Puebla

On Saturday, all the teachers took a day trip to Puebla, main city in the state. We rented a bus all to ourselves that took us wherever we wanted to go. It was pretty nice--water bottles, snacks, TV's for watching Johnny Lingo, and basically our own personal guides!

First we went to Cholula, actually, where there is this ancient Aztec pyramid. The pyramid itself was covered up with Cortez came and took over and he built a Catholic church on top of it. But they have opened up the pyramid and we got to walk through some of the tunnels. We could see other stairways and tunnels going to who-knows-where. It's crazy to think that people actually created this intricate maze, and so cool that we have it preserved! Outside at the base of the pyramid, we walked around some excavated ruins: altars, crematoriums, game fields, really big stairs and such. Also very cool. (I would put pictures up if I could, but I still need to figure out how to either get pictures on this computer, or get internet on my laptop). Then we walked up to the cathedral on top of the former-pyramid. It is the highest part of the city, so there was an amazing view of Cholula, possibly Puebla, and this awesome volcano, Popocatépetl. The volcano and mountains around it are supposed to look like a woman laying down, but I haven't seen it yet. I think this volcano is supposed to be her bottom, because that's what "popo" means in Spanish.

After looking at many, many gift shops, we got back on the bus and headed for Puebla. We had pre-made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and they were amazingly delicious. In Puebla, we just got dropped off at the city´s center and walked around. The city itself is beautiful, a much different feel from Tehuacan. It's much bigger, cleaner, and more modern, like a bigger city in the United States. There is a huge cathedral right across from the center, which was quite impressive. We went in when there were services going on, so we couldn't walk around or take pictures of the inside, but it was quite ornate. We did go to a museum of Mexican artifacts that was pretty cool. One thing I noticed was that there didn't seem to be much evolution in their human forms, they stayed about the same up until they were conquered and European influence hit.

It was great to get away, be touristy for a day and see some new things. One thing I came to appreciate, though, was free bathrooms, because there aren´t any in Mexico. We had to buy ice cream from Burger King to be able to use their bathroom...though I didn't really have a problem with that. And drinking fountains. It's weird to have a Mormon church building without drinking fountains.