Last Monday (17th) we took a side trip to Tlaxcala state to a small town called Ayometla where his brother in law is from (Sofia's husband). We had to drive thru Puebla city and had some great views of the volcanoes Popocatepel and Ixtaciapan (or something like that). The drive was only a little over an hour on the toll road and the city of Puebla seems like the nicest large city we've in. All the roads were well marked and the areas we saw on the south side were very clean. There are lots of modern malls there. We did not have time to go downtown and see the plaza (zocalo as they call any city's central plaza) so we plan on doing that next week when we are at his family's house for another week since it makes a good day trip.
We had lunch with his brother in law Jose's family and it was very good. Lots of authentic Mexican food like these gordita looking things that had a very hard name I can never remember and some bean tamales and wonderful green salsa. They had this sauna type thing that looked like a cement igloo. We did not go inside but I can't imagine the need to add extra heat to yourself here. Although I must say that Tlaxcala state is higher in the mountains than Felipe's town and it was probably at least 10 degrees cooler there. A very welcome relief since Saturday and Sunday (15th & 16th) were at least 95.
After lunch we drove about 45 minutes north to Tlaxcala City which is fairly small for "big city" standards at around 90,000 people. Most of the city is in a valley and very near the volcano La Malinche. There was a nice church and some very interesting buildings around the zocalo, very European architecture. We were there with our nephew Ernesto, Felipe's sister Sofia and her sister in law, Carmella. After a short walk around the craft market we walked past an ancient church and an out of use bull ring and then winded through the streets a little ways and had to climb the 300 stairs back up to the car. There are fountains all the way down the center of the stair case but unfortunately they were turned off for cleaning.
After a quick stop at a market we made our way back to Ayometla where they generously fed us another meal before our trip home. Unfortunately we got a little lost going through Puebla city but we ended up getting out of the city limits before dark. Sadly we had to drive the hour back to his town in the dark but we made it all right.
On Tuesday we went to a nearby town for a Feria which is basically a street market. They had all kinds of wonderful things there. Felipe bought some things to send home with our friend Maren for his brothers. We bought a mortar and pestal that is shaped like a turtle and some little coffee cups that look like miniature Mexican jars. There was lots of candy and people selling fruit on a stick. I tried sugar cane for the first time. I liked the flavor but I didn't like the fact that you chew it and then end up spitting most of it out again. We tried to go early in the day and were there by 10am but by 1pm when we were leaving it was very, very crowded. Sometime in the last hour I ended up getting my purse slashed. I was lucky nothing was stolen. Mexico is infamous for purse slashings and I should have listed to Felipe better and kept my purse in front of me but my hands were loaded with stuff and I forgot and let it fall behind me. I never really took the threat seriously in a small town like we were in. I thought it was mainly a concern in bigger towns but I guess you need to watch out all over. So far that's been the only bad thing that's happened to us on the trip. I was very sad since it was a special "travel" purse from the AAA store that was supposed to be more secure but they must use really sharp knives because it went through all 5 layers. Felipe's sister Filogonia had her purse slashed in Mexico City and they actually slashed her hip too so at least I'm fortunate that didn't happen!
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