Primera Vacacion!

This weekend was our first vacation! As a starter we just did a little weekend trip to Puebla (the capital city of the state of Puebla, which is the one I live in) and it was soooo fun! We left on Saturday morning at 7:30 a.m., spent Saturday and Sunday in Puebla, and then came back around 8 p.m. last night. It's only two hours away from Tehuacan by bus so we had plenty of time in the city.

Upon getting there, the first thing we did was look around at some little stands and stuff. Actually, that's a lie. The first thing we did was find a bathroom in a movie theater because we didn't realize there was one on the bus until we were getting off... haha. Anyway so we went to this movie theater and they charged us five pesos to use the bathroom! Well they called it a donation because supposedly it went to curing cancer but it felt like a charge. At least until I had relieved my bladder, and then I felt all right about it :)

Anyway, so first we looked around!

This was just one of the streets in Puebla covered in vendors. Here in Mexico, you see about a billion of these everywhere you go. They have your pretty typical knick knacks and cheap things that seem cool at the time and later pretty useless, so I never buy anything. I'm still waiting for that special something to catch my eye :) Hahaha.

After this we took a tour of the city! It was BEAUTIFUL. Plus we got to sit on the back of this tour bus thing and listen to this guy tell us all about the history of the sites in Spanish (because it cost half as much as the English tour). It was pretty fun.

One of the many, many cathedrals in Puebla.

Inside the cathedral. It was huge and GORGEOUS.

Just a giant mural on the wall. These were everywhere.

Tour bus!

Mexican flag at the site of a big battle against the French... Which is now celebrated on Cinco de Mayo!

 And yes, that is graffiti you see on that flag. There is graffiti everywhere in Mexico.

Here died hundreds of patriots on May 5, 1862 defending the (something) of no intervention. Yup.

So yeah, that was our tour of Puebla! It was beautiful and I'm totally in love with the city. If my dream of living in Mexico when I grow up ever comes true, it's definitely going to be in Puebla.

After the tour and looking around downtown some more, we went to their mall! It was pretty cool and there was a really nice park outside that we took some pictures at. Random side note though... People in Mexico take PDA to an extreme. I swear there were like ten couples making out the whole time we were at the park. The never even came up for air! Yuckkkkkkk.

Ashley, me, and Mandy in the park.

 After this we went back downtown and just kind of explored the half indoor/outdoor mall. Some people got some ice cream, which by the way, Mexican ice cream is super delish, and we all just relaxed! When it was getting late-ish we decided to go find the hostel we had booked online, which should have been pretty easy.... But this is Mexico.

We took a bus to the area it was supposedly in, asked some locals, walked around for around 40 minutes, and finally found the hostel down some dark dirt road. I've never stayed in a hostel before, but I can tell you this one was definitely sketchy. It looked exactly like a house. There was no sign or other indication to say that it was a hostel other than a poster on a nearby phone pole, so we called that number. Actually, Edwin, one of our local friends who spent the weekend with us, called the number, and the lady tells us she doesn't have any empty rooms! Surprise, surprise.

So Edwin called around and found us a nearby-ish hotel to stay at. It was twice as much as the hostel, but still only around $10 a night in dollars. Anyway so we find the hotel, pay, Edwin leaves to go stay at his friend's apartment, and we go to bed. NOT! The mattress was about as soft as a rock. Haha. But it was an adventure, right?

Anyway, enough of that little frustation rant. The next morning, we got up and went to Cholula! Which is some ruins just outside of Puebla.

These are them!

Cholula!

Apparently this particular city was abandoned at some point and the pyramids got all covered up. Later a cathedral was built on top of what seemed a nice hill but was really a pyramid! So they're excavating a lot of it, but they can't really dig under the cathedral. So just imagine a big pyramid under that giant mound of dirt. It was way cool though. I love to imagine all the people walking around just like us in their city!

Some of us on top of a pyramid thing they actually let you climb!

The cathedral on top.

Inside. It was Sunday so they were having mass!

The view. Absolutely breathtaking. And me. Looking sunburned.

So I tried about fifteen times to get a picture that did the view justice, but I just couldn't get it! It was beautiful, though, and you could see so many cathedrals! I swear there are more cathedrals in Puebla than Mormon churches in Utah Valley :)

After seeing the ruins and the cathedral we went back down and did some shopping at all of the vendors.  They were constantly yelling, "Gueritas, gueritas, que quieren comprar?!" (White girls, white girls, what do you want to buy!) Ummmm, nada, gracias! Haha. But I did buy a popsicle and this:

 Looks like a popsicle too, right? Wrong! It's a jicaleta, or jicama on a stick. What is jicama, you ask? Well I'm not sure, but we eat it all the time. It sort of has the texture of a potato, but it tastes like a snap pea. And I really like it! So here's a bit piece of it covered in some chamoy and chile. Yummmmmm.

And finally, we got to see them act out an old native ritual! There was drums and singing and dancing, which was fun, and then people stood in a line to have their sins washed away with smoke. I was tempted to participate for the experience, but decided I didn't want to smell like smoke all the way home :) It was fun though!

After this we ate and then headed back to the bus station and back home! It was a very successful first vacation I would say. Very fun. If you ever get a chance to go to Puebla, take it!