Well since I started to write this part of my ramblings, We have arrived in the good old’ US of A, what with the hot weather and getting busy I do not seem to have been in the mood for email, I find it hard, so have to be in the mood!!!! Soooooooo I am sorry this had taken so long, this one is the end of Mexico as we knew it! I hope to be ale to go back at a better time of year and see the stuff we have missed……
I hope you are all well and enjoying what ever you are doing or wherever you are, I am in Mexico still hiding in the mountains trying to keep cool and failing most of the time. Thank goodness it is cool at night and every afternoon/evening we have a thunderstorm - mostly this cools things down and early mornings are quite cool, but it soon builds up.
We are in Puebla which is a very large town, at the moment we are in the Mercedes Garage. Les is having a lot of work done, also he has been able to find 2 new starter batteries which we have been looking for for a long time, we are waiting for the second one to be delivered today. I have had a clean bill of health, which is good. Ps the batteries were a no go, the search continues!!
We spent a few days on a camp site in Cholula which is a smaller town kind of joined on to the outskirts of Puebla. At Cholula is the widest pyramid ever built “Piramide Tepanapa – the Great Pyramid of Cholula” by the 4th century AD it measured 450m along each side of the base and 65m high making it larger in volume than Egypt’s Pyramid of Cheops. The Spanish, when they arrived, built a Church on the top of this pagan temple, an earthquake sent deep fractures through the church but the pyramid was untouched. Archaeologists have built tunnels through and into the pyramid, finding that there is infact 3 pyramids surrounding each other; you can see this very clearly when walking through the tunnels, also there are steps and the drainage system. Quite amazing! On the outside some excavations reveal the outside of the pyramids and at one corner a reconstruction of the latest pyramid giving a clear picture of how the whole thing looked, there is an Aztec style altar in a pit dating from just before the Spanish conquest. This site was very spectacular much more then we had expected
From the pyramid’s we walk to the center of town which was a very colonial square.
We had a very lovely lunch sat outside in the shade at the side of the square.
We then got a taxi to the very small village of Tonantzintla, our guide in the pyramids told us that here was the most beautiful church in all Mexico infact it could be the world!! The outside of the Templo de Santa Maria is very fine built in a lovely peaceful garden, the inside is mind blowing under the dome, the service is covered with colourful stucco saints, devils, flowers, fruit, birds and much more it is an astonishing example of indigenous artisanship applied to Christian beliefs and themes. We have seen some amazing churches on this trip.
Back at the campsite a very large American rig had pulled in. It was enormous 2 very large pull outs; the guy spent an age fixing up all his pipes and leads, then over an hour fixing up a huge satellite dish. (It made watching someone put their awing up quite boring) then in the morning put it all away again and moved off towing a car! I was amazed.
I love my little truck, that takes the time it takes to get level which is about 5 minutes and I’m sorted, kettle on. However IF I did have a big American job I could make the bedroom (which has a washing machine in a cupboard!) into a lovely work room, for my American friends I’m sorry but wait till you see our little trucks, its all in the size!!
Today we have been into the center of Pueblo another colonial town. Where a lot of the buildings are covered in the local hand painted tiles from the 17th century. We were able to visit a Mennonites village the people had come here from Germany to Russia to Canada and finally settling on post revolutionary Mexico in the early 1920's where life has changed very little, they speak very little Spanish and marry amongst them selves, we did notice they have outside toilets and double garages where I suspect they keep their tractors and pickups! They are still farmers growing a variety of crops making cheese, butter, honey and biscuits which they sell at the road side, on one of our night stops the lay-by had 2 of their stalls one at each end, we could not buy any cheese or butter because it would not have been allowed into the US. Les however did buy some honey biscuits; a bus stopped whilst we were there, people got out purchased some cheese and got back in again and moved off. (It was not a bus stop).
Mexico is an interesting colorful country with lots of history, some I knew, some not. The food was very good served not as hot as I had expected, but very hot sauce was always on the table for one to add to your meal! They also have a variety of sauces which do come on the plate with your meal, these sauces are called “moles” the one I had and liked very much was “mole negro” some of the ingredients are chilies, banana, chocolate, pepper and cinnamon this makes a dark, spicy sauce served with chicken although I had it with a steak and I can assure you it was delicious! We also had cooked cactus, the prickle pear variety, this too was delicious I thought it was green beans as the cactus was cut into similar shape and size to green beans.
Then of course there has to be a drink, we had spent a very hot afternoon trying to get higher and cooler, I had noticed some shop/yards with very large wooden barrels/casks in them, also the yards had some kind of stone grinders. It was so hot, we were tired so I did not suggest we stopped, however we saw such a place first thing the next morning and stopped. It was for the making of “Mezcal” the cousin to “tequila” which we all know about. The area we were in makes the best in Mexico therefore in the world! This is made from the roots of a cactus; the leaves are made into rope. The guy whose shop we went into showed us the whole process, just in his back yard there seemed to be no kind of control, no water is used, the roots are crushed beneath the grinder with a horse pulling the stone around; then the fiber is put into the casks which turns the fiber into a wonderful sweet damp consistency, we were able to taste this, it was good, had a kind of burnt toffee taste. From there it goes into the still, the finished product is something like brandy, I have a bottle which I will bring home, if you would like a taste!!!
We continued out of Mexico visiting garages as Les has quite a serious oil leak. When we came to the border some how we missed the Mexican border control, we thought we were in the Mexican queue which turned out to be the USA!!!
We had been told so many stories about their security ( having been to the US embassy in London, we had no reason to doubt the stories) However it was very quick and straight forward, the only problem was we had to have an address in theUS - not being prepared for this, Les got out his pen drive, but they could not put that on their computer, then I remembered I had a card from our friends in Prescott, with a zip code, which here in America is a magic code with out which you are stuffed!!!
We had thrown away all the fresh produce, just leaving a few things in the fridge we were not sure off. Butter, bacon and some cheese, I lost the bacon!! The chap that did my inspection asked if, because the bacon was vacuumed packed, it could be given to a Mexican orphanage, much better then throwing it away said I.
So here we are in America. Les and Margaret are flying home June 1st I am staying for 6 weeks to tour around on my own, to make sure that after 2 years of following I can still do it!!! I am coming home 25th July. Then we will come back together in September. I will try and keep you up dated with my solo trips. I am going to do a part of route 66 and then Indian country.
I have to say that so far our visit to the US is jolly good, much more interesting then I had ever imagined.
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