If Easter Island were built in Mexico

Trying to fulfill my quest of never spending a full weekend within the city limits of Puebla (not a goal actually, just appears that way), I decided to visit the closest thing to Easter Island that exists in Mexico. Again, not really, but the featured attraction at the Tula ruins are a series of 4.5m tall statues that sit on top of the highest pyramid on the site. Standing Atop of the pyramid, there is a decent view of the surrounding area, but part of it is marred by the nearby Pemex refinery smokestacks. However, the abundance of wildflowers was also visible. Because we are just coming out of the rainy season, the fields (and the site of the ruins) all over Mexico are filled with blooming wildflowers. Standing atop the pyramid also gave me a rare pleasure that I hardly ever get to experience in Mexico, I was surrounded by people taller than me. The grandota (my nation-wide nickname that means the big one), was finally amongst her people.

Semana Santa Vacations

With the combination of vacation days for Benito Juarez´s birthday and Holy Week for Easter, I got some time off work to travel. My mom and sister were here visiting so we headed down to Oaxaca, the capital of the state of Oaxaca. Oaxaca is a colonial city with a high level of indigenous influence and is known as the center of indigenous handicrafts in Mexico. Saturday we spent walking around the city doing the normal museums, botanic gardens, markets, and art galleries. Oaxaca is also known for their food which includes a couple different types of moles and a thing called a tlayuda which is basically a tortilla larger than a plate stuffed with any number of things from meats to cheese to veggies.

Sunday we headed for the towns of Tule, Zaachila, and Cuilpan. Tule has a very large tree (some claim it to be the largest tree in biomass in the world, but that has been proven to be false). Either way though, it is a really really big tree that is more than 14 meters in diameter and 636,107 tons.

After the big tree we caught a colectivo (or a communal taxi) to the town of Zaachila. Zaachila has a set of very small ruins, but you can actually go down into a tomb and see the sculptures of 2 vultures, a witch, and 2 kings on the walls of the tombs. Evidently there was a lot of gold and artifacts, but as with most ruins in Mexico, all the treasure ends up in Mexico City.

From Zaachila we headed to Cuilapan to see a monastery that was built in 1560, but never completed, leaving the impressive arches on the interior open to the sky since the roof was never built. Connected to this “building” was another large church which is also the site where Gurerro was executed.

Monday night we returned to Puebla and very early on Tuesday morning left for a day trip to Mexico City (more commonly referred to as DF or Distrito Federal). We visited the national palace (impressive murals inside, some done by Diego Rivera), the huge church on the zocalo, the old post office, the palace of the arts (also a site with some Diego murals including a replica of the one that was commissioned by Rockafeller in NYC, but destroyed for being to communistic), and a museum that houses one of Diego´s most famous murals: Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park (the museum was actually built just to house the mural after the original building was destroyed). We also managed to get slightly caught in the middle of a large demonstration in the zocalo over the privatization of petroleum that made the front page of the paper the next day.

Wedensday, we went to Cholula, a small town just east of Puebla that is known for its churches and is home to the world´s largest pyramid. However, by now the pyramid kinda just looks like a big grassy hill and the missionaries even mistakenly (?) built a church on top of it. However, there are a series of ruins that have been excavated and you can walk through some of the tunnels inside the pyramid.

Thursday was more ruins in Teotihuacan, about an hour north of Mexico City, and some of the largest in Mexico. The city covered more than 83 km2. The largest of the pyramids is called Pyramid of the Sun and is over 75 meters tall, making it the 3rd largest in the world (behind the one from the pervious day at Cholula and the Great Pyramid in Egypt). There is still debate as to who exactly built Teotihuacan, but it is believed to have been the Toltec or the Totonac. The name Teotihuacan was later given by the Aztecs.

That pretty much sums up the traveling over the break. The rest of it was spent in Puebla doing some important things like finally attaching my stove so that there is no gas leaking, watching the Good Friday procession, and trying to watch some Mexican wrestling.