Visit Day 5: Puebla

Everyone was very worn out from our past two days of hiking up pyramids and walking all over Mexico City, so we opted for the least intensive day trip, a drive through the mountains to Puebla followed by a Turibus tour of Puebla. No walking required!

We had a quick breakfast then were into the car for the day's adventure. The volcano was blowing up a little bit today, so we couldn't see much besides smoke on the way. Once we go to Puebla, it was beautiful and sunny as always! We timed is just right that we were able to grab cash, coffee and then hop on the bus. This was my second time on the Puebla Turibus, and it seemed like half the route was under construction which led to some very "creative" driving by the bus driver. After much backing up and U-turning, we arrived safely back at the zocalo and sat down for a delicious lunch of Mega Cemitas - the official sandwich of Puebla.

We toured a few churches, bought Talavera pottery in El Parián market, and then headed home. Traffic was horrible as usual, and we got in late. Autumn and I decided to go pick up pizzas from 50 Friends and we spent a relaxed evening at home.

 Welcome to Puebla

 Fun with coffee cups

Look! That one is from the cabin!

 Ready to roll

 The cute and colorful streets of Puebla

 If you look really close, you can see the smoking volcano

 A weird cave-church!

More churches of Puebla

 Birds!

 The Mega-Cemita!

Mega-close-up!

Top to bottom:  Bread, avocado, cilantro, cheese, hot dogs, breaded cutlet, bread!

Hilarious cutouts by the bathrooms!

 Chuch-tastic!

 Gold!

 Gold!

...and more gold!

Talavera shopping!

Ruth even got a certificate of authenticity at Galerias Armando!

 Que cute-o!

Smoky volcanoes at dusk

Africam Safari...Big Holiday Fun??

So this morning we got up all excited to go on a trip down to Cuernavaca to see the sites, have a nice lunch, etc.  It's a holiday and we want to get out!  Then we came to the startling realization that it was, in fact, a Monday, and on Monday almost all the tourist sites are closed.  BOO!!  So we were flipping through our guidebooks for something else to do, when Eric's eyes lit up ad he whispered, "Africam".

So what is Africam you may ask?  According to the guidebook some rich maniac noticed that the arid, dry area just south of Puebla was the exact same climate as one might find on the Serengeti.  He then imported a bunch of animals and set up a safari park called Africam.  One can drive his car through and spot exotic animals.  Eric had worked himself into a frenzy over Africam before we even arrived in Mexico, and finally a perfect opportunity presented itself to visit!

 The safari begins....with a handy ATM machine located just to the right too!

Here are some giraffes.  I never thought about it before, but I like how they tie the giraffe food to a tree.

Here are some possibly insulting, definitely authentic native tents.

This extremely exotic llama is hamming it up for the camera.  Please don't spit, please don't spit...

I dub this creature the Ratpig!  I do not know what its real name is, but Ratpig works for me.

Best watch yourself.

There he is!  The extremely dangerous Rhino having a very menacing nap!

So zebras are cool to hang out with the Rhino but I'm not?

 Flamingos!!!  Finally, I get to see some flamingos in Mexico!!

 

A vulture, vulting.

Yikes, this animal looks supernaturally scary.

 Yes, that's right folks.  Someone hired a cab to drive him through Africam.  I wonder how that fare negotiation went...

Towards the middle/end Africam got really boring.  We just had to sit and wait in our cars forever because there were about 10,000,000 people there and traffic to get into the vicious animal enclosures was crazy bad.  Eric was heartbroken, having built Africam up in his head over the past year and half.  He looked at me and said, "It's my Xel-Ha."  Aww.

 One last look at a sleepy tiger.

Did we have fun at Africam?  Sort of I guess.  Will we go back?  Probably not.

Tlaxcala, Biggest Little City in Mexico!

