We go international for our 200th episode and share the best places to visit in Puebla, Mexico. On this 5 day birthday extravaganza we spend time shopping, eating, drinking, and enjoying Puebla City, Cholula, and Mexico City. This episode has everything we love about Mexico including play-by-play instructions on how to get to Puebla from Mexico City on a two hour bus ride and the best places to visit in Puebla Mexico. We tell where to go for drinks and dancing, food markets, shopping for artisan goods, ancient pyramids, and some of the best places to sit and enjoy the beautiful bustling streets of this region.

Places to Visit in Puebla Mexico – Episode Transcript

2 (59s):
Welcome to this week’s episode of the Travel Squad Podcast. Today we are taking you down to Puebla Mexico to explore this area and recount my birthday trip that I went on last November. I went On this trip with my boyfriend. We stayed at his cousin’s house in Puebla, but we also explored some of the nearby towns like Cholula and spent a night in Mexico City. So you’re gonna get a three for in this episode.

1 (1m 24s):
I’m really excited to hear about this episode Kim, because obviously Jamal and I were not there. And then also I had never really heard of Puebla before or some of the other cities that you had gone to. All I knew was that Puebla is a little bit out of Mexico City and you have to take a bus to get there. And otherwise, I really haven’t heard about this trip much I, all I saw was your social media posts. I’m really excited for you to dive in and share with our listeners, especially because I think smaller cities in Mexico, and I’m not even sure how small these are, but in comparison to Mexico City, smaller, often get overlooked. And I think that this is gonna be a great opportunity for people who are even in Mexico City to do some day trips or weekend trips to these destinations that if they’re visiting that area,

3 (2m 12s):
Keeping with the theme of Brittany, I’m super excited. ’cause you know we here at the Travel, Squad Podcast, love, love, love, love Mexico. Brittany and I, we live a couple exits away. Easy for us to travel throughout. And so Puebla, ironically Brittany said, you know, not too familiar with, I’m familiar enough with it, you know, she says small city thinking that’s the case. It’s actually the fourth largest city in Mexico, if I remember off the top of my head. So it is large, but from what I me, yes. You

2 (2m 42s):
All with with what you know. And I was gonna ask you if you guys had any awareness of Puebla before this, but of course you do. You’re a historian.

3 (2m 51s):
I have a vague recollection and understanding of Puebla. I’m excited to know more about this trip. I know you said it’s kind of like a two for three for, and how you kind of really hop because it is so close to a lot of different places. I know that the city center is a UNESCO World Heritage site, so there’s that going for it and it’s actually starting to become really, really popular on the travel scene. So this is as much knowledge as I have about it, excited to hear about your trip, get inspired for another place in Mexico to go. ’cause even though, again, Brittany maybe described it as small, it is one of those things where if it’s not Mexico City or a tourist destination along the coast, a lot of places in Mexico are really overlooked.

3 (3m 36s):
And there’s these towns and cities that just have distinct charm. And I know that to be a Puebla,

2 (3m 41s):
It’s definitely a charming city. So Puebla, you’re right, it’s the fourth largest city in Mexico. It’s about a two hour drive from Mexico City. When you think about geography-wise, it’s East Central Mexico, it is known for having gorgeous colonial architecture, a deep culinary history. And I’ll get into that a little bit and pottery and I’ll also get into that a little bit. But I, I thought it was super charming. It was giving me one a wato vibes a little bit, but it’s a very unique city of its own. And you’re totally right. It’s it’s way lesser known but amazing. And if you’re in Mexico City and have a couple extra days, I’d highly recommend going,

3 (4m 21s):
You know, Kim real quick before you get deep into it. I’m just really curious to find out. ’cause I, like we’ve said, again, we know it’s the fourth largest city, but photos and everything that I’ve seen online. I know you said the colonial, I’m sure there are some skyscrapers, but is it more like, not it like spread out large versus talls tall skyscrapers and it has that colonial style architecture. Because I’m trying in my head and I’m thinking of parallels to when we, we were in Kyoto, Japan, which is a very large city, but they don’t have skyscrapers and it’s more like classical. So would you say Puebla kind of has that same feel? And I know you weren’t in Japan, but based off of how I described it, would you kind of make that correlation and describe it that way?

3 (5m 3s):
Large, but still classical in a way. From the

2 (5m 5s):
Parts of it that I saw, I wouldn’t call it like a New York City skyscraper type situation. They definitely have modern, new and beautiful buildings and a lot of wealth in Puebla. But there’s also parts of it, like the historic center where it’s still got that really colonial charm. There’s a ton of really beautiful gold guilded churches around there. So it has a lot of that too.

