Hello to all,

I hope that everyone has been well over the past couple of weeks, and that you haven't worried too much about me, since I haven't posted in a while. We've been keeping busy and enjoying the beautiful weather here in Puebla (playing a lot of basketball and developing a nice farmer's tans), where we had been for the 2 weeks until last weekend, when we went to D.F. for the first time. We got really lucky with our trip, as we were able to stay with a friend from D.F. who goes to UDLA with us. At her house (there are pictures) we were treated like honored guests, and in order to show our appreciation, we made them dinner on Saturday night, although this was just a small gesture compared to what they had done for us.

I won't go on too much about D.F., since the pictures do most of the talking for me, but it was the closest I have felt to being home since being in Mexico, due to both the luxuries of the house and the organization of the city (not what I expected from the 10th largest city in the world). Also, I put up pictures from Veracruz during carnival, and Chipilo, a town of Italians about 30 minutes south of Cholula. Make sure to check them out by clicking on the slideshow and then going to the D.F. and Veracruz-Chipilo albums. And don't worry, there will be more pictures to come soon! Two friends are coming to visit, and the plan is to go to Acapulco next week. Lets just call it an early spring break. Also, I started to write a little bit about some of the minor differences between what I have experienced so far (food, drinks, prices, the little things...), so when I get some time (we actually have some school work this week!) I will be sure to post it. I hope all is well and I am still waiting on your packages!

Até logo,

John

Just to let everyone know, I'm skeptical about the address which I was given by my host family, so if anyone really has any desires to send me a package, card, or whatever, I am posting the address to la UDLA, which I am sure is right. On a couple of side notes, we figured out our Spring Break plans, which we are all pretty excited about. The time spent in each place and activities are not set in stone, but what we know is that we are going to start off by heading down into the state of Chiapas, one of the most unique regions of Mexico, in reference to both people and nature. In Chiapas, we want to get a feel for the strong indigenous community that makes up almost all of the population, as well as visit some banana farms and coffee fields. Palenque and San Cristóbal de las Casas look to be our two destinations. After Chiapas, we leave for Puerto Escondido, a coastal town which is supposed to have one of the better beaches in Mexico, not to mention a laid back atmosphere. We figure that were in the tropics and need to take advantage of that, but we want to be far away from the gringomania in Cancun, so Puerto Escondido looks to be our best choice. I don't know if we are going to be able to travel before Spring Break, but I will definitely keep everyone posted on that. When I get some time I'm going to post some pictures of the house and the room up, as well the family. Hope everyone is doing well, remember to check the address at the bottom.

Cuídense,

John

Address:

John D'Alessandro

Lista de Correos

Universidad de las Americas Puebla

STA Catarina Martir

Cholula, Puebla C.P. 72820

This is a post written about my time spent in Puebla, Mexico from January-May 2008.

From the time we left for Oaxaca until today, we have all been in perpetual motion, with the exception of maybe one day. School, friends, exploring Puebla and Cholula, traveling, playing, going out, trying to keep up with news in the USA, and everything in between have made it hard for me to sit down and collect my thoughts. Not that I am complaining, but it really is nice to be able to sit down and write for once. So, sorry for the delay, but I’ll try to capture the trips to Oaxaca and Veracruz in
words the best I can. Luckily I over-documented the Oaxaca trip with 190 pictures, so the story is already more than half told. Unfortunately for the case of this blog, the trip to Veracruz was all over the place and pictures weren’t on the top of our priority list, as we were more worried about finding a place to sleep. Although, even if we wanted to take pictures, most of the happenings were at night, and without the help of a good lighting system in Veracruz we weren’t able to capture much. Besides, we were too wrapped up in the moment to think about it.

Oaxaca

After being in Puebla for about 3 weeks, we decided that it was time to head out of town and see what else Mexico had to offer. After deciding that we wanted to travel, we then had to pick where we wanted to go, and after researching, talking to people, and looking at money and distance we decided that Oaxaca would be our best bet for the weekend. So, we started our planning on Wednesday, trying to figure out what time we would leave, who was going to go, and where we were going to stay. By Thursday night, we had a pretty decent size group going with us in the morning, leaving Puebla at 10, as well as another group who was going to meet us in Oaxaca, leaving Puebla at 3:30. Everybody and everything was set to go, and Friday morning our group decided to meet at the main gate of la UDLA. Surprisingly, this turned out to be the first part of our adventure, as we encountered a group of students blocking the front entrance in order to protest their scholarships being taken away. We managed to get some pictures of the huelguita, head to CAPU bus station, and get on the next bus to Oaxaca. After a beautiful 4 hour bus ride (of which I took about 20 odd pictures) we arrived at the very nice Oaxaca bus station, crammed 6 people into a cab (which cost us 30 pesos total) and arrived at our hostel, which was extremely nice and very well kept for only 120 pesos a night. After getting settled, we set off to explore Oaxaca, and we soon realized how great of a city it really is. With over 200 thousand people, Oaxaca is not that big compared to the rest of the cities we had seen in Mexico. But, what it lacked in size and people it made up in beauty and charm. The zócalo in Oaxaca is absolutely gorgeous, and with families, couples, musicians, people watchers and tourists present at all times, there is always something for everyone. Take a look at the pictures to see for yourself, although I think taking a trip would be your best option. After a meal and an hour of walking around, we decided to head back to the hostel to see if the rest of our friends had arrived. When we got back, we realized that another small group from la UDLA decided that Oaxaca would be a good place to visit that weekend, and we ended up hanging out with them for the rest of the night, which consisted of a little more exploring and another restaurant. We decided to head back early since the next day we were planning on going to see Monte Albán, which we all were really excited to do.

