Last Blogpost from Mexico (for now)

Well, this is it. My little romp in Mexico is over. It was a great trip, I learned a lot, and my appetite for more has stimulated.

Yesterday after dealing with Profeco and having a nice lunch I don't remember what I did. I think I just hung out in my neighborhood. After 5, I went to pick up my laundry and passed this place that I have passed several times that offers facials, massages, pedicures, etc. In the mood for a little more pampering before I left, and feeling like my skin has really taken a beating with the sun, smog, smoke, etc., I went in just to find out about a facial. Before I knew it I was on a table having a chocolate mask applied.

Well, actually, it was more than a chocolate mask. It was a whole series of cleansings, scrubbings, lotions, heatings, coolings, and then finally the chocolate mask, which smelled a lot like mole Poblano. When I said that, the girl didn't really get my sense of humor and just said they both have chocolate. I was wondering if I could lick some off of my face.

Afterwards, my face felt really clean and fresh and smooth. I think women who have all of these beauty treatments done really have the right idea. Not only is it good for you, it feels good and it is a total opportunity to be pampered. Today on the news they had a story about "metrosexuals", which apparently 30% of the men in Mexico City are. They didn't mention anything about the nose jobs, but they did talk about the way they dress and how they take care of their faces and hair. So, maybe the taboos against men having clean skin and nice hair are becoming less, even here.

Today, I had another nice breakfast in my hotel except that the waiter kept coughing and wasn't covering his mouth. He only seemed to cough when he was near the food, which kind of irritated me. I dind't say anything though. I just avoided the food he was near when he coughed.

I figured out that I could take the metro only two stops to get near the anthropology museum. Since it is not a holiday and Reforma is not closed to traffic, it would not be a pleasant walk, so I hopped on the subway, paid my 2 pesos (that is just incredible) and got to experience a little entertainment in my short trip. At the first stop, a guy got on and in a voice that was so loud I thought it was coming from the conductor through the speaker system, he proceeded to tell us about this book that he had which seemed to be something religious. I couldn't tell if when he was saying padre if he meant just father, parent, or the big padre up in the sky.

I got off the train and left the station to find that I was at the foot of Chapultepec Castle. It was so easy to get there! I walked a little closer to the castle but decided not to visit because I would have to pay and it was probably lots of boring historical stuff about people like Benito Juarez, Maximiliano and all of those revolutionary heroes. Not really my cup of tea.

Instead I headed to the zoo. It's been a long time since I have been to a zoo, and I could tell it was not going to be crowded, because most of the vendors that were set up the last time I walked that way were not there. The zoo was nice, though the animals seemed lethargic for the most part, except for some of the birds.

The only irritation was that they did not let me exit the same way I entered, so I had to walk all the way around the zoo to get back to where I would have been if I had just left the way I came in. From there I headed to the Anthropology Museum again, because I wanted to check out the section on Puebla and see if they had anything on any of the places I visited.

I immediately went up to the 2nd floor exhibits which were nearly empty and enjoyed once again seeing all of the information about modern day indigenous groups in Mexico, and their way of life, beliefs, dress, festivals, etc. It is fascinating how diverse Mexico is, even to this day.

When I got the Puebla Sierra section, there was no light. The guard told me he did not know why. So, I continued around and checked out the Oaxaca section, and the section on the Maya again before heading down to the restaurant for lunch.

I had the same lunch I had before of ceviche and tortilla soup, but even though it was less crowded, the service was really slow.

I went back up to the Puebla section to find that the lights were now on, but it turned out that I did not travel far enough north in Puebla to see the cultures that were represented in the museum. I guess next time, I am going to have to plan to travel further north.

I left the museum, walked back through Chapultepec Woods to the metro, and as I boarded the train, a woman with a baby on her back, carrying a guitar and a flute type thing got on with me. She began immediately to play the flute, and then the guitar, and then started to sing, a little off key, while her son moved about slightly, but pretty much slept soundly, his bottle hanging limply from his hand.