1 (5m 29s):
Well I would imagine if it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site in the downtown area, there’s only so many modifications that they can do to that area because they wanna keep, they can wanna preserve it and keep it historic. So that makes sense to see those gilded beautiful churches in that area, probably just as they were years and years and years ago were restored to be what they were in those times. But Kim, I am so excited for you to dive into tips. Why don’t you start us off there with some tips about Puebla. Just

2 (5m 57s):
A couple tips for Puebla. Uber’s available. So if you’re going, you can definitely catch an Uber. I find that a lot of times Uber can be more affordable than taxis and sometimes more convenient too. Lyft does not run though. I know you guys are big Lyft people. We are, yes. And I am too by the way, because when you connect your Southwest or Chase credit cards, you can get points for Delta by using Lyft with your credit card.

3 (6m 24s):
Very good hack. We do that Kim all the time. Love, love, love Lyft. But sometimes you gotta rock Uber and Uber is more prevalent in other countries than in the US. Case in point, Puebla, Mexico, Uber only.

2 (6m 35s):
And then you can also schedule Uber. So this isn’t really a tip just for Puebla, but a lot of people don’t know this. If you have like an early morning flight or you’re in a place that you’re not sure will be able to catch it over or say it’s gonna be a really busy time, like a festival, you can schedule the Uber. So it’s guaranteed to be there on time. And I have done it many times with great success.

1 (6m 57s):
That’s a great tip. Kim a great general tip for everywhere and even in the US ’cause I know that you’ve used it here too, but that’s a great tip for Puebla as well. Yes,

2 (7m 4s):
One that I used On this trip, so I had to add it here. And then my third and final tip is watch for local tours. I was feeling really ambitious and I booked a tour to go out and see some waterfalls because there were some gorgeous waterfalls in Puebla, but not really realizing that it’s quite a ways away. And I thought the tour was going to pick you up in Puebla, take you on the tour and bring you back. That wasn’t the case though. You have to show up to the meeting point, which was a couple hours away. So we ended up not doing that tour even though we had purchased the tickets, which ended up being fantastic. But just keep that in mind. When booking tours in Puebla, Mexico or really any other country in their local tours, did

1 (7m 44s):
You realize it in enough time to cancel a tour?

2 (7m 47s):
No.

1 (7m 47s):
Okay. Okay. So dive right into her trip. Where did you leave out of? How long did it take to get there? Tell us all about that.

2 (7m 56s):
Okay, so this was a trip that went Thursday to Monday, left Thursday from Austin, flew to Mexico City, had a layover in Houston. You know, I hid the lounge. It was okay. What was

1 (8m 6s):
The spread?

2 (8m 7s):
The spread was not memorable, but there were free drinks.

1 (8m 11s):
Okay, that’s always good.

3 (8m 14s):
Well I know you hit the lounge in Mexico City. Mexico City has tons of lounges in the airport

2 (8m 19s):
Coming home. I did. And that lounge is the best lounge in the world outside of Dubai. Whoa.

1 (8m 26s):
Bold statement.

2 (8m 29s):
So we landed Puebla and because of the layover and whatnot, we get in towards, you know, later in the day the bus station is actually in the airport. So you don’t have to leave the airport, you walk to the bus area, get your bus ticket. But don’t make the mistake we did of buying beers in the airport and thinking we’re gonna bring them onto the bus because you actually have to go through another security to get onto the bus and they don’t take your beers away, but they do make you check them underneath the bus.

1 (8m 58s):
Oh wow. So you said you landed in Puebla?

2 (9m 1s):
Oh sorry, I meant I landed in Mexico City and then we went to the bus station within the airport to take that bus to Puebla.

1 (9m 9s):
Okay, got it.

3 (9m 10s):
And about what would you say is the cost of a bus ticket from Mexico City to Puebla, number one and number two, is it something that you have to book in advance or you think you need reservations or they have so many buses that hey, just show up, buy your ticket, you’re good to go.

2 (9m 24s):
There are buses leaving like every 30 minutes and the price was, I wanna say around 30 but definitely less than 50.

3 (9m 32s):
And you’re talking US dollars not pesos, I have to imagine, right? Correct. Okay. ’cause I was gonna say at 50 pesos you had me really excited at two 50 for a a bus ticket.

1 (9m 42s):
And is that one way or round trip?

2 (9m 44s):
That is one way. And I’ve been on other buses in Mexico that gave sandwiches and water it. This one did provide a water bottle but unfortunately no sandwich.

1 (9m 54s):
And they took away your beers.

2 (9m 55s):
Yes, we did get some food in the airport though, so it was all good.

1 (9m 59s):
Okay.

2 (9m 60s):
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2 (12m 18s):
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3 (13m 16s):
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2 (13m 23s):
Once we arrived in Puebla Louise’s cousin picked us up and we went straight to a place that they know and that they love for dinner and drinks. Now I just wanna caveat to everyone listening, I am not of Latin descent and I cannot pronounce a lot of these Spanish words so I’m going to butcher a lot of things in this episode, but just give a little bit of grace. So the restaurant name that we went to is AGU Lure. Sina ETOs told you I was gonna butcher it but it’s an amazing restaurant if you are going to Puebla, I would highly recommend it. It’s gorgeous. The interior design is gorgeous.