After a great breakfast consisting of eggs, toast, fresh fruit with yogurt, cereal, coffee, and tea, our little group (along with three girls from France, Ireland, and Australia who happened to be staying at our hostel, all of which came to Mexico individually in order to travel) set off for Monte Albán. We read in Lonely Planet that a hotel near our hostel sends buses out every hour, and we decided that would be our best option. Little did we know that Monte Albán was situated at the top of a mountain, and that the roads were sub par and without railing. While going up we were all pretty certain that we were going to fall off (I tried to get a picture to capture this on the way down), but fortunately we survived. Exploring Monte Albán was, to all of us, a pretty incredible experience. One of the best ancient sites in Mexico, Monte Albán is a great place to sit and think, and to learn about a pretty amazing civilization. Don’t take my word for it, just look at the pictures. So, after 2 hours of exploring and allowing the sun to burn all of us, we grabbed a bite to eat, went back to the hostel, and took a 3 hour siesta. Even though we should have been rested after this, we were still worn out, which made for a pretty tranquilo night in Oaxaca, as we only went to a restaurant and had a few drinks at a bar before calling it a night. Of course, we still had some exploring to do the next day so calling it an early night wasn’t such a bad idea.

One of the best things about Oaxaca is the abundance of markets and hand made crafts, so we decided that we needed to take advantage of this while we were there. With one of the largest indigenous populations in Mexico, Oaxaca is a great place to find things that don’t exist in other parts of Mexico. But, this has a downside, which is the fact that you can literally spend an entire day at one of these markets, not see everything, and still have 5 or 6 left. We only had a couple hours to do a market and see Santo Domingo, so of course we didn’t get to see it all. But, we did manage to find and see some beautiful crafts and fabrics, as well as some crazy food. After the market, we headed to the breathtaking church of Santo Domingo. Once again, the pictures will say things that I can’t put into words. After watching the end of Sunday Mass, we headed back to the bus station. Of course, we didn’t think about buying our tickets in advance, so we had to pay an extra 5 dollars to ride the next bus due to the fact that it was de lujo. Although, this wasn’t a bad thing, as we were able to find some authentic Oaxacan street food, run in to some friends who ended up taking the same bus back as us, and buy a newspaper to check out the SC primary results. After a couple hours of waiting, we finally got on our way back to Puebla. On the bus, a movie about Italian immigrants to the US was playing, so content with this, I watched the movie (dubbed over from English to Spanish; go figure), fell asleep, and enjoyed the ride on the camión de lujo.

