Puebla

So it's been a while - sorry. Tired, bit of a dodgy tummy and all that. Must do better.

Puebla, my destination for my birthday trip just before Easter, was splendid. I have a few poor-quality pictures taken with my work Blackberry, but hopefully they will give you a sense of the place. It's a beautiful colonial city with a grand cathedral overlooking a large square, tiled streets covered in boisterous market stalls selling traditional crafts, and a few languid stretches of (nearly) green.

Somewhat obstructed view of a trono going past

Bit better!

We were staying in an extremely nice hotel, La Purificadora, literally set in an old water purification plant. These days the only remnants of the waterworks is the external wall - everything else is shiny and modern. As you can see from the hotel website, the logo is written in a wibbly-wobbly font that's meant to represent the water, I think, but made me feel as though I didn't have my glasses on. Although we did make a bit of an effort to do cultural things - watching Easter processions and visiting the Museo Amparo full of baroque things, including a very peculiar 'altar of sorrows' which had lots of gold flags, oranges and vessels of coloured water, all with a distinct symbolic meaning.

'Sorrowful' wasn't the first word that came to my mind, but it just goes to show that grief takes very different forms in different places...

We also spent a fair while wandering the streets, spotting dubious signs like the one that read 'Puebla was founded as a 'perfect' city - i.e. one only inhabited by Spaniards'. But I'd be lying if I didn't confess the significant amount of time lounging by the pool, which was curiously long and thin. The pool was perched on the edge of the roof, looking right at the spires of the cathedral, which felt like they were almost close enough to touch. I'm a bit rusty on my Catholic religious practice but I'm pretty sure that wearing next to nothing and soaking up the rays is not quite what you're meant to be doing at the end of Holy Week... The rest of the clientele was mostly made up of fresas - a wonderful Mexico City slang word which has no exact English translation - it certainly doesn't mean 'strawberries'! If you imagine 'people who might be on the Mexican version of Made in Chelsea, you'll get the idea.

More soon...