2 (14m 5s):
They have a mezcaleria inside of there. So the cocktails were amazing. I can’t remember the name of the cocktail I got, but it was delicious and it had a salt kind of like tahin looking rim on it. Ah it was crushed up worm. Crushed

1 (14m 19s):
Up worm.

2 (14m 20s):
Yeah and it was actually good.

3 (14m 22s):
I’ve never had a worm in Mexico quite yet. Kim. So you beat us to it by having the worm won’t lie.

1 (14m 28s):
I would love to ask her squatty tequila or mezcal. So I’m gonna, when this episode airs, we’re gonna have to post that poll because mezcal has a very distinct flavor. I think it kind of tastes smoky and it’s not my favorite. I love tequila, I’m a die hard tequila fan. But some people love mezcal To me though, it tastes like a rubber tire. But some people love it.

2 (14m 54s):
Yeah, it can be a little bit harsh but when you make it in a good cocktail it’s really good. And I think after JP P’S wedding after party, that was the drink there, mezcal and Ha Micah Juice. And ever since then I have loved it. It’s really good.

3 (15m 10s):
Kim. Tell me real quick a little bit, ’cause I know you said you were staying with Louis’s cousins, so obviously to a degree you had local guides, they’re from there. And I know we talk a lot of times sometimes too about how it’s really great if you have a local kind of show you around because you’ll get a lot more insight and see cooler things than when you do research online. So I would just want to throw this out to the squads. If you have friends living in any city in the US that you haven’t been to or even internationally, you know, you go in somewhere, hit them up because they’re definitely gonna know a lot more. But what type of insight do you think you got a little bit and how do you think your trip would be different if you didn’t have those local guides, so to speak?

2 (15m 52s):
I’m so glad you brought that up because it would’ve been totally different. Louis’s cousin’s birthday was also the same week of mine, so we were kind of celebrating and he’s got a lot of friends and very social loves to party. So we did a lot of that. And the places that we go out to eat, they already know them, they’re driving. And so if we had done this on our own, we would’ve probably explored more and popped into places and bopped around a little bit more. Whereas On, this trip, we kind of knew where we were going and I didn’t even know where we were going, but they knew where we were going.

1 (16m 30s):
Right.

2 (16m 31s):
It

1 (16m 31s):
Was, well do you remember your post from this night and you guys, it looked like you guys had a lot to drink and there was some good food at this restaurant, right?

2 (16m 40s):
We did. So we had a, a couple of drinks there, some really great like tacos and cheese and small bites and whatnot. And then right after that we changed in the car and went clubbing. We hit haw kaan haw kaon

3 (16m 55s):
Haw Kaon, Puebla Kim.

1 (16m 57s):
No

2 (16m 57s):
I, I don’t remember the name of the club. There’s actually a lot of clubs in Puebla, a great nightlife scene there. But we got bottle service v i p table, we were dancing, bunch of their friends came and they were playing American music too. So it was like Britney Spears, lady Gaga and like Louis’s cousin and all of his friends are like gay boys and so they were just the funnest people to dance with at the club. They were so cool.

1 (17m 22s):
That’s great. Sounds right up your alley with the v i p bottle service and clubbing. But how, real question, how late did you stay out because you’re over 30, so I kind of wonder like what your tolerance is these days to staying out in clubbing? Well,

3 (17m 37s):
Before Kim answers, I’m gonna come into her defense. We’ve had this conversation when Kim is in another country, she can rage it when Kim is domestic in the US Kim over 30 reigns supreme.

2 (17m 48s):
You are absolutely right Jamal, you have my back because always I go up to like 5:00 AM this night.

1 (17m 54s):
Wow, okay. I’m impressed. I’m impressed.

2 (17m 59s):
So that was Thursday, Friday when we woke up we woke up to the most beautiful views. His house is at the La Vista Country Club. He literally lives on a golf course. His backyard has no fence, it is the golf course. So there’s, you know, golf daddies roaming around on their golf courts and there’s a gorgeous view of volcano from the patio. So we’re just sitting out there and we’re having champagne because it’s our birthdays and brings out a birthday cake and we have, you know, little bites to eat. So we had a really relaxing morning slash afternoon out there and that was nice. After that, once the sun kind of started going down, we you know, got ready to go out for the night.

2 (18m 41s):
We were planning to hit another club that night, but before that we needed to go get dinner and we went to the cutest district, it’s called Val Cico. And it’s basically a foot traffic only district made of cobblestone streets. It feels very medieval, very Italian or European style village. Super, super quaint. It has tons of boutique shops, cafes, restaurants, there were people playing live music. There was even somebody riding around on a horse lighting up all the fire pits and fire torches out here.

1 (19m 18s):
Wow, that does sound really medieval when you first said that it was a pedestrian only city. It reminded me of Venice, how you can only drive so far and then other than that you have to walk all of the canals and streets and alleys and things like that. So immediately it put me like in a European style vibe in this city.

