Puebla
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After Oaxaca’s traffic (and yes, my own nonchalance) almost caused me to miss my ADO bus again, I fell down into my seat relieved, ready to experience the splendour of the breathtaking Valle de Tehuacan one more time. My journey to Puebla, full of sights of deserts, cactuses and cowboys, was therefore an attraction to look forward to rather than a gap of waste in my precious ‘holiday’ time.
Once arrived I hung around to meet up with our Couchsurfing host Jeshu, living in the run-down outskirts of town. Although the city’s centre looks colourful and wealthy with its wide lanes, colonial buildings and Spanish plazas, most of its people live in cheap housing dotting the town’s surroundings with streets that seem to come straight out of an American gangster movie… endless gray blocks of concrete, the wind playing with plastic and paper trash and potholes in the sidewalks that will cause your instant death if you aren’t looking down when moving around.
Once arrived I hung around to meet up with our Couchsurfing host Jeshu, living in the run-down outskirts of town. Although the city’s centre looks colourful and wealthy with its wide lanes, colonial buildings and Spanish plazas, most of its people live in cheap housing dotting the town’s surroundings with streets that seem to come straight out of an American gangster movie… endless gray blocks of concrete, the wind playing with plastic and paper trash and potholes in the sidewalks that will cause your instant death if you aren’t looking down when moving around.
I grabbed my notebook and sat down for my homework: Puebla is a true cultural hub full of museums that according to the available tourist information all had a different day of free entrance… so efficient planning was required to save the necessary bucks. Little did I know that this information outdated years ago, containing museums that don’t even exist anymore. While Puebla is equipped with dozens of trendy, free-wifi, Apple-computer tourist information centres, they didn’t think of investing in up-to-date printed hand-outs. Anyway, rule of thumb: 30% is always free, the other 70% are free on Sunday.
My first museum-day in Puebla, a Tuesday, wasn’t therefore a great success: Museo Amparo was closed and so were Fototeca Juan C. Mende, Casa de los Muñecos and Casa de Cultura. The Galeria del Palacio and Museo de Arte San Pedro had no exhibitions and the Palacio Municipal appeared to be only open in the weekends (tip: at 2PM & 10PM a tour is offered free of charge). Museo Taller Erasto Cortes all of a sudden had en entrance price, I was not going to pay. You had to pay for Biblioteca Palafixiana too, but as you can see the entire space full of antique, gold and of course books from the doorstep, I decided to admire it from a distance for free.
My first museum-day in Puebla, a Tuesday, wasn’t therefore a great success: Museo Amparo was closed and so were Fototeca Juan C. Mende, Casa de los Muñecos and Casa de Cultura. The Galeria del Palacio and Museo de Arte San Pedro had no exhibitions and the Palacio Municipal appeared to be only open in the weekends (tip: at 2PM & 10PM a tour is offered free of charge). Museo Taller Erasto Cortes all of a sudden had en entrance price, I was not going to pay. You had to pay for Biblioteca Palafixiana too, but as you can see the entire space full of antique, gold and of course books from the doorstep, I decided to admire it from a distance for free.
I also made it to the central Cathedral, which was unlike most Central American churches completely speckled with gold, valuables and fancy roof frescos. For one little moment I imagined myself in Italy. The humble Christians even built an entire Roman temple in the middle of the church’s interior. Of course, they owe a lot to Mr. Caesar, if this good old emperor hadn’t turned Catholic himself, Christianity would still be considered an obscure sect.
I nipped on a 1-dollar-coffee at the vulgar terrace of McDonalds which was nevertheless located right on the Zocalo: Instead of overpriced restaurants, the fanciest plaza of town is surrounded by fast-food-chains, which is great for us budget backpackers.
Later in the day I experienced more luck in tracking down Puebla’s freebie trail. Capilla del Arte de la UDLAP hosted an exposition about local creative spirit Rojo, who’s painter, sculptor and architect. Probably he should lay down his paint brush in the future and focus more on architecture and graphic design, as that’s where his talent seems to lay.
