Sacristía de la SOLEDAD…

 
Sacristy of the Solitude… SO – LI – TUDE  

  
The fact that the name of a hotel already includes the word “solitude”, you would think would be a sign… But, oh no… Not for me! It seems I have a knack of booking myself into hotels where I end up being the only guest. Oops, I did it again!! And actually, this hotel only has a total of three rooms so even at full capacity I’d only be one of three guests. It’s eerily reminiscent of my stay at the Doña Sol Guesthouse in Cali last year. But whereas John the alcoholic proprietor gave the Doña Sol a distinctly “Bates Motel” flavour, the owners here, at least on the surface, seem quite normal. And there’s no beer shenanigans going on in the middle of the night! 

The Sacristy of Solitude is run by Mr and Mrs Espinoza, both from Puebla. This is Leobardo Espinoza.

   
 
At first I was calling him Leopardo, as in “leopard” (the animal with spots) until his assistant told me it was actually spelt with a “b”… The name Leopard would suit him better I think. He’s got a very colourful personality… to match his neon orange Hugo Boss trousers presumably and also runs runs a radio station from the guesthouse called “Mexico Prioridad”. Each morning Monday to Friday from 7 am to 9 am, he hosts his own show where he talks about art, culture, politics and a little bit of everything else.

This is his wife Lourdes a.k.a. Lulu.

  
She seems very sweet and does all the cooking at the guesthouse and runs private cooking classes. She was preparing breakfast for me this morning… All the concrete floors, stone work, antique furniture and latch doors around this place give it a kind of “Medieval Dungeon” vibe… I felt like I should be calling out to her, “Bring me my turkey leg, wench” rather than “Huevos rancheros, por favor”.

My table in the dining room this morning…

  
This is Andres, the assistant from Barcelona.  

  
He studied tourism and is trying to work in hotels around the world. The year prior to coming here he was working at the Ritz Carlton in Krabi, Thailand. He went from working in a five star hundreds-of-rooms hotel to a Mexican three room guesthouse. He’s a very nice guy and very helpful. Maybe I misinterpreted things but I was getting a very “Thank God there’s finally a guest” vibe from him this morning.

But overall, it’s a really beautiful place. The attention to detail is just amazing.

  
And, most importantly… I LOOOOOOVE my new ‘hood!