After cold front number 18 passed through (they number their cold fronts here), it has gotten quite warm again. Supposedly another cold front is heading this way, but I should be gone before it gets here. Riding that hot train with this woman singing off key with a baby on her back and a guitar that was fitted with this flute sort of thing, I was thinking about how hard life can be here, but that for the most part, what I have witnessed has been people trying to find a way to survive. Whether it is the women and their kids sitting on the cold ground holding out plastic piggy banks begging, or the guys with the rags who usher people into parking spaces and clean their cars while they are parked, hoping for a small tip when they leave, or the thousands of people who set up carts, stalls, blankets on the streets, selling everything from handicrafts to fried pigskin, what I witnessed was people trying their best to survive, to make enough just to get by.

Unfortunately, for them, things are going to get tougher as a new phase of NAFTA has just been passed making US corn even cheaper. According to this new agreement, US grown corn, which is subsidized by our tax dollars, can now flow freely into Mexico without any tax, making it cheaper than locally grown corn. Corn, which is almost sacred here, if it is not absolutely sacred, is also a very important way of life for many people in the countryside who depend on it to make a very meager living. It struck me as kind of ironic reading about this in the newspaper today that the very people who benefit from this subsidized, untaxed free trade, are the same people who are so anti-immigration. Do they even realize that their benefitting by being able to sell their corn cheaply in Mexico is going to mean that more and more people are going to be pushed into unbearable poverty, which will result in them trying to find a way to cross the border so that their children will not die of starvation? It is really a sad and bitter irony.

Mexico is an amazing place, full of history, culture, diversity, and most of all a love of life and an insatiable desire to survive. As rich as we are in the US, I think we have nothing that even comes close to the cultural richness of Mexico. I only hope that our wealth and power will not be one more challenge to the survival of the beauty that is Mexico.

My Spanish

This morning after running a few errands, changing some money, dropping off my laundry, eating breakfast ( a really yummy buffet at my hotel), I set off to find Profeco, the Consumer Protection Division, to drop off my paperwork for my complaint against Playa del Sol, my timeshare in Puerto Vallarta.

I went to an internet cafe because I realized I didn't have the address. I had no idea where they might be located and dreaded having to go to some congested part of town. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were in Condessa, the nice, chic neighborhood, not far from the Zona Rosa where I am staying. The Condessa apparently was the place where the rich and famous lived until the earthquake (1986?), when many buildings were damaged and many of them fled to other areas of the city. Some artists and gays moved in and the area is now known for lovely shady sidewalk cafes and bistros. This is where I wanted to go when the Turibus hijacked me.

I got a cab and went over to Profeco, taking note of the streets we used so that I could walk back. As I entered I encountered my first problem. I didn't bring identification with me. The only ID I have is my passport, but I keep it locked in the strong box in my hotel. I didn't think that I was entering a government building and would have to show ID, even though in the states, I think it is the norm. Fortunately the receptionist was good humored about it and had someone escort me up to the 6th floor.

I was immediately ushered past the crowds into the office of a very handsome young man. He was very attentive and patient with me as I explained the problem in Spanish and handed over all of my documentation. He could not find the complaint that I submitted a few weeks ago via e-mail, which kind of has me worried, but he assured me that they would take care of this.

At one point, he told me that if I wanted I could explain in English, to which I replied, it is difficult to explain this in English and even more difficult in Spanish, but, we continued speaking in Spanish. I will admit, my Spanish was awkward, limiting and probably not perfect, but I actually went through the entire meeting with him in Spanish. I even wrote up my complaint (again) in Spanish (as requested). I had a headache when I got there, becasue normally when I have to deal with anything related to Playa del Sol, I get a headache, but when I left I was feeling relieved - relieved to be out of there and in the fresh air, and relieved that I had now turned all of my documentation over to someone who assured me I didn't have to worry.

I was also feeling pretty good about my Spanish. It was encouraging to me that even though this guy could speak English (I guess, because he offered), he thought my Spanish was good enough to continue speaking Spanish.

Now, let´s only hope that with this nice looking man, and my expensive lawyer working on this I am going to be getting a check soon from Playa del Sol refunding all that I have paid them.

Call Me Alejandro

I'm back in Mexico City and after a brief period of culture shock from seemingly small town Puebla, I am totally back in love with this place. I can't believe I let Lonely Planet think that this was a place that I should not visit or enjoy as much as I have.

I started feeling like I might be going to have an attack of meniere's, this weird condition I have that normally means a constant ringing in my left ear (will someone answer that damn phone!!!), but from time to time leads to vertigo if I don't catch it. I forgot to pack my anti-vertigo medicine, so in Puebla I went to the pharmacy and the closest thing they had was Dramamine. I took it, and I think it helped me avoid an attack. But what it does do is make you very sleepy. In my case, it made me cranky.