2 (19m 38s):
Yeah, it was like that. I would say if you’re comparing it to Venice, it’d be a lot smaller. There’s tons of parking and a lot and then you kind of walk into it and it’s kind of a smaller district. You could definitely spend a few hours there but not like Venice where you would spend like a week there or a weekend there. But it was really, really cute. We went to this great Italian restaurant and had really good pasta and sangria and then we kind of wrapped it up there and after walking around just a little bit we, you know, I think at this point it was probably like not eight or 9:00 PM which was too early to hit the club. We were, we were thinking about going to the club at like, I don’t know, midnight, but I was kind of tired, you know, we had this relaxing morning with champagne and whatnot and so we were day drinking and I came over 30.

2 (20m 32s):
I couldn’t really pull it out for the second night.

3 (20m 36s):
Hey sometimes you need a little rest and relaxation. It looks like you guys still had a good second day. So no complaining on that.

1 (20m 44s):
And what day was it that you were supposed to go to the waterfall?

2 (20m 47s):
This was going to be the next day Saturday.

1 (20m 50s):
Oh

2 (20m 50s):
Okay. So yeah, we went to sleep. You know, we stayed up kind of late anyway I would say like 1:00 AM even though we were just hanging out at the house after dinner. So we, we went to sleep after that. We were planning to wake up and attempt to get a bus to where they were going to pick us up for the tour. But by the time we woke up I just didn’t feel like it, honestly.

1 (21m 13s):
No, it’s okay. You know, while you’re on vacation, don’t force yourself always to do things you don’t necessarily wanna do in the moment. So I could totally see it both ways. I feel like if you could, if you did go, you would’ve enjoyed it and had a really good time. But if that’s not what you were feeling that it’s okay to say like, all right, we’re gonna skip this this time and do something else instead.

2 (21m 34s):
Yeah, that’s a a really good tidbit there. Especially when it is a vacation where you are doing a lot of celebrating, try not to overexert yourself with morning plans. But I’m actually glad that we didn’t go because on Saturday we were able to explore some of the nearby cities and if we had gone to the waterfall tour we wouldn’t have been able to see Cholula. And Cholula is a city that’s nearby Puebla. It’s just a short drive away, I wanna say like 15 ish minutes. And it is a great city. You may hear the word Cholula and be thinking of a certain hot sauce.

3 (22m 14s):
I was gonna ask, did you bring any back real

2 (22m 16s):
Authentic one? No, we didn’t bring any back but this is where the name comes from it, it does originate there and, and so I mentioned earlier that culinary history that’s here and it certainly does exist here. Mole poblano is another form of mole that is really good. I love mole. So I was really, really excited to try it. There were a number of things on my list that I wanted to do or buy or see and this was one of them. So when we went to Cholula we were walking around a little bit and the first thing I noticed is there’s shopping everywhere, every like store you look into, there’s markets, there’s vendors like tons of shopping. So I’m looking around, my eyes are all wide and excited.

2 (22m 58s):
We end up going into this market. It’s a food market so I can’t exactly remember the name but I love food markets in Mexico. There’s just meat hanging everywhere, there’s cheese, there’s vegetables. Like we don’t really have that type of experience here in the US so I love to see that in Mexico and other countries. And this was kind of like that. And then they have these really small enclaves where there’s restaurants and there’s you know, stews and everything all around. So we sat down there, we got a mole poblano and a couple of other things. What makes Molay poblano unique from other molests is it’s still that thick sauce but it’s a rich red, like dark reddish brown color.

2 (23m 39s):
It has chilies, fruits, nuts, seeds and Mexican chocolate. And it’s just a really unique spin on that flavor was very, very delicious.

1 (23m 47s):
That sounds really good Kim. And what I was thinking of as you were talking about the market was it gave me Cusco vibes when we would see the markets in Cusco and they would have the meat hanging and then you know, get the big gorgeous avocados and then like little restaurants and sides so that you could try some of the different cuisines. That’s the type of vibe that although I wasn’t there it gave me,

2 (24m 10s):
Well you are spot on. It’s like you were there and there’s tons of other shopping too. You there, you know there’s tons of vendors for drinks. So Micheladas, I got a mojito like the most beautiful extra large gourmet mojito I’ve ever had. And then you can walk around and kind of shop and take in the sites with your drink, which is really nice. It’s like it’s allowed but people aren’t obnoxious about it, which is really cool. But this area is really cool. We sat down somewhere, had another drink and the place that we sat down, not that it’s a memorable place, there’s a lot of places to sit down, but what was really cool about it is that right behind us are ancient pyramids.

1 (24m 51s):
Oh that’s so,

2 (24m 52s):
And you know how I feel about ancient pyramids,

3 (24m 55s):
You know, I actually am well aware that there are pyramids in Cholula and ruins and I was gonna say if Kim didn’t go I was gonna be completely shocked. So I’m happy to hear that you actually went,

2 (25m 8s):
I won’t even attempt to pronounce the name of this pyramid, but you can also call it the great pyramid of Cholula. And I’ve seen pyramids in other places that have the tip still this one does not have the tip and you know how we feel about the tip. So

3 (25m 24s):
Tip always count. That’s a shame.

