Sylvie's Travels Home

October 30 2022

It was another late night for Max and Hernan so Pogo and I went for breakfast on our own and tried a new place called the Café El Empedrado, about 5 minutes walk from our place. It gave me the opportunity to find more pretty murals. The coffee was hot, the juice was fresh and the croque-madame was delicious even though I couldn’t eat it all, it was so big!  Pogo enjoyed his eggs. We walked a little bit around the neighborhood on our way back.

We went on a little excursion today. We first drove to the Mercado Municipal in Tlacolula. It was an indoor/outdoor market and it was crazy crowded. On Sundays, people come from different villages to sell mostly flowers and food but ladies also wear their traditional colorful dresses and scarves and Max wanted us to see them. It was worth it.  She said the market was busier than ever because people were coming to buy food and flowers for the celebration ahead. Her and Hernan had a bite to eat there. 

We also had to stop at a donut place at a gas station because according to Max, they are the best donuts in the world! We sampled one and it was good!  

Our next stop was Dainzu, an archaeological site. It was small but interesting with a beautiful view and we were the only ones there besides the four legged friend we made. I named her Penny. 

Our final stop was in El Tule to see Arbol del Tule, the widest tree in the world. The Montezuma Cypress measures almost 31 ft wide and is 116 ft tall. It was located in a pretty garden by a small church.  I enjoyed the cute little town square.

We came back to the house at 5pm to rest before dinner.  Max’s friends Aziz and Mar had just opened a restaurant called Beberé and she had been able to make a reservation for us all. It was such a beautiful place and the food was really delicious. Aziz greeted us, offered us a glass of his own family mezcal at the bar and explained the concept behind their restaurant, combining their heritage cooking style. We decided to do the chef’s choice tasting menu for $35 per person. We had 6 servings: guacamole with chicharron for a crispy touch, a tomato and arugula salad with a yogurt, cumin and lime dressing, tacos with mushroom, cheese and crispy corn, steak with mole negro accompanied by baked pumpkin, tamales with melon sorbet and we finished it off with hot chocolate and day of the dead bread. Everything was really delicious. The chef, Aziz, Mar or the servers kept coming to explain the dishes, the mezcal or just to check on us which made us feel really special. They kept bringing mezcal with every dishes. We also ordered some as well as beer. When we were done, we thought Hernan had gone to the bathroom but he had gone to pay the bill behind our backs. He said that they didn’t charge him for any of the alcohol. It was an almost 3 hours experience and we all really enjoyed ourselves.
On our way home we drove through Jalatlaco again to see the decorations at night. We had miss the 8pm parade but still saw some pretty altars.

Meanwhile, just before we had left the house, we had realized that we had no more water and Hernan had checked the water tank and it was empty. Max communicated with the evil owner and she said it was probably because we were taking long hot showers. Yes we have hot water since they changed the water heater but we cannot adjust the water temperature so it’s either boiling hot or freezing cold so believe me, showers are taken really fast. I think she just love giving Max a hard time because Max has had to deal with so many issues with her. She just ignored her the rest of the evening so we had no water to brush our teeth or to flush the toilets when we came home.