So, I got to the bus station in Puebla which was a total madhouse, but eventually boarded the bus. And of all of the solo travelers I could see, I was the only one who didn't have my own row to myself. Not to be piggy or anything, it's just that my seatmate was kind of irritating.

She was a stocky, short, older woman, with a lot of plastic bags, that she put at her feet. I think because of her girth, her arms sort of shot out sideways from her body, the result was that her elbow kept digging me in the ribs. I was sort of drugged out from the dramamine, which I took as a precaution because the bus ride could have inspired a bout of vertigo, and I wanted to sleep, but every time I started to doze off, I felt this elbow in my gut.

I would snort and change positions, and try to move as far against the window as I could, but still those elbows found a way to find me. I tried balling up my sweater and putting it between me and elbow lady, but still, she would find a way to jab me. Maybe I was snoring and she was trying to wake me up, but I think she was just restless. She had asked the driver if there was a movie, and since there wasn't, I think she was bored. When I was not trying to sleep, I noticed that her arms were constantly moving, meaning that her elbow had many opportunities to hit different parts of my body.

When I finally did succeed in getting far enough away from her and positioning my sweater so that she would elbow my sweater and not me, she decided to call her friend on her cell phone! Boy, was she irritating.

The result of all of this is that I arrived in Mexico City really cranky. Then I had one of the scariest taxi rides ever. The guy was zooming through crowded streets, through red lights and weaving in and out of traffic. He passed my hotel and pulled up to the NH Zona Rosa, which would have been fine, since I really liked the NH Puebla, except that I didn't have a reservation there. My reservation was at the Hotel Geneve which we passed in the last block. What I didn't realize was that we were on Liverpool, and I had told him London. Even though the Geneve had an entrance on Liverpool, it was the restaurant.

Irritated with this crazy driver and my lack of sleep on the bus, I got out of the cab at the NH an told him I would walk, but I had to lug my luggage (I guess that is why the call is LUGgage) through the restaurant, up stairs and through the lobby.

Long story short, I woke up the next morning smelling cigarette smoke, which I think was either coming from the lobby or the restaurant below me, went down and complained, didn't like the response I got and found a new hotel. I am now across the street from the Geneve in a place called Eurostars Suites. It is lovely. I have a little apartment, with a living room, sort of kitchette (no dishes or stove, but a microwave and mini fridge), a nice bed, lovely furnishings and best of all, my own jacuzzi in the bath tub!

Yesterday after changing hotels, I went to the hotel W in the ritzy area of Polanco for a spa treatment. I really needed a super duper treatment, and signed up for the "ancestral remedy", which included a body scrub with volcanic clay, a cleansing with herbs, a papaya rub, a sit in the temescal (sweat lodge - today's pic) and a light massage. It ended with them serving me a plate of fresh fruit and some juice. It was very nice, but still didn't really do the trick. I think I need to check in to a spa for a week, but I guess it will have to wait until I go to Buenos Aires where I can afford the kind of pampering I really need.

After the spa, I walked back down Reforma towards the Zona Rosa. The weather has returned to lovely warm springlike weather. Actually, it's kind of hot. Reforma was closed to traffic because there was a parade for the arrival of the three kings bearing gifts. At first I saw nothing but the clean up crews, but eventually I caught up with the parade which had all sorts of floats, musicians, dancers, clowns, all kinds of things throwing confetting and streamers and making all kinds of a mess. What impressed me was that when I first started walking on Reforma, where the parade had been only minutes earlier, it was totally cleaned up, so the clean up crews were doing an amazing job considering the amount of junk this parade was spewing out as it went down the street.

The Zona Rosa was nice and quiet once I arrived, and I decided it was time for another haircut. I know I just got a haircut a little more than a week ago, but they are so cheap, and all of these guys walking around with these super trendy styles made me feel a little shabby and in need of a shape up. Also, at just $12, I figured it was worth it to get my hair cut here and avoid my normal $75 as long as I can.