2 (25m 28s):
I loved it because it’s really, really intact with the part that’s still there and just looks absolutely amazing. But the tip was not there. So

1 (25m 36s):
I know some pyramids you can climb up and like get great views from and some of them don’t anymore. Is this one that still allows you to climb up it or near it to get a great view out or not?

2 (25m 48s):
Unfortunately you’re not able to climb up it. There’s a fence around it but there is a hill with a million stairs that you can climb next to it. Once you start climbing those stairs you kind of lose the pyramid sight altogether. But what’s cool at the top of this hill is there’s this beautiful church up there that you can go inside Our Lady of Remedies church. It’s a 16th century Mexican Catholic church. It has gorgeous like gold gilding inside. It was really, really pretty. And then of course from the top of that hill you have amazing 360 views of the area.

1 (26m 27s):
That’s amazing. It sounds like a beautiful site and I’m glad you got to visit the pyramid and the church because who doesn’t love a little twofer? And you probably didn’t realize at the beginning of the day that this was gonna be an easy day. Did you?

2 (26m 41s):
No, no I didn’t. It was kind of warm too. So

3 (26m 46s):
I was just gonna say for any squatty out there you should really Google the great pyramid of Cholula and just get an image of this. It’s really interesting. It’s like what is left of the pyramids that the toll tech because a lot of people in Mexico would think Mayan, Aztec, but it’s the toll techs who built this one. It isn’t into that hillside like you said, missing the top and then of course the church is up there. But when you were up at the church, I know from images that there’s this really beautiful volcano that you can see from there. So when you were at the top, tell us a little bit about it. ’cause a lot of people don’t realize the surrounding area of Mexico City is all volcanic and I know you’re not too far from Mexico city in this area.

3 (27m 28s):
So did you get a good view of the volcano that’s right there?

2 (27m 31s):
Yeah, we were able to see the volcano and there’s a couple volcanoes around that area. I’d mentioned the at his cousin’s house on the golf course there’s a volcano view from his window and you can see it from the patio and that’s really cool. And what’s really cool too is that these volcanoes are still active so pretty regularly they smoke up. It wasn’t like that when we saw it but that’s really cool.

1 (27m 56s):
You also mentioned that when you were in Cholula and at the marketplace there was a ton of shopping. Did you do any personal shopping for yourself?

2 (28m 4s):
Of course I did.

1 (28m 6s):
We went, oh that’s why I had to ask.

2 (28m 10s):
We went into a few places and there was this lamp that’s made of quartz and it’s like a rectangle lamp really heavy and beautiful the way the light comes through. And I had been looking at them not that long before going and I’d seen some pretty hefty prices on them. So when I saw this one in Cholula and it was pretty affordable, I think it was 30 US dollars, I took that home for sure. Even though I had almost no room in my suitcase, I still made it work.

1 (28m 39s):
Kim’s gonna have to post a picture when this episode launches. Yeah so you guys can all see

2 (28m 44s):
It’s gorgeous at night. Oh my god it’s so pretty. And then the other thing I got was this figurine decor piece of a white and black jaguar and it’s probably like a foot long and it sits on my credenza underneath my TV and I love it and it’s beautiful.

1 (29m 1s):
Very nice. You know when we were in Morocco we picked up a lamp too and before we used to be like pretty much only picking up Christmas ornaments ’cause we’re not big knickknack people but I feel like when it really adds decor to your home and you have a spot for it, it’s a different type of experience when you go shopping.

2 (29m 18s):
Totally. Yeah, I agree with you. I don’t like a bunch of little things everywhere but like a lamp or a decor piece. Yeah, hell yeah. Cholula is also really cool. Like you could really spend a lot of time here. I think we only spent, you know, four hours or so here, but during that time right by the pyramids where we were walking around with our mojitos, there were also entertainment performers there. I’m not sure, I’m sure there’s a name for it but I’m not exactly sure what it is. But they are on ropes, there’s two people on ropes and they go up to the top of the pole and then they swing around it until they get back down to the ground and it takes them interesting five, 10 minutes to get back to the ground.

2 (30m 2s):
So they’re doing that the whole time. There’s you know, tons of vendors and shopping and we, the one last thing that we did here that we really wanted to do in Mexico City last time we had gone but we didn’t end up getting the chance to was get tacos de Canasta. And these are a certain type of fried taco that are only sold off of the back of someone riding their bike through town. So you have to catch them with tacos and only certain times a day.

1 (30m 29s):
That sounds kind of fun. Like that’s like a model adventure trying to find these tacos where to get them and someone’s like cruising around town with them. I’ve never heard of them but that sounds really awesome.

