we did it!” to each other. That moment only lasted until we reached the other side of the town, where a tour bus was blocking the road! Timon stepped out of the car to take a look, but it didn’t feel right. He managed to talk to someone a little in English and meanwhile I was already on Google trying to find out what was happening. Apparently, Ocosingo is a town with rebels who don’t agree with the current politics, and sometimes they block off the whole town so that no one can leave or enter. Somehow we seemed to have slipped through the cracks.. Looking at our dear friend Google Maps again, we didn’t see any alternative roads leading us out of the town, so we decided to quickly return to our secret back road on which we entered the town. We were lucky, the gate was still open. With no other option, we had to drive all the way back to San Cristobal, and from there we decided to drive to Villahermosa. No Palenque for us unfortunately. With a long drive behind us, we finally arrived at Villahermosa around 8pm, where we were able to book a hotel last minute. Tired, and a little disappointed, we walked to the Burger King, ordered food and brought it back to our hotel room to eat and watch some TV. Sometimes that’s just exactly what you need 😊.
From Villahermosa we had a beautiful drive along the Gulf Coast to Merida, with views on white beaches, palm trees and a blue ocean. More about Merida and our other adventures in Yucatan and Quintana Roo in our next blog!
Lessons learned:
Listen to your AirBnB host (or whatever host you have) when it comes to safety and parking your car.
When you drive a backroad through Mexico’s countryside and there’s no alternative route, make sure you check that there are no rebels blocking roads or whatever...
When you need something fixed and they promise you it can be done the next day, calculate some extra days in the back of your mind.
Never say never to a hop-on-hop-off bus, it might actually surprise you, but keep your head down 😊
Sometimes you just need to give in to your cravings – and visit a fast food chain. Don’t be ashamed
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