In my previous post, I wrote about how Niddo was a life-changing food experience. Before leaving Mexico City for Puebla, we were forced by our stomaches to go to Niddo once more. It was essential before we headed to the coach station. I was particularly excited about going to Puebla as the brilliantly named volcano, Popocatépetl, had been kicking off a lot and our distance from the volcano would be enough to see the show, but not so close as to fear I’d have rocks rain down on my head. 

As we got closer to the volcano, the size of it became apparent. It’s enormous at over 5000m (Mount Fuji, by comparison is 3700m) and like an excited puppy, I kept looking out the window, probably with my tongue hanging out, hoping to see a spectacular explosion. Unfortunately, it was a hazy day and the best I saw was a sad little puff of smoke every now and then. Truly disappointing. The approach to Puebla showed a place considerably poorer than Mexico City but as we got closer to the centre, a completely glorious city emerged with very little in the way of modern developments. Clearly, the UNESCO world heritage people got it right. That being said, it was only when I was back in the UK that it seems that Puebla is a large city and it turns out, we stayed mostly in the cutesy bit, totally ignoring the array of tall buildings.

We stayed at Hotel Diana and were given the warmest welcome before being shown to our room, which was the size of a football pitch. During our stay, I was able to peek into other rooms and noticed that ours seemed considerably bigger, but we didn’t splash out on a deluxe room. At £50 a night, it seemed like a really great deal. We explored the Zocalo (main square) and had a delicious sangria at Attico 303, where I tried to get views of the volcano. I asked a member of staff if I could see it from the terrace and she looked at me confused, walked me to a door, then when I asked about the volcano again, she just stared at me and walked off. Mi español es pobre. 

For some culture, we visited the Museo Amparo and it is a world class venue. I loved the work of Ana Bidart, Cecilia Barreto and the photography by Mat Jacob of the Zapatista insurrection in Mexico gave me a glimpse into a part of the country’s history I knew nothing about. I was entranced by the work of Melanie Smith from Poole who created a piece where ancient Mexican artefacts were on display but were covered by a perspex screen. In a country where ancient artefacts are on display in great quantities, not being able to see the work through the perspex made it so tantalising. On the terrace of the museum, you were treated to great views of the city and the volcano, which remained calm and collected. 

In the late afternoon, we walked to the alley of the frogs – an artist quarter with a market of people selling bits and bobs and a lot of trays. A more tray-centric market than any before suggests mothers across the land are cursing their kids for nicking all the trays in the house and selling them for £20. The area was lit up with many fairy lights making the scene overly picturesque and clearly, a tourist hub. As the afternoon turned to evening, Puebla lit up and became even more beautiful. We ate at Augurio for dinner where I had mole with mole, and a side of mole. I had read that Puebla was famed for its mole, so I had to try it, but I overdid it. The service at Augurio was top-notch, with wonderfully friendly staff. Unfortunately, this was the part of the trip where our stomachs twigged we had moved countries, so we needed to retreat for an early night. 

The next morning we nonchalantly pop into a church which is grand, over the top and reminded me that while I remain resolutely not religious, I love that people really get into God. After a quick God-stop, we took an Uber to Cholula to see the world’s largest pyramid. The day was baking, so we sought shelter everywhere we could; in parks, in bars, by trees, near a toilet. Cholula is a so-called magic town. A magic town means it’s a beautiful place or it has natural wonders. The bloody volcano is reasonably nearby to the town and my plan was to walk up to a church and take a spectacular shot of it belching smoke, but yet again, thwarted. We first go to the pyramids. They were built in 300BC, making it hard to figure out what the structures would have originally looked like but the site is huge and, as ever with these things, lots of death was involved.

At the end of the site, there is one very well preserved pyramid, which I climbed to the top, realising as I got high up that I didn’t like heights. From this vantage point, you can see over the town and the hateful volcano. After this, there is a church on top of a hill and the hill is actually the pyramid that was the largest in the world. It was covered in dirt by the Aztecs when they heard the Spanish were advancing. Nobody suspected the big pyramid-shaped mound was a pyramid for hundreds of years. I didn’t realise I was climbing the pyramid when I was huffing and puffing up the hill to the church, which is 177m high. Cholula is already 2150m above the sea, so height feels all a bit relative. The church is reliably gorgeous and dramatically Godly. The views towards the volcano are superb. If only it could have bothered to announce my arrival by doing something. Even one mild eruption, timed for my camera, would have been greatly appreciated.