2 (30m 40s):
Yeah, we wanted to get it in Mexico City because I think it’s the, oh I can’t remember what neighborhood it is, but there’s a certain neighborhood in Mexico City that sells them. So we were not expecting to see them in Cholula at all, but when we saw the guy with the bike, we knew what he had and we like, were like wait, wait, wait and stopped and came back for us and they were amazing. So continuing on with our tour of the area from Cholula, we went and drove back to Puebla because there was a few certain things that I wanted to get on my list that I had going on my list I, I had this particular piece of pottery, this like serving dish and I had the Cajon de los Savos that I really wanted to see.

2 (31m 25s):
Luckily we got both of those in the same area. So when you get to Puebla you’ll see tons of vendors. Like if you thought Cholula had shopping, Puebla has shopping and they have a lot of pottery and a lot of really beautiful hand-painted pottery. And so the piece that I had in my mind that I knew I wanted is this very large like circular serving dish as the base and then inside of it there are like six or so smaller serving dishes that form the circle and then a dish in the middle. All of the pieces are individual so you could take them out. And I had originally seen this last time we’d gone to Veracruz, we went into a restaurant and they had this and it was the coolest thing.

2 (32m 7s):
There was like Kania Sada here and chicken in this one and guac in this one and limes in this one. And then, you know, so it was just the most amazing like family style dish for eating Mexican food and I loved it. And so I knew like that area was kind of known for this type of stuff and I was hoping to find one but wasn’t trying to get my hopes up. But luckily we went to the Cajon de los Savos and boom bam bam they were everywhere. Kim,

3 (32m 37s):
I actually think it’s Cajon de los Sapos with a P instead of a B on that. And it actually translates to ally of the frogs if I’m not mistaken. I’m trying to work on my Spanish a little bit. So I, I’m pretty confident that that’s what that is. But nonetheless if

2 (32m 56s):
You’re looking it up then you’re probably seeing beautiful, colorful artistic it. It’s the most gorgeous alley alleyway I should say. It’s more like a street. It has installations where you can take pictures like we took one with this giant photo frame and the gorgeous street behind us. There’s tons of vendors, it’s very, very artsy in this area. Very creative. That’s where that hand painted pottery comes in. Like everything’s just decorated and beautiful and I think that’s why I was kind of getting, wanna wato vibes here ’cause it, it’s got that artsiness to it. So

1 (33m 29s):
Kim, you had talked about this serving dish that you just purchased and you went in November. So have you used it yet? Oh

2 (33m 37s):
Yeah definitely. We always use it for taco night because you can separate everything and it’s just really cute.

1 (33m 44s):
I just imagine it, imagine using it for taco nights ’cause you could do your meat, your cheese, your guacamole, your salsa all on different little dishes and then get what you want or what you don’t want and then just make your own little plate for it.

2 (33m 58s):
Yeah it’s really good for that. I, I think you could do an assortment of appetizers like different types of chips or nuts and things like that too

1 (34m 7s):
And veggies and dip.

2 (34m 9s):
I don’t like my food to touch, you know,

1 (34m 12s):
Multi nooses, furry water.

2 (34m 15s):
This part of Puebla is really, really cute. Super walkable. This is where those, the architecture comes in beautiful churches, there’s people everywhere and I find that a lot in Mexico and I love that about it. People, families, couples sitting on benches, just enjoying the parks and the plazas and it’s very much happening in this area.

3 (34m 36s):
That’s really cool. And that’s one of my favorite things about when we go to other countries is parks are a big deal and you see people in their everyday lives just going to the park, sitting, having a drink, hanging out with friends and that’s something that needs to be brought here to the US as like a cultural thing. But that’s really cool that you gotta experience that while you’re out there. ’cause that’s one of my favorite things when we go to other countries is seeing that

2 (34m 59s):
This is one of the times that if we had done this trip on our own we probably would’ve gotten a table down, you know, court side where people were sitting and walking around. But instead of doing that we went with his cousin up to a rooftop restaurant, which I loved. It

3 (35m 17s):
Was called Doesn’t Surprise me that you found a rooftop bar or a restaurant while you were with Eric Go.

2 (35m 21s):
And it was amazing. It was called Hook black restaurant in the central historic district. It’s got a gorgeous view of what’s going on down below. It’s got a gorgeous view of some of the churches around there. The rooftop is amazing, it’s kind of more of a classy place. So some of the dishes were a little unique, a little more Seafoody had great mezcal cocktails here too and if you wanna really have a dinner, I think it would be really great to get a steak there because they actually bring the steaks out to your tableside for you to choose the one that you want. So they love that. Yeah, it’s like that super high touch service you can expect that there. And I, I do wish that we had more time in Puebla because it would’ve been nice to walk around and explore and take things a little slower here.

2 (36m 6s):
But even though it was several days of a trip, it went by really fast And then you know when you’re with a local there you’re kind of going to the places that they, they really like and they want to take you to. So I definitely need to go back. But at at this point we kind of wrapped it up and went back to the house because it was his cousin’s birthday and my birthday, he was having a birthday party

1 (36m 31s):
At the house. You love a good party.