Later in the day I experienced more luck in tracking down Puebla’s freebie trail. Capilla del Arte de la UDLAP hosted an exposition about local creative spirit Rojo, who’s painter, sculptor and architect. Probably he should lay down his paint brush in the future and focus more on architecture and graphic design, as that’s where his talent seems to lay.
Also Museo del TEC de Monterey doesn’t charge an entrance price, probably because it’s only art students that exhibit here… which kind of gives an idea of the level and quality of the work. Nevertheless, some of the artwork wasn’t that bad and there was certainly some talent to be detected.
I decided to ‘splurge’ once by paying 25 pesos to enter the Museo de la Revolución Mexicana, as I was eager to learn more about this exciting yet bloody part of history. I didn’t learn much though. The excellence of a museum is in my opinion determined by a healthy balance between artifacts and textual commentary, alternated with interactive image and media. Museo de la Revolución wasn’t one of those. They apparently found a really good book about the Mexican Revolution and decided to fill a whole building with all the 400 pages printed on big displays, asking its visitors to read it all… All in advanced Spanish without any translations. I gave it a go, mentally translating sentence by sentence, trying to ignore the horrifying kid two displays ahead of me reading every single word out loud (being a non-native Spanish speaker it felt like trying to count while someone else screams random numbers). It was too much and too boring, I couldn’t glue these never-ending complicated foreign language constructions into an understandable storyline. So I left in ignorance, realizing my time would have been better spent on Wikipedia.
Even though with varying success, this day made me realize one thing very clearly:
Puebla is Mexico’s cultural hotspot.
Back in the house I looked on all the flyers and programs I could lay my hands on that day: art workshops, African and indigenous dance classes, independent movie festivals, healing and shakra conferences, poetry meetings, cinematography courses, literature gatherings, science fairs, lessons in wood carving, black-and-white photography, recycled applied arts, theatre… And most of it free! Incredible, why I don’t live here is a question I can’t readily answer. I can only imagine the highly educated generation that grows out of this cultural foundation. (Check IMACP)
Puebla is Mexico’s cultural hotspot.
Back in the house I looked on all the flyers and programs I could lay my hands on that day: art workshops, African and indigenous dance classes, independent movie festivals, healing and shakra conferences, poetry meetings, cinematography courses, literature gatherings, science fairs, lessons in wood carving, black-and-white photography, recycled applied arts, theatre… And most of it free! Incredible, why I don’t live here is a question I can’t readily answer. I can only imagine the highly educated generation that grows out of this cultural foundation. (Check IMACP)
As most courses where however located outside of town, I continued the free-museum-quest. Museo Jose Luis Bello y Zetina is an interesting one. Jose Luis, a wealthy merchant, had decided to leave his elegant house full of religious baroque art, European artefacts and antique furniture open for the public to admire. During a free private tour I got an excellent idea of the life of the rich and famous in Puebla’s old days.
I took a quick look in Capilla Rosario, which had possibly even more gold than the cathedral. Subsequently my tourist info brought me to Museo De Arte Moderno, but tadaaaa: This museum didn’t exist anymore (for over a year). Museo de Arte Virreinal then? Nope, the name had changed into Museo de Arte San Pedro, where I was yesterday to find out they had no exhibitions.
I took a quick look in Capilla Rosario, which had possibly even more gold than the cathedral. Subsequently my tourist info brought me to Museo De Arte Moderno, but tadaaaa: This museum didn’t exist anymore (for over a year). Museo de Arte Virreinal then? Nope, the name had changed into Museo de Arte San Pedro, where I was yesterday to find out they had no exhibitions.
So I swapped high-end culture to mass consumerism: going crazy on the shopping front. In the meantime used to the feeling of self-chosen poverty, being able to buy $4 t-shirts in trendy clothing stores lit up the fire in a backpacker’s eyes. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Mexico is cheap. To feed your emerging jealousy: That morning I bought one LITRE of fresh orange juice (pressed right in front of my eyes) for 15 pesos, $0,90… whereas in Europe I pay €3,50 for a meagre small long-drink glass. Also, I have been eating sushi in a restaurant for three days straight, paying four bucks for a plate with twenty pieces. Buying your flight already?
