A City Called "Town"

Imagine you founded a town and everyone called it Town. Super creative, right? Like naming your dog "dog" or your daughter "girl child" or refusing to name your car forcing your family members to refer to it as The Car That Shall Not Be Named.

The trees are cut in the shapes of birdhouses!

Now, further imagine that you built in a halfway spot that was between the main port of a colony and the capital city of the colony, giving goods caravans a place to stop, stay, sell, buy, and rest. Good spot, right? But because it is so excellently placed, the town grows. People move in, new colonists, indigenous people, people from smaller nearby villages. The town grows until it becomes a city. But what do you do about the name? Everyone still calls it Town. Do you tell everyone, "Hey! Stop that! We're changing the name to City." You know, an Istanbul, Not Constantinople moment. Or do you just shrug and say, "Okay, call it what you want. It's fine, it's all fine."

Pretty colors

This isn't just some hypothetical, dreamed up scenario. This is a vastly simplified sketch of the history of Puebla, Mexico. It starts, according to legend, with a dream. The year is 1530. The place is New Spain (which is present day Mexico.) A bishop wakes from a dream. He writes a letter to the Queen of Spain about his dream. She needs to start a new town in New Spain, halfway between the port city of Veracruz and the main city, Mexico City. But the good bishop has had a dream in which he saw the place, exactly where the new town should be. How did he know this was the place? Because in his dream he saw angels descend from heaven and trace out the major roads of the town.

Chickens for sale in the market

The queen agrees about the need for the town. (Did she agree that probably angels showed the bishop where to put it? That's not as clear.) So she says, go forth, my bishop, find this place and start this new town. He does, setting out from his monastery with several other priests and monks. And around 15 miles later, he finds the very spot, or so he says, in his dream. And because the angels guided him to it, the new town is named Puebla de los Ángeles, because puebla means town and you can figure out what the rest of the words mean. It is Town of the Angels. (This is about 250 years before Los Angeles, California is founded. So the good bishop didn't steal the name from the north.)

I don't know what kind of business Karmona is, but they have a beautiful mural.

The town was founded in 1531, and a year later, it was doing so well that the queen designates it a city! Hooray! But she didn't change the name. It doesn't become the City of the Angels, but rather, the City of the Town of the Angels. And most people just call it Puebla, so it is the city of Town.

Decorative Arch along Calle de Los Dulces or Sweets Street

Let's fast forward a few centuries. In the 1860s, France invades Mexico, you know, like you do when your an imperial power. There's a major battle in Puebla in which the French forces are defeated by the Mexican defenders. The Mexicans are led by Ignacio Zaragoza and they win this decisive battle on May 5, 1862. In honor of the victory, Benito Juárez declares Cinco de Mayo a Mexican holiday. What's more, he changes the name of the city, dropping those angels and substituting a human. It is now Puebla de Zaragoza, which is still its name today. But like before, everyone just calls it Puebla. (And now it has over three million people in it. That's a big town.)

Church of St. Christopher

Alrica and I had a lot of fun exploring the Historic Center of Puebla, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Some of its architecture goes back to the 16th century, not too long after it was founded.

Entrance to Capillo del Rosario

We visited the Capillo del Rosario, which is the chapel of the Virgin of the Rosary. The interior is covered in gold. There are all these amazing statues. Normally, I don't take picture inside of places of worship, unless they indicate it is okay. Here the rule was "just don't use the flash," so I didn't use the flash.

Wall behind the main altar

Arches and Gold (but not the Golden Arches)

We visited a market that was both unsurprising and surprising. The unsurprising parts: You could buy fruits, beans, meats, vegetables, bread, and even a few home goods. The surprising parts: There were two different shrines inside the marketplace. If you need to pray to the Virgin Mary to improve your haggling, you don't have far to go. Another surprise, there was an internet cafe inside the market.

I can buy and pray in the same place? Talk about convenience!

We went by the Barrio del Artista, the Artist's neighborhood. Here there are studios/galleries of several local sculptors and painters. There is also a nearby Market for Artisans called El Parián. There we saw a snake in the street! Okay, it was painted cobblestones, but it sounds more dramatic if I leave that part out.

Hiss, hiss

In the Artist's Neighborhood, we also came across this statue of three naked people. But we came from the backside first. I wondered, "Why do I see a man's bare bottom but also a face?"

You see butts and a face, right?

Walking around the front side, I discovered the "face" is a mask being held by the central figure, the woman, who is also holding a serpentine monster in her other hand. Don't mess with her.

It makes more sense now. Not much more.

Many of the homes and businesses in the Historic Center are brightly colored, streets lined with a spectrum of row homes. One of the most brightly colored is Callejón de los Sapos, meaning the Alley of the Frogs. (It's also called South Sixth Street, but where's the fun in that?) It's an open air market with lovely buildings and crafts. And yes, there is frog decor going on too. Yes, there are frogs in its history too. When the river would flood, this street would be full of frogs.

One end of the Alley of the Frogs

Frog on a Wall

Frog Fountain

For lunch we had famous, traditional foods of Puebla. Perhaps the most famous in Puebla and throughout Mexico is mole poblano. I should note, poblano means "of Puebla". Like someone from New York is a New Yorker and someone from Venice is a Venetian and someone from Reno is, I don't know. Are we Renoites? Renovians? Renovators? The point is that someone or something from Puebla is Poblano. This includes poblano peppers and mole poblano. Mole (pronounced MO-lay, not MOHL) is renown for including chocolate as part of the sauce. You can taste the chocolate, though it isn't sweet. But the taste of the peppers is even stronger than the chocolate. The other traditional food we had was pipian verde. Pipian is a sauce also made with poblano peppers, but it includes ground pumpkin seeds. There are two traditional varieties: verde (green) and roja (red). We chose the green. Each was served over a seasoned chicken thigh and leg. I know Alrica found them too spicy, because I ended up eating one and a half lunches. There are worse problems that one and a half delicious lunches.

Mole poblano

Pipian Verde

Outside of the Historic Center, we passed by an advertisement for a McFlurry at McDonalds with which we were unfamiliar. McFlurry Sponch! What word sounds like a more appetizing foodstuff than "sponch?" This is up there with schmaltz and headcheese. Way to make me hesitate, ad!

Now you get your Golden Arches

We will definitely have to return. There is still a lot left in the Historic Center we didn't see, including the oldest library in the New World (which is much cooler sounding than the newest library in the Old World.) As you might guess, that's a big draw for Alrica. So we will have to go back.

Reminded me of Buddhist prayer flags, except they are not Buddhist prayer flags.

But truthfully, we have to go back anyway. Because the Historic Center of Puebla is beautiful, fun, and extremely cool. And it doesn't have any ego about all of its wonders. You know, it's just the Town.