Puebla and Oaxaca

We’ve spent the last week and a half exploring two Mexican cities: Puebla and Oaxaca. We’ve been doing well, and we’ve had no more stomach bugs, so we’ve been able to experience quite a bit.

Puebla was our first stop after Mexico City. The main reason we visited Puebla was to try it’s famous dish – Mole Poblano. Mole Poblano is a traditional sauce made of well over 20 ingredients, with the most dominant flavors being chile peppers, chocolate, nuts, and delicious spices like cinnamon. For our first dinner in the city of Puebla we visited a small traditional restaurant that specialized in Mole Poblano. We were not disappointed. The sauce was excellent. It had so many layers of flavors that you just wanted to hold that flavor on your tongue for as long as possible. The sauce was spooned over chicken and rice and was a perfect way to start our voyage into southern Mexico.

The Mole Poblano aside , we also really enjoyed the vibe of the city. Like many other Mexican cities, it is built around a beautiful vibrant center square called a zocalo. The zocalo in Puebla was really exciting. There were crowds of people hanging out having fun, giant trees and water fountains, vendors selling trinkets and treats, and it was surrounded by outdoor cafes where you could sit and enjoy a cervesa or a nice hot chocolate flavored with Mexican chocolate and spices. We spend a lot of time here walking around and taking it easy. We also walked to the local market and had a fantastic sandwich with roasted spicy pork and avocados. We really enjoyed the vibe of the city, but we decided to move on to Oaxaca.

Oaxaca (pronounced as “Wha-Haw-Kah”) is a place that had been recommended to us by many Mexicans and other travellers, as being a great town to visit. We enjoyed it as well, and decided to rent an apartment here for a week. Joh found a great little rental that was cheap – and yet still nice and in a great location. We spent our days in Oaxaca hanging out at the local cafes, touring the markets, eating delicious meals, and sitting around in the zocalo. There’s no one thing here that was really remarkable or noteworthy, it is just one of those places that is nice and is great to visit.

The cafes all had free wi-fi so we were able to do a lot of travel research and get a lot of plans in place for our future travels. We have plans to spend the next month or two touring the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, and probably a little of Guatemala and maybe even Belize. If we’ve got some time left over after that, we’re considering maybe checking out Cuba, northern/western Mexico, or possibly even a US road-trip back home. That should bring us up to nearly the end of August. We’re planning on coming home then for three and a half weeks to be around for the wedding (and of course to see all our family and friends again – we really are starting to miss you all very much!), and then we plan on leaving for the second half of our trip which now has a definite starting point. Joh worked her magic, and was able to find a super-cheap one-way flight to Hong-Kong with a 2-day stopover in San Francisco leaving September 20th, so it’s been booked. We are now starting to really get excited about our upcoming Asia adventures. So many possibilities there…

We’ve left Oaxaca now, and are currently visiting the city of San Cristobal de las Casas, which is on the way towards the Yucatan. We plan on being here for a few days and then moving on north towards the city of Merida, or east into Guatemala - we haven't decided yet which route to take.

By the way, Mexico isn’t that far from all of you back home. If any of you want an exciting vacation, come and visit us! We’re going to be within a few hours of Cancun for the next few weeks, so keep your eye out for cheap flights and come on out and join us! We could even meet you at the airport, and get you set up with a place to stay if you want. I’ll keep a nice cold Corona in the fridge waiting for you!

Puebla

Oaxaca