After consulting our tourist books, we all decided to have ourselves an adventure today.  We headed out of the DF to the southeast toward Puebla and Veracruz to check out the city of Tlaxcala and its surrounding pre-Hispanic ruin sites.

The weather was so clear and beautiful, we had to pull off the highway (in a safe area, don't worry) to get some shots of the volcanos.  This is the Popocatepetl (aka Popo) on the left with the smoke coming out, and Itzaccihuatl (aka Itza) on the right.

Top o' the morning to ya Tlaxcala!  This is the back of the cathedral, brightly painted to match the clear blue sky.

This was the front of the cathedral, all done up in talavera.   The inside was mint green, but there were services going on, so we just looked.

This is part of the main (read: only) attraction in the city of Tlaxcala.  This is a mural depicting Tlaxcala's colorful history painted in their government building on their zocalo.  Tlaxcala sided with the Spanish during the conquest and the revolution, and the word Tlaxcala has become synonymous with traitor.  Interesting.  

Here we are towards the end of the mural, depicting modern Mexico.

After the murals, we tried to find something else to do in Tlaxcala.  We wandered up this hill.  The top had one of the oldest churches in North America.  It kind looked like the other churches, though :)

This is the smallest bullfighting ring in Mexico.

Tlaxcala watch tower.

After our brief tour of Tlaxcala, we set out to find the ruins.  Our first stop was Cacaxtla just outside of the city.

 

Wild poinsettias.

One spectacular cactus.

Here we go, more patrimony of the world!

These paintings are what made Cacaxtla really cool.  There were quite a few of them, but they didn't photograph well.  Here is an example of one that came out decent.

After Cacaxtla we made our way over to the other site in the area, Xochitecatl.  This is one of Xochitecatl's 3 pyramids.

This is the round pyramid at Xochitecatl, and the last photo from our camera before its battery died.

Ever resourceful, we whipped out our iPhones to continue photographing the area.  On top of the round pyramid was this cross.  Here it is with Popo (left) and Itza (right) in the background.

Here's Eric with a miniature Stonehenge.  Say Whiskey!

And finally, the third pyramid at Xochitecatl with the volcano La Malinche in the background.

After the sites, we decided to head over to Puebla (we weren't that far) for an excellent dinner and some talavera shopping.  All in all, we had a pretty great adventure!

Cholula, Home of the World's Largest Pyramid!

Our last stop on our tour of the state of Puebla was Cholula, home to the world's largest pyramid.  It is now grown over, with a church on top of it.  At first glance it looks like a normal hill, but if you look closely you will see the stepped edges of the massive Aztec temple.  Very cool.  We parked the car and wandered for awhile...

Colors of Cholula.

After a very long walk up the hill/pyramid, we made it to the church perched atop.  The Spanish put this, and 39 other churches in this small town, supposedly because they were difficult to convert.  On the way up here, we were surrounded by children with bottle rockets.  Every explosion made all of us jump.  That got old pretty fast. 

Even at a church perched atop a pyramid, there is a craperia.

The view of Cholula from the top.

The flags match the sky.  How pretty.

More of Cholula...

Here is the base of the pyramid.  We thought the entrance was right here, but we were mistaken.  It was actually miles away.

So many choices!

Here's our friends' car after driving through the potholes.  Just kidding!  It's not really their car!

Finally!  We have made it to the excavated portion of the pyramid, and look!  There's the church on top too!

Hola senor pre-colombiano!

Here we are in the mysterious echo chamber!  It really should be called the annoying chamber, because once the other tourists realize that this spot makes funny noises, they cannot stop clapping and making all manner of noise.  Fun (?) with science!

The temple was built over itself over and over.  Look at how twisted and mangled it is.

More temple views.

 One last look up the hill, this time with a contextual cactus.

Shortly after leaving this site, the rain came.  And it was serious.  It was probably 6 inches deep, and was blowing manhole covers off the road.  It was pretty wild, but we made it home safe and sound.  Until the next Mexiventure!