I went to a salon very near my hotel. There were lots of young people hanging out and it turned out they were all working there. Everyone was wearing black and they all had these great spiky fauxhawk styles that I really like. A young guy escorted me to the shampoo station and washed my hair. Then I sat in a chair and a young woman who was getting these red hair extensions from one of the other guys came over and introduced herself. I forget her name. She asked my name and I told her "Ricardo". She misunderstood and from then on referred to me as "Alejandro". I didn't bother to correct her, as I was feeling kind of shy and fish out of waterish.

The music was blaring, discoey, pop, very drag queeny kind of stuff. In the mirror I could see the rest of the staff, primping in front of the mirrors, one guy with a recently bandaged nose (i.e, job) reading a gossip magazine, and the rest of them camping it up and lip synching to the music with their hairbrushes. It was really a hysterical scene, and with that and my stylist calling me Alejandro, it was all I could do to not burst out laughing hysterically. Instead, I just sat and enjoyed this exhuberant display of gayness.

I ended up with a sort of fauxhawk myself with a little bit of a shag in the back. I think it looks cute and I noticed a few more people looking at me as I walked down the street. Now they could have been thinking "look at that old goat with an 18-year old hairstyle", but instead, I think they were thinking, "who is that fox?!"

Last Mole in Puebla

It's kind of like the last tango in Paris. Well, maybe not, from what I remember that was a really odd movie....



Tonight I had my last mole here in Puebla and it was so good I doubt I am ever going to try to have mole again until I can come back here.

I started off the day quite chilly. It has been freezing the past few days and I had the heat on in my hotel room. They showed people running around in the snow and making little snowmen and putting them on the hoods of their cars on the news. The weather has been quite a phenomenon. I guess it gets cold, but the snow is unusual. It didn't snow here in Puebla, but it was really cold.



Anyway, after breakfast and changing some traveler's checks, I headed to the Zocalo and sat for a bit in the sun to warm up. Then I walked around to see if Seritur, the tour company that Dr. Sanchez works for, was set up yet. They were there and he remembered my name.



It was kind of a joke the other day when I went with them because he asked me my name and then he went to introduce me to the other people in our van and he couldn't remember my name. When we picked up the Spaniard and the Swiss chick he went to introduce me to them, and couldn't remember my name, but the entire family from Guadalajara shouted out "Ricardo!" So, he was pretty proud of himself that he remembered my name today.


I had decided I wanted to go to a place called Atlixco, which is not far from here, located a little bit further than Cholula, where we went the other day. I was all set to do it on my own, but thought I'd check to see if he had anything going there. To my luck, he did have some people signed up to go, and I joined the tour.



Dr. Sanchez did not go with us, but we had a different driver and someone who was learning the ropes. It wasn't the same.



We went to the foot of Popocateptl, the volcano that is visible when the sky is clear and marks the border betwen Puebla and Mexico City. We were as close as you could get to it, which was still pretty far away. The thing is huge and you could clearly see the crater which was blowing smoke and gas.



From there, we went to a very old tree. Our guide said it was the oldest tree in Mexico (maybe). It was very big and very old. It was next to a spring that sprung forth fresh, clean mountain water. I tasted a little. It tasted like water. Mr. Guide said that it was because of hte spring and the tree that they founded the town there. The spring was used to supply water to a trout farm. On the other side of the trout farm were restaurants where we went to eat lunch.

My van mates were a mother and daughter from Toluca, outside of Mexico City. It was a little awkward eating with them, but good practice for my Spanish.



After lunch, we visited a flower farm and then the small town of Atlixco, which was very quaint, quiet, and quite picturesque. Our guide didn't show us anything in the town, he just gave us enough time to walk around and get an ice cream. I wanted to visit the churches because they supposedly had the same kind of popular baroque decoration that we saw on the last tour. It is a place that I would consider going back to and spending a day or two.



What I have discovered on my travels on this and past trips, is that the big cities are great, but these small towns like Atlixco, Tlaxcala, and when I was in Chiapas, Comitan, are really nice places to hang out and use as a base to see more traditional life. No matter how big, or how small the town, there is always a zocalo, and there is always something happening in the zocalo. I'd like to come back to Mexico and pack light and make these small towns my bases of operations. Even though I really love my luxury hotel, it would be nice to be closer to the people and in places that probably don't see many gringos.



Well, this internet cafe is really noisy because every time a car goes by the car alarms go off. So, I am signing off.



