When Alvaro invited me to a gathering of poets in Puebla, the only name I referred to the Talavera pottery (of English origin but Mexicanized long ago), the China Puebla (representative of the country's popular Beauty Pancho Villa, but the most demanding say that just about women, "the center" -) and the mole poblano (sauce sublime tastes and strong stomachs, which consists of a mixture of chocolate, chiles, seeds and spices in the measurements and proportions that only well-known chefs, having inherited the family secret for generations).
have to be there, walk around this warm and friendly, walk the cobblestone streets of downtown, visit the great cathedral, walk down the perfect base or be dazzled by the magnificent library Palafox (left by Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, bishop eighteenth Puebla and viceroy of New Spain) to understand the charm of this city that is home to over a million and half people without have lost their poise and dignity that give the ancestry of the nearly five centuries.
told me I was close, that's nearly eighty miles that separate Federal District Puebla was done in ninety minutes, however, visit a few weeks before, the people of Chipilo (a delicious Italian colony, and whose vicissitudes of its bitter-talk a day), just eight miles from Puebla land, and try to pass along the avenue on the outskirts of Zaragoza City in which spaces built a huge aerial crossing of roads, deterred me from undertaking such an adventure. If accompanied, the two or three hours you can take to go through there at times congestion, are poorly tolerated, it alone would have been madness, an insanity which was not ready, left to my neurosis in the middle of the road.
"The best of Mexico buses leave the airport," said someone. Not true. At least not the best that I've gone (those who go to Guadalajara are higher, of course, is that the road is four times longer). However, there are bad.
Five in the morning, wake up. Six, take a taxi to the airport. Seven part the bus to Puebla. After nine came to "four East", the particular station that line is very near the center. "No, do not walk, several blocks, take a taxi, yes, of those, blacks, do not pay more than thirty dollars. " I paid forty. The hotel was one that was, is, it was swanky, it was five star, was famous, today is a ghost, a pale reflection of itself, a delightful spot in decline which does not have enough remote controls for all televisions of all rooms. That weekend due to party, sold out. However, sad and all, flaws in the bathroom with no lights lit, with old paintings, carpets worn and soiled linens and towels, kept a certain dignity that moved me, like the sign announcing the "heliport" or that of "indoor pool and timed" never found it.
If something was as wonderful was its location, just three blocks from the square of the city and, as I had warned Álvaro, "very close to the university" where the meeting would take place of poets who brought me up there (besides the price per night, which was reasonable but the kindness and the waste of the organizers made me not cost me a dime).
I arrived and I realized my immense naivete, I had the phone Álvaro. "Never mind, I thought," I send you a mail. " As the hotel was five stars, according to announced in the twenty sites I checked, I was not worried about that topic. "I will go to Bisnes center," he said and walked to the counter where only a few minutes ago a distracted manager had treated me kindly and I had given my room. "Sorry, sir, do not have," said the man with his old-fashioned uniform and a smile crystallized by time, but added hopefully, "in the corner is a cibercofi."
course, "the corner" meant three blocks away, a quarter of three quarter where they had installed an Internet kiosk with old machines, whose speed reminded me of the Apple IIe with 286K of RAM that I started writing in 1986 (I think I realized more than twenty years that separated me from the room of computation and the gringo that, half mad, not taught, was what troubled me most of that place.) It took me half an hour writing the two lines that announced my presence in Puebla, and not because he was nervous about the event to which I had been invited but in the meantime because the screen froze, restarted the record twice, the keyboard locked a dozen times and I witnessed, along with half a dozen other students who had entered the premises, a morbid file opened a boy, and we all saw ecstatic, in which, to warn against the dangers of speeding, they were really nasty scenes of parties brains, guts exposed and do not know what other nice things that the kids next to me as if it held were a comedy.
I lingered in front of the machine fooling around with the hope that Alvaro could read me. It was in vain. Bored, I took the road back to the hotel and, as I shall not hurry, I could see the cobblestone streets, old and centenarian houses, traffic polluted everything, people walking the streets almost casually, as if they knew in that city that day was inaugurated a meeting of poets ...
No, they did not. Street asked "do you know which location the credentials delivered?" And the man who did not stop his step as he looks at me a lunatic, I thought it was very generic and insisted with a woman carrying a grocery bag "Excuse me, ma'am, may I indicate where the meeting takes place of poets?", this time the noble Puebla stopped, looked at me with curiosity and I responded by asking, "No, young man, I have no idea, Where will join poets? ". Do not let discouragement took hold me and I walked the streets to the hotel. Neither of the two buttons on the door had no idea and sent me "to counter" there, a woman claimed had been stolen because the portfolio against an unflinching concierge told him that he had asked "the manager" and that he assured him "that was not lost anything," next door, the telephone talking animatedly to someone who unmistakably was not a client, and only a few minutes later came the man who had allowed me "Chek" in the morning, several hours earlier than indicated in the regulations which was, as always, behind the door the room. I explained what happened and said "do not worry, the hotel is full of poets," I asked, encouraged, where registration was and I said "I have no idea, is not in the hotel," I questioned him about any news left by the organizers, "No, do not have that information," he finally asked, on the verge of despair, to advise me, "ah, that's easy, go to college, is three blocks ...."
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