From San Miguel de Allende, I was about four hours by bus north of Mexico City. That is, four hours north of one of the many bus stations in the city and four hours to just the edge of the cultural giant in the core of the country. To take on Mexico City alone would have required much more energy and research, and most of all, lots more time than I had. So I made the easy choice to spend a total of about 30 minutes on the ground in the bus station, and then get on another bus to Xalapa.
Xalapa was not even on my radar when I was planning my trip to Mexico, as I didn´t think I´d have time to make it as far east as Veracruz state. But when I read about the town in a novel in March, I realized that the cool and cloudy weather would be a nice break after over a week in the inland desert. And this is how I came to arrive in the humid cloud forest town, known for it´s large university, coffee farms and nearby volcano. I easily found my couchsurfing host Eren´s apartment and she got home from work five minutes later. I don´t think I have ever met as energetic and forthcoming of a host who had only three hours between a nine hour work day and her English night classes, but insisted on showing me around town in that time. She helped me plan my self-tour of the city the next day, which included morning yoga class, an awesome anthropology museum, a botanical garden in the cloud forest, a swim in the university´s pool and lots of tasty snacks and interesting bus rides along the way. Then, I made it back to her apartment and met up with Eren after her English class. After another long day, she asked if I wanted to got out to a local cafe or bar, and see live music or get a drink! I was way too tried and we both had to get up early the next day to catch buses, but I was so impressed by her hospitality, map-drawing ability, local CS event organizing, and general cheeriness and positive attitude. I wish that I was able to spend more time in Xalapa´s nice cafes and cloud forest, and I was so glad that I went out of a limb a bit and rode a bus to a place that I had only heard of a month beforehand. By meeting Eren, it had really paid off!
Olmec heads at the Anthropology museum
Carnivorous plants at the botanical reserve
Hiking through the cloud forest on a sunny afternoon!
From Xalapa, I bused four hours further south to Puebla, where I stayed in a hostel in the old town for a night before moving onto Oaxaca to meet my dad on Saturday April 27th. Puebla was fun to walk around for a day, but I can´t say that I fell in love with the place. The old town was magnificent and I got to see a Cuban band play lots of Buena Vista Social Club hits on the main square in front of a huge crowd at night. Puebla was really just a stop over on my way to Oaxaca City, and I think the excitement of heading further south and traveling with my dad overshadowed my trip through town.
A few shots of Puebla--a University building downtown and the cathedral
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