Tomorrow I head back to Mexico City, to a different hotel in the Zona Rosa. I'm in the market for a good spa treatment. On Monday I need to go to the division of consumer affairs to turn in the paperwork on my complaint against Playa del Sol, my timeshare in Puerto Vallarta. Keep your fingers crossed for me.


Hasta luego.

Food glorious food!

I have to say, I love the food here. I have been really lucky that for the most part, everything I have eaten has been a real taste sensation. I did make the mistake of going to Burger King the other day because it was there on the zocalo and I didn't have a lot of time before we set off for Cholula, but it was like eating garbage compared to the other food I have had.

This picture is a plate I had twice at one of my favorite restaurants, Fonda Santa Clara. It is the Puebla Botana or Puebla appetizer. It features three things, but I can't remember what they are, or which is which. One is a chalupa, which I think is the flat thing in the center, one is a molete and I don't know what the other thing is. It comes with a yummy fresh salsa and a few pieces of really delicious cheese. I love it. After this I had a bowl of pozole which was incredible. It was not like any pozole I ever had and soooo much better than the pozole I had at VIPS in Mexico City. I even think the hominy was fresh and not from a can.

Last night I went to a place called La Sacristia and had their tortilla soup which was very nice and something called Manchamantel, which was pork cooked in a red tomatoey sauce with pineapple and ripe plantains. I had a little bit of a dried chile over from the tortilla soup which I sprinkled on the dish and it was a wonderful combination of sweet and spicy. It reminded me of a really good hot and sour pork. As soon as my photos are finished uploading, and I finish this post, I am heading back there to have some of their mole, which is supposed to be really good. Last night I had two beers, a soup and a main dish and my bill was about 17 dollars. A real splurge, but so worth it and so much cheaper than what I would pay for a meal like that in SF.

Ok, looks like the upload is done, it's off to eat!

Tlaxcala

Today I took the bus to Tlaxcala, which is the capital of the state of Tlaxcala, the smallest state in Mexico, which is surrounded on 3 sides by the state of Puebla. I was in Tlaxcala the other day when I went on my solo tour with my taxi driver, Gustavo, but was so tired by the time we got to the city of Tlaxcala, I decided to skip it.

Dr. Sanchez, who is not really a doctor, recommend Tlaxcala for the church, which he said was even more magnificent in the popular baroque style that the two churches we visited in Acatepe and Tonintzintla.

So, I took a taxi to the bus station, bought my ticket and was soon on my way. The taxi ride cost more than the bus trip round trip. Buses here are really the way to go. They are cheap, comfortable and safe. This was a first class bus that took 30 minutes to get me from Puebla to Taxclala and it cost 16 pesos, a little over $1.00 (the exchange rate is 10.70 pesos to one dollar).

Tlaxcala, was a nice little city that kind of reminded me of downtown Sonoma. Of course there was a central zocalo, and many churches. It was clean, kind of laid back and nice to walk around. It was also a beautiful, sunny day. It's been freezing here (literally), so it was nice to be able to walk in the sun with little wind. It got quite warm.

I am not sure what church Dr. Sanchez was referring to, but after climbing what seemed like a mountain, I got to a basilica that had some pretty elaborate decoration, much of it in gold leaf. It was nice, but I think I preferred the churches we saw the other day. They were less pretentious (I find gold leaf kind of pretentious) and really sweet in a way. They were also working churches. There were people there on the days we visited.

I took some photos inside of this basilica before I noticed a sign saying no photos - woops!

After eating lunch, visiting a handicraft museum, where I spoke to an old guy who showed me how he made carpets which looked amazingly like Persian rugs, I headed back to the bus station and made my way home. Again, the taxi rides to and from the bus station cost more than my bus ticket.

I'm back in Puebla now and ready to go get something to eat.

Chilis en nogada

The food in Puebla has been amazing. I only wish I could get this kind of Mexican food in San Francisco. Even the tacos are so much better than on Mission Street.

Yesterday I had a very traditional Poblano dish called chilis en nogada. I had no idea what I was ordering, but my guide, Dr. Sanchez, recommended that we all try it before we leave Puebla. He told me where I could find them, because apparently, they are not served all year round.

I was surprised to see this big white thing arrive at my table, covered with chopped cilantro and pomegranite seeds. It was coverd with some sort of a white sauce. I cut into it and found that it was a chili relleno - a big chili (slightly spicy), breaded and fried, and filled with all sorts of stuff - I detected squash (or pumpkin), some kind of meat, some nuts, raisins and lord knows what else.

