Sylvie's Travels Home

October 27 2022

Pogo and I went to have coffee and fruits at Chepiche Cafe, a coffee shop Max had told us about, literally 30 seconds away from our place. What a pretty oasis it was hidden behind a fence down a few steps. She met us there for a green juice. 

We took off not too long after for a little excursion. 

We drove to Tilcajete, a small village about an hour away, full of murals and alebrijes ( whimsical carvings depicting imaginary creatures painted with intense colors and intricate patterns) to have lunch at a beautiful restaurant called Almu.  It was like sitting in a tropical garden full of beautiful earthtones color pots.  We shared a delicious meal of chicken mole, pork dish and a cheesy meaty casserole thingy. Pogo and Max had pumpkin flower agua fresca and I had a limonade. 

We then drove to Ocotlan and went to the Mercado Morelos mostly to go to La Cocina de Frida, to meet Betsy, the owner, who looks and dresses exactly like Frida. We share a plate of chicken enchiladas not because we were hungry but because we wanted the experience.  We walked around the market which was mostly food. They had a big selection of day of the dead breads.  We spent some time at a famous hat shop, tried a bunch of hats, actually mostly Max as the owner was focusing only on her….I wonder why….but we didn’t buy any. 

On our way back we stopped briefly in Toyotepec because they are well known for their black pottery.  Max bought 3 little vases with an agave carved in them. 

We came back to the house at 4:45pm, changed and walked to the center of town to witness the first parade of the Day of the Dead celebration. It was so much fun!  The costumes and makeups were amazing and so colorful. We arrived before the start of the parade so we took a ton of pictures and videos then went to different places to watch it go by. Towards the end, it got pretty crowded and claustrophobic so we made our way to a different part of town to get a drink. We ran into some of Max’s friends, she met another Maxime for the first time!, and we all treated them to a few drinks. The 3 of us went to La Popular for a late dinner and Max ran into another friend called Nathan. He is a food blogger and we will do an event with him on Sunday of mezcal and mole. 

We came home around 10:30pm and went straight to bed. Some of us fell asleep right away, some of us started writing a blog…

i was so tired to the night before that I forgot to mention that Shaun had sent me a picture of his Halloween costume which I included but didn’t say anything about. Haha! He will be a Nascar redneck. Also, Penny is doing a little better now.