2 (36m 34s):
Oh and it was amazing. And this was not just any party, there were tables set up with tablecloths and a giant balloon arch and od d’oeuvres being passed and music and people singing and you know, his friends came over, everybody was dressed up nice. So that was really fun dancing and everybody was super nice and friendly.

1 (36m 55s):
It sounds literally right up your alley like I think I would’ve pretended it was my dirty 30 again.

2 (37m 1s):
It was really fun. And you know, we were kind of hungry because at this, at the restaurant that we had gone to on the rooftop, we didn’t really eat a lot. We had a, you know a couple bites of things but not a full on meal. So we were kind of starving when we got back to the house and the party was getting going. We actually Uber eats some food to the house so they do have Uber Eats there. It was a paste restaurant and we got everything like quesadilla tacos, deconstructed quesadilla was the best pastor ever had in my life. It was so good off of Uber Eats.

3 (37m 40s):
I’m getting really jealous hearing about it ’cause I love me some good pastora when I am in Mexico and it’s one of those things where could either be like hit or miss. Sometimes you get it and it’s kind of like dry and not very good but when you get primetime pastor ooh good.

2 (37m 57s):
So we went to bed at about 3:00 AM and the party was definitely still going. We could hear people singing at the top of their lungs until like eight in the morning. Oh my gosh. In the morning when we came down a few people were still up and like getting ready to go to bed and they were like, what time did you go to sleep? And we said 3:00 AM They’re like, well it’s early.

1 (38m 21s):
I feel like whenever we’re in Mexico you always expect to stay up late. Like when we went to the me the wedding in Mexico City. Yeah, things get started and you’re serving food at like two, 3:00 AM the party doesn’t end till much later.

2 (38m 37s):
Oh yeah, definitely to be expected there. But nevertheless, that last day there on Sunday we did have to head back to Mexico City and we decided to do this because one, we love Mexico City, we wanted to spend some time there but two, our flight on Monday morning was very early in the morning, I think like 7:00 AM So it just made sense for us to get back there and spend the night there. So we’re closer, closer to the airport than that two hour bus ride because this was now just us two now we’re, you know, we have a little bit of privacy. We decided to rent this Airbnb that was this gorgeous Japanese theme, three story Airbnb in the Kohan neighborhood.

2 (39m 18s):
It was so cool. Like everything was so spot on to the theme of of Japan and just absolutely amazing. I wish I could have spent more time at the Airbnb honestly. You know

1 (39m 28s):
I did see one of your pictures that you sent to me or you posted where it maybe had it on stories where they had the really big bathtub and like rose petals, right?

2 (39m 39s):
Yes. That was part of the reason why I wanted to rent it because this is my birthday right? So I’m living on my birthday dreams here and in this Japanese Airbnb they offered a rose petal service where if you pay a small fee they will bring you a giant tub of rose petals and they’ll, they’ll draw the bath for you. But I didn’t have them do it because we had gone out and so we took a bath full of red rose petals and the bath was on the third top story on the outdoor terrace. So it was an outdoor bath at night filled with rose pedals.

1 (40m 14s):
Oh I didn’t realize it was outdoors. That’s so cool.

2 (40m 18s):
They had champagne too and I would’ve popped it but at this point I am kind of, I’m over. It

3 (40m 24s):
Could only go so hard. Kim over 30.

2 (40m 26s):
Yeah and we had a really early morning the next day so we did get to go out in Ayaan. We went to another food market there. It’s Mercado de Comida. I highly recommend going there. There were so many good food places to eat. We got this delicious quesadilla that was like fried with amazing like shredded chicken in. It was so, so good. I was stuffed and I was still like, I think I want one more thing. And that was nice too there, there was some type of holiday going on apparently because even though this was a Sunday night, there were people out everywhere, vendors everywhere, families everywhere. So it was a very bustling Sunday night out there. And I think we went back to the room about 10 did did our beautiful rose petal bath, got up early the next morning, had our Uber scheduled to pick us up at 5:00 AM did not want to bother with the subway in Mexico City during mor Monday morning traffic.

1 (41m 22s):
You didn’t because like you had a bad experience on the subway before in Mexico City or

2 (41m 28s):
I’m traumatized from that one experience doing rush hour on the subway that one time. Like I don’t know if I’ll ever go back

3 (41m 37s):
And I feel like that’s a good time to Squad tip and interject to anybody who hasn’t been to Mexico City and looking to go their subways are very crowded. If you guys have listened to previous episodes and may recollect, that’s actually the only place I’ve ever had anything stolen from me in travels is on that subway in Mexico City. And you know we had gone, we were there on a weekend and we heard all those stuff like oh it’s so crowded, this, that and the other. And we’re like, what’s everybody talking about? It’s not too bad. Lo and behold we’re leaving on a Monday and that’s the first time that we use it and it is a shit show in there with just the crowds and everything like that. So if you can definitely do avoid the subway.