I wanted to know more about the dish and why it is not served year round, so I asked my waiter and he told me it is normally served in September to celebrate Mexican Independence. Thus, the colors of the Mexican flag - red, white and green.

It was a special dish and I'm glad I got to try it, but I can also see why it is not eaten year round, and just at a special time of the year. It is too rich to have every day and probably really difficult to make.

Happy New Year

Things were really dead when I went out this morning. There was hardly anyone on the street and everything was closed. I had breakfast in my hotel because Munich was closed.

I started thinking that maybe a week in Puebla was too much and maybe I should find a way to go to Veracruz like I had planned. I didn´t want to take another taxi adventure and was getting tired of walking around the streets of Puebla and seeing tiled buildings and churches.

Well, eventually I ventured down to the zocalo to talk to the tour operators there. It seemed like it was a good day to go to Cholula - the place my students told me had 365 churches. Even though I read in my guide books that it is not true, my taxi driver, Gustavo, yesterday said the same thing. When I asked him if that wasn´t a legend, he said no, it is true.

Well anyway I spoke to a guy at a little tour booth set up in the zocalo who was a trip. He was an older guy missing a few teeth who talked a lot. He told me a lot about Puebla, about Cholula and about some of the other places I could visit. His Spanish was very clear and easy to understand and I thought it would be really interesting traveling with him. The only problem was that if I went alone, I would have to pay for 2 or 3 people (I didn´t really understand that part).

I checked back a little later and there were other people who had signed up for the tour, so off we went.

I can´t remember the tour guide´s first name, but his last name was Sanchez, and he was so smart, I referred to him as ´the doctor´so I will call him Dr. Sanzhez. Turned out he also drove our bus.

It was me, a family from Guadalajara and a cute Spanish guy and a Swiss girl who had met that morning and apparently hit it off (I wish I had hit it off with a cute Spanish guy).

The tour was amazing and fortunately we visited more than just Cholula (which by the way, Dr. Sanchez confirmed did NOT have 365 churches). We started off at San Francisco Acatepec, which is pictured above. The doctor explained to me earlier that when the Spanish colonized Puebla they wanted Puebla to be a Spanish city, but that the outlying villages, even though they had Catholocism imposed on them, also maintained their own believes and integrated the two. You could really see it in this church. The outside was completely covered with tiles of many different colors and all kinds of decoration, but the inside was what was really astounding. Every inch of every wall and all of the ceilings were covered with decoration - faces, animals, flowers, fruits, there were even mirrors that reflected everything in the church and made it seem even more elaborate. You could see where many indigenous symbols like the sun and the moon had been incorporated and were there along with saints and other Christian symbols. Unfortunately, because I couldn´t use a flash, the photos are a little blurred, but they are in my photo album anyway. This is what I wanted to see yesterday, but didn´t (I didn´t know that this is exactly what I wanted to see, but this was it).

The next place we went to was Santa Maria Tonantzintla. There the church was very similar inside to San Francisco Acatepec, but the outiside was not as elaborate. What was different on the outside was that there was a mass going on. The church was too small to hold everyone that was there, so the mass was actually happening in the courtyard of the church, which was covered by a huge tarp. There were several hundred people there and it was sort of a carnival atmosphere. There was a band playing tubas a flutes and drums, and people selling a chocolate drink that they were foaming up by using a kind of a stick that they twirled between their palms. We walked through the courtyard to the entrance of the church which we entered when the service was finally over. Again, the walls and ceiling were covered completely with stucco imagery. It was just amazing. I was glad we got to visit while the church was actually in use, because that added to the power of the visit. I don´t know, if I could attend a mass like that, maybe I would go to church.

We went from there to Cholula, which was also interesting but not nearly as interesting as these two little villages. Cholula has the largest pyramid in the world (in volume not in height) and there is a church built on top of it. Most of the pyramid is covered by grass, and parts of it are exposed as well as a part that has been badly restored. We climbed to the top and had an amazing view of Cholula and the surrounding volcanos, but it was really windy and there was dust and kinds of other things blowing around. It was especially windy at the top of the pyramid.

Our tour was supposed to finish at 3:30, but we didn´t leave Cholula until 4. It was really great and I plan to visit Dr. Sanchez and see what other adventures he has in store for me.