The next day was another glorious morning, and my favourite sort. We had a lot to do in a minimal amount of time. I am up by 6am walking about the town and taking in the sites one last time before breakfast of kings, churros. You can’t get much better than fried strings of dough and chocolate sauce. After this healthy option, we visited a church that has been gold-plated to within an inch of its life and was recommended to us by our hotel. It is a must-see in Puebla. La Capilla del Rosario is a genuinely jaw dropping experience. There is no entrance charge to see the interior, but you do need to buy a postcard, approximately the cost of an entrance fee. A tour guide shows us around and tells us many facts, which are mostly gold related. I have been in many cathedrals and churches and have often been left mightily impressed with the contents but this was on another level, and it is fitting that the church has been described as the eighth wonder of the world, which seems a fair argument to make. The grandeur is everywhere, making it hard to know where to look. The ceiling is magnificent, but so is the altar, where the virgin Mary lives inside a very fancy house. As I looked at the beauty around me, I kept wondering how this earthquake-prone region maintained all this beauty, but I had to go to Oaxaca, where the earthquakes are far more common.

When I was a kid, I thought I would be a famous pop star and long flights would be part of this job, but after eleven hours in the air to Mexico, I feel my childhood dreams have been shattered. It is a dreary experience. The BA staff certainly did all they could to make us feel delightful. It was our honeymoon so they gave us a card from all the flight crew and looked after us. It was really rather lovely. They also served a multitude of vegetable curries on the way. One staff member bemoaned this saying “They don’t appreciate curries in Latin America!” but I was entirely happy with this, along with the billion little wines I drank. 

The flight was deeply confusing. It was blazing, glorious daylight outside as we flew back in endless daylight. But the windows had all been tinted into darkness, presumably so we would all sleep and not press the bell (I could never press the bell, never ever). But at the back, it was light eternal. I know from past experience that I cannot sleep if it’s light but we have to pretend it’s dark. My brain knew it was daytime, a topsy-turvy world I couldn’t accept. We landed at 745pm Mexico time, at dusk, showing that order had been restored. 

After passport control, I unsteadily walked to baggage reclaim as word spread that some people have been text that bags hadn’t made it. Not being in possession of this text, I assumed all was well but no bag came. Eventually we gave up the ghost and got a taxi to our hotel. Instead of having a mad night in Mexico City, we had a mad night claiming for our lost baggage on a reluctant website and then looking forward to a long sleep. 

A very sleepless night later, we got up at 6am and decided to walk around Juarez, near Roma, where we were staying. This is a part of the city that includes the nightlife district of Zona Rosa and it is a fantastic place to stay. It is an urban jungle where vines, electricity cables and plants seem to compete with each other for space. People were sweeping the streets with brushes and some were doing it with twigs. Even before 7am, there are sounds of construction workers drilling at stuff and my mind told me this wasn’t right. But building regulations differ from country to country. I noticed that people everywhere were cooking food on street stalls and I kept being delighted by tiny limes I saw ready to be squeezed over food. The air smelled of citrus, coriander, corn and tomatoes. It is a glorious hit of scent, with an underlying whiff of petrol. In that moment, Mexico City became the best smelling city I had ever been to. Some cities have a defining smell; Amman in Jordan was petrol, spices and flowers. Barcelona was drains. For our first meal we went to Cuina for breakfast but arrived far too early, drooling at the menu and forced to continue walking about, trying to avoid getting caught up by all the vines. 

Ignoring our rumbling stomachs and returning to Cuina was the best idea, as the food was impeccable. There was a queue outside the door at 9am, and it being a nice morning, we thought we might eat outside. A silly idea as the inside is impressive with a full-grown tree in there. I had a chilaquiles negro and chocolate croissant, which were both excellent. When the bill came, we realised eating this decadently would not be compatible with our budgets. Worth it though. 