Capitalist compensation: Theatre. The next day I purchased tickets for some play called “Engaño Peligroso”, a performance not suitable for the eyes of minors because of its themes of sex and cheating. Honestly, I wasn’t really interested in the content of the show, for all that I care it could have been a musical about evangelists and their passion for shaved Shetland ponies… but I just love to spend time in theatres. I feel safe in theatres, they are my home base in a life of constant change and instability. This sounds like I’m a far-advanced professional actress, but don’t feel intimidated: I’m just frolicking around on the amateur front.
The acting was alright, two players with an intermediate level of experience and a healthy dose of passion, reproducing the story of a polygamous man paying abortions after impregnating various women and all the psychological fuck-up accompanied with this. It was very Dutch in the sense that vaginas and tits were all over the place (although Dutch theatre and film contains an equal amount of naked dicks, which is only fair and less masochist in my opinion). But overall: a satisfying cultural get-away.
The acting was alright, two players with an intermediate level of experience and a healthy dose of passion, reproducing the story of a polygamous man paying abortions after impregnating various women and all the psychological fuck-up accompanied with this. It was very Dutch in the sense that vaginas and tits were all over the place (although Dutch theatre and film contains an equal amount of naked dicks, which is only fair and less masochist in my opinion). But overall: a satisfying cultural get-away.
The next day I changed hosts, as it didn’t go all that smooth with the current one. Luckily Couchsurfing has a return-policy, as it enabled me to get familiar with Ricardo. This young little entrepreneur with a fixed smile playing around his happy braces immediately took me down for a midnight excursion. The ‘blind spot’ is not a place you will find back in any travel blog or Lonely Planet, but it’s the place where Ricardo and his friends drink away the nights contemplating life. Together with his buddy Daniela I hopped into a jeep to drive into the nothingness, boxes full of food loaded on our laps. If I wouldn’t have had such a secure feeling with this person the bumpy rocky road into the forest would have worried me, but the result was excellent: On the top of a hill the endless lights of Puebla winked at us, a campfire fulfilling what’s missing.
I decided to stay one more day, almost spending an entire week in Puebla. Convinced by local opinions and social media I headed back to Museo Amparo. A wise decision. Welcomed by video installations initiating and questioning the dialogue between time, communication and subconscious realities I understood I was asked to switch my intellect on. All in the modernist mood I was surprised to subsequently enter an extensive collection of Maya and Aztec tribe-arts and history, exposed next to displays of the current reality.
The next sala astonished me again with a photo exhibition containing cutting-edge work of young talented photographers from all over the world. Especially the Arabic artist taking a piss on his culture’s virgin-marriage-requirements was refreshing. I got led to a room full of eye-opening video presentations and artwork questioning privacy and private property, after which I had to run through spaces filled with religious art and furniture. Okay, I didn’t see that coming, how much variation and mental adjustment can a human progress in two hours? Needless to say, this museum alone is a reason to visit Puebla, a non-hidden gem and a public favourite.
With a saturated mind I walked back to the Zocalo. It was time to eat sushi for the fourth day in a row. I was saturated.
With a saturated mind I walked back to the Zocalo. It was time to eat sushi for the fourth day in a row. I was saturated.
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- Beaches & scuba-diving in Mexico: Cozumel, Tulum & Cancún (don't go there)
- The vibrant cities of Mexico: Ciudad de Mexico, Merida, Oaxaca, Queretaro, San Cristobal de las Casas
- Maya and Aztec heritage on Mexican grounds: Izamal, Palenque, Tulum and Valladolid
- An overview of all Mexican streetfood [Palenque]
- Colonial city in Guatemala: Antigua
- Colonial cities in Nicaragua: Granada and Léon
- Colonial city in Colombia: Cartagena
- Colonial cities in Brazil: Ouro Preto and Paraty
- Colonial city in Peru: Arequipa
- Colonial city in Ecuador: Cuenca
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- Diving into Malaysia's history: Melaka
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