Veracruz

Our trip to Veracruz couldn’t have been more different than the one to Oaxaca, this due to a couple of reasons. First of all, we knew that we already missed the boat on signing up with the group going from la UDLA, as the trip filled up before I even found out about it. Also, every year Veracruz is home to the biggest carnival celebration in Mexico, and we knew going into the trip that this would make finding a place to stay for a good price pretty difficult. It’s not easy going from 120 pesos a night in an impeccably clean hostel with a great breakfast to talking yourself into paying 300 for a crummy room in a run down hotel. However, when we brought up the idea of going to Veracruz with our host-brothers, Julian and Luis, they told us that they too had planned to go to Veracruz, and we could ride with them and stay at the same place. Of course, when Friday rolled around, we were told by our host mom that Julian and Luis were not going to Veracruz anymore. This was a pretty big setback, as it was 11 o’clock and we knew finding a place to stay and a convenient bus was now going to be hard. But, as stubborn college kids, we were determined to see what Veracruz’s Carnaval had to offer, and we proceeded to call hotels in order to find a room. Using my Lonely Planet and Phil’s Mexico on a Budget, I called 15 different hotels, all of which were completely booked. Ryan, our other friend from UNC who was coming with us, also tried some hotels with no luck. I had talked to some friends from la UDLA who also missed the deadline for the organized trip, and they were planning to camp out instead of getting a hotel. As they offered us a share of their tent, we knew we had a place to stay (albeit not exactly what we wanted) and decided to try to catch the next bus to Veracruz. Of course, every bus for the next 4 hours was completely booked as well, which pushed our departure time back to Saturday morning, which wasn’t such a bad idea. So, after a tranquilo night in Cholula, we headed to CAPU at 8 A.M. Saturday morning, and caught the 930 bus to Veracruz, heading to a crowded city without any idea of where we were going to stay. After a 4 and a half hour trip that surpassed the one to Oaxaca, we got off in a hot and steamy Veracruz, and we all decided that we missed humidity. With no actual place that we needed to go, we jumped on a bus which presumably was supposed to take us to the zócalo, and after a 15 minute period of doubt the bus driver shouted to us that we were at our stop. In the crowded zócalo, we were the only visible gringos, which wasn’t how we pictured carnival. However, we came to Veracruz not only to see carnival but also to see some water, so with a hunch we headed to the right, hoping to find the port and the beach. 15 minutes of going through crowded sidewalks and seeing some pretty strange sights, we found ourselves at the main port, which doubles during carnival as the main strip for the parade and festivities. After taking a minute and sitting on a bench near the edge of the water, we started walking down the boulevard which was lined with bleachers and beer tents, and filled with people of all ages walking around and selling everything under the sun. After a couple beers we decided that it was time (about 2) for our first meal of the day. As we were reading the side of a tent which was situated right off the boulevard, we were rushed by a kid, no older than 16, telling us how great the food was and practically pushing us towards his tent. With decent prices listed on the side we figured that it would be ok, and sat down to eat. Of course, the little tent didn’t have a menu, and when we asked the kid (the rest of his family was doing the same thing, as they owned the tent) how much everything was, he didn’t have a clue. We figured that it was gringo rip-off-week here in Veracruz, and decided to go with the tacos al pastor, which was listed as 5x25 pesos on the side of the tent.

After 20 tacos split 3 ways, we got a call from one of the UDLA students who came with the group, and decided to head to their hotel in order to put our book bags up for the parade at 6, 7, 8 or 9 (we heard that the parade started at all of these times from different people). After a pretty cheap taxi ride to the hotel (if you speak decent Spanish, they won’t rip you off), we met up with our friend and the rest of the UDLA group, and hitched a ride on the bus with them back to the carnival parade. In the 2 hours in which we had left and come back, the boulevard doubled in the number of people, and everything was being prepared for the parade at … you know, 6, 7, 8, or 9. So, after we all decided to eat dinner (3 hot dogs for 20 pesos!), we headed to our seats for the parade, arriving just at 6. As time passed, we counted off the incorrect times that people had given us and tried to guess when the parade would actually start. Of course, passing the time wasn’t so bad, as we all talked, ate, drank, and had a good time, but after 3 hours of waiting we got a little impatient. Finally, at around 10:15 (4 hours after we arrived) we heard the music from the floats on the other end of the boulevard. As the floats started to pick up, we really started to get a taste of what Veracruz was all about. Earlier in the day we already realized that Veracruz was pretty different from the rest of Mexico, as the multicolored buildings, palm trees, wide streets filled with salsa music had been obvious all day long. However, with the floats allowing people to really let themselves go, we were able to look a little bit deeper into the culture of Veracruz. After a couple more hours of the parade, it was time to go back to the hotel, and with no way of getting back except walking, we were in for another hour or two before we could rest. However, by this time we knew that we had a place to stay, as some of our friends had offered us the chance to sleep on the floor of their hotel room. This may not sound like the best thing in the world, but to three guys who came to Veracruz without a place to sleep or a thing to do, we felt pretty lucky. Unfortunately, when we finally got back and at our sandwiches from Oxxo (convenience store), our room became the party room. This really didn’t matter though, as Phil in the closet, and Ryan and I on the floor were so tired that we all passed out while the music was blaring and people were screaming in our room. The next day we tried to get a ride home with the UDLA crew, but as this didn’t work out, we bought the cheapest bus ticket we could find (20 pesos or 2 dollars less than the others) ate some lunch, and found our way back to the bus station. We didn’t realize until we made our first stop in Córdoba that our bus was not direct, and we ended up stopping in every little town on the way from Veracruz to Puebla, as well as picking up random street vendors who sold food and drinks to their captive market, and not to mention the driver honking and waving at about everyone in all of the little towns. The bus ride made for a pretty colorful experience, although it was about 2 hours more than the experience we had going to Veracruz. When I finally got home that night, I laid in my nice soft bed (we think that the whole ‘sleeping on the floor is good for your back’ theory couldn’t be any more wrong) and fell asleep for a good 12 hours.