When we saw the historic core of Mexico City, I became instantly obsessed by a pastel pink building with a satellite tower on top, the Edificio Miguel E. Abed. It’s a gorgeous art deco skyscraper and was once the tallest building in Mexico. Other buildings I lusted after were an office building that had a screen in front of it of fractured metallic shapes and the Latin American tower, which has withstood some major earthquakes, the most notable being the 8.1 magnitude earthquake in 1985. After this we took the metro, which I was told was pickpocket central but our experience was non-dramatic. We even got on the metro for free when a man beeped us in on his travel card, after he witnessed me try and fail to buy a ticket. I’m not sure why he beeped us in but what a gent. The metro was entirely fine, but a little confusing. Mexico City has a host of public transport options and they are identifiable by various symbols and I didn’t really have a clue what any of it meant. I wanted three columns and a curve, but we ended up on three columns with a B. So, the metro somehow became a bus in a dedicated fast lane. The symbols soon become obvious but for a first timer, it’s like a magical new language and it’s what travel should be all about. 

We crossed the city to the Museum of Anthropology which is in a building that brings me much joy. It’s a brutalist building set in a courtyard. The courtyard has a concrete “umbrella” with a fountain and it’s a stunning entrance for the important artefacts inside. In the museum are displays that give you an overview of how the pre-Columbian era became the Mexico we know today. Most of the text is in Spanish so I made some of my own history up but you get the picture. There were many figures of humans covered in blood and one woman is shown to be somehow shitting out a baby, which really was the least of her troubles. Everyone else was fighting, gathering sticks, hitting each other with sticks and eating animals or each other. At some point they started to think about gods, so lots of people had to be sacrificed. Some of the rooms show you what the sacrificial chambers would have looked like. Snakes then follow in the artwork and the gods become more hungry and demanding. Life seemed astonishingly hard and I came away with the impression that despite everything, humans have an unshakeable desire to simply exist. In the most morbid way, there was something uplifting about it. 

In the evening we ate at La Casa de Tono, which wins the award for the speediest service ever and absolutely OK food. It was remarkably good value. Afterwards, the plan was to go to a bookshop that includes Bukowski’s bar for a drink but a tone deaf singer was hitting all the bum notes possible, so we went to a bar underneath Bukowski’s that overlooks an entrance to a car park. We listened to the singing. He gave a go at some John Lennon. It was terrible. He gave a go at Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, which was beyond parody. It was clearly time to go to a gay bar that was empty. And just as I felt that I needed a boost of joy, two men hit it off over drinks and all was well with the world. 

On the second day, there were a few things I saw in Mexico City that I just thought made me feel like I was far away from London. One was market stalls where you could buy individual cigarettes; somewhere hanging up in the stall on a string was a lighter. And second was groups of people unfurling banners at road crossings. I initially thought people were protesting about something, but I soon realised that these were just adverts being thrust in the faces of drivers. There were some protests, but they did their thing and the police kept an eye on it, without any hint of rancour. 

We had breakfast at a place called Niddo, which has three branches in a 2-minute walk from one each. Usually, I would say this is over-saturation, but Niddo was instantly my favourite place in the world. A woman came over with a heaving tray of pastries and cakes and offered them in such a way that I thought this was a freebie. This was not the case but they were tasty and that’s all that matters. The variety of food at Niddo was the thing that worked for me – I wanted it all but I would recommend the bacon and eggs as well as the shakshuka. We went back another two times over the course of the trip. 

Our first culture stop of the day was the Frida Kahlo museum, and unlike many museums, I didn’t get museum fatigue as Kahlo led a dizzyingly full life, despite dying at just 47, and the museum ended prematurely as well. I could have stayed much longer. Her home and collection was beautiful and so much of her work asks questions of the viewer, with much relating back to ideas of illness and equality. It’s fascinating and very popular and I had to book tickets weeks in advance. The fact that Kahlo has become such a commercialised icon tells us that capitalism has had the last laugh. Lovely gift shop, though. Skulls everywhere.

Kahlo lived in the Coyoacán area of Mexico City and I couldn’t help but marvel at the colours of the place. Things just looked naturally photoshopped – the bright blue sky set against the earth tones of the buildings and the flags flapping in the wind. We followed flags to an inviting looking alley that turned into a cafe where a 175ml glass of wine arrived that seemed to be much more, so much more. I ate a cheese and chorizo wrap that oozed oil and didn’t regret it, because sometimes unhealthy tastes so good. When we visited Coyoacán market we loved to see all the items on display, ranging from the tiny mini limes to skulls to skeletons to skeleton skulls and Frida Kahlo toys. We swerved the meat aisle as that would have tipped me over the edge. This was the point when I became a big fan of Mexico City; it’s such a huge place but there’s a human side to it where you don’t feel overwhelmed by the size. It is a walkable city in many places.