3 (42m 20s):
So good call on that one. Well

1 (42m 21s):
Jamal you said you got something stolen on the subway when we were there, we didn’t even make it onto the subway, we made the

3 (42m 28s):
Platform. That’s true. We couldn’t even make it onto the subway ’cause it was so crowded. I was on the platform when my phone got jacked from my pocket. Very correct. Brittany, thank you for that correction.

2 (42m 38s):
Absolutely. We did hit the v i p lounge in the airport here in Mexico City. The best lounge you can order off of a menu. They have a full bar. Although I actually did not get a drink here. Shannon

1 (42m 51s):
Didn’t get a drink

3 (42m 52s):
If Kim didn’t even do champagne in the Rose bath. I am sure the early the next morning she still wasn’t feeling a drink. Sometimes

1 (43m 0s):
She does mimosas.

3 (43m 1s):
Well sometimes you need the hair of the dog in you after all that drink and no doubt. But you know what, it sounds like the first couple days they rocked it real hard so I don’t Yeah,

2 (43m 10s):
Absolutely. It was an amazing trip though. It was great to see his cousin and get shone around like that and there’s so much more to see so I will definitely be going back. Well

1 (43m 20s):
I’m super excited that we heard all about it. It sounds like a perfect trip. I do have a few questions for you. First question is, how much would you say this trip cost you

2 (43m 29s):
Guys? I don’t actually know how much the flight cost because it was part of my birthday gift. So for me it was free. So Squad tip kid traveled for free from for your birthday present and then we stayed with his cousin for the first couple nights. The Airbnb in Mexico City I wanna say was like one 50 for the night, which is high for Mexico but it was this grand theme and that included the rose petal bath. So it was a little bit of a splurge.

3 (43m 57s):
So I guess kind of get a better idea since those circumstances, circumstances really hinder you from giving like a true cost of course. But what would you say in terms of drinks and food and transportation while you’re traveling about between Puebla, Cholula, Mexico City, all that stuff. Very reasonably priced I would say then, right? Maybe the hotels and stuff you can’t really say, but food wise not too expensive, right?

2 (44m 23s):
No, absolutely not. You know, typically in the US let’s just say a drink is 10 bucks in Mexico, it’s probably, depending on what you get, like a beer could be two bucks a a cocktail could be five to seven depending on what you’re getting and where you’re at. Food, the same thing. Like you could expect it to be a few dollars less than what you’d see regularly in the us. Transportation-wise we drove to a lot of places. So it’s super drivable. The bus ticket I think was around 30 each way. So also super affordable. Mexico in general is a much more affordable place to travel than the US and that was certainly there in Puebla.

3 (45m 1s):
That’s really awesome. And I wanna say too, I want to give distinction when you’re talking those prices in generalities for Mexico, of course we are not including any of the hotspots like Cancun, Tulum, Cabo, those places are a racket. You could expect American prices. But anywhere else within Mexico that’s not super touristy like that, especially along the ocean and coast. Those are the general prices that you’re gonna find.

2 (45m 26s):
Yeah and even though it’s not a touristy destination for the US it very much is for Mexicans. There were tons of tourists there. Oh,

1 (45m 35s):
That’s really good to know. So I know you went to a few different places, On this trip, but if you were only to spend your time in Puebla, how many days would you say you need in Puebla to really get a good feel for it?

2 (45m 47s):
I would say two full days or maybe three days with the travel in there. And especially if you’re staying somewhere more central where it’s walkable and you don’t need to take a an Uber or a taxi from place to place. You can definitely do it in two days and and really drink it up. Awesome. No pun intended.

1 (46m 6s):
Well is there anything else, Kim, that you wanna share with our listeners?

2 (46m 10s):
No, I mean I think I covered it all. If you take this trip and you go to those waterfalls, let me know if they really were as hyped up as I thought they were and and that’s all.

3 (46m 19s):
Well Kim, you got me super hyped to check out Puebla. We’re a short flight away here from Tijuana to Mexico City, not too far off from Puebla. So you’ve inspired us to go and Tijuana Wato too. I still can’t believe Brittany and I haven’t been to those. So maybe coming up soon since the first time was there. Taken around by locals. You have a lay of the land Squad trip. We’re going to Puebla and we’re gonna get a little bit more cultural on it. Huh?

2 (46m 46s):
Add it to the books.

3 (46m 47s):
There you go.

2 (46m 48s):
All right, Squatty, thank you so much for tuning into our episode this week. Keep the adventures going with us on social. Follow us on Instagram, YouTube TikTok at Travel Squad Podcast. And send us in your question

3 (47m 0s):
If you found the information, this episode would be useful. Or if you thought we were just playing funny, please be sure to share it with a friend that would enjoy it too. And as always guys, please subscribe, rate and review our podcast and tune in every travel Tuesday for new episodes.

1 (47m 14s):
Stay tuned for next week’s episode. We have some more amazing adventures and tips in store for you. Bye squadies!