Let me start this out by saying we never found any hot sauce stores in Cholula (one of our favorite brands of Mexican hot sauce in the states). How are they not capitalizing on this? I need to teach some sales courses at the university….

We stopped in Cholula to break up our very long drive to Oaxaca from Mexico City and had zero expectations or knowledge about this small city, which is really a suburb of Puebla. Turns out is was a really pretty city full of university students and lots of cafes, bars and churches. Lots and lots of churches. It also has the largest pyramid in the New World. The crazy thing is that it does not look like a pyramid because it was never fully excavated on the outside. It looks like a huge hill with a giant church on top. In the 1500s the Spanish (with their sensitive respect towards indigenous cultures) decided that they would build a church on top of this giant pyramid. Turns out the mix of the significance of the ancient civilization to the indigenous cultures, combined with the newer church (new as in 500 years ago), has turned this into a very popular Catholic pilgrimage site. I guess things work out with enough time to buffer history.

There are 5 miles of excavated tunnels! That seems crazy to me. You only get to walk around part of them.

If you are tall you might feel a bit claustrophobic in here. I just kept pretending I was Lara Croft (tomb raider).

Yep, that is a huge pyramid with a church on top.

Fun fact: There was a major drought when this civilization was at its peak, and to deal with it they rounded up all kids between the age of 6 and 7 and sacrificed them is a mass killing to bring rain. (I try not to judge other cultures but WTF, 6 year olds….).

This area was the most polluted we have seen so far air quality wise. We could not even see the volcanos surrounding the area. Just haze.

The church on the top of the pyramid. It was pretty at least. Nice little hike up there, we were both winded.

Cholula has 365 churches. One for each day of the year?

A religious procession in one of the largest church complexes.

The colorful Zocalo. Really pretty town center. And all the yellow churches are different churches, there were really a lot of them.

On a side note, on our way to Cholula we visited the ruins of Cacaxtla. I had read in National Geographic that this site had the best preserved murals in Mexico. We were literally the only ones there. The murals were indeed impressive, but I would not go out of my way to see them unless you are really into ancient history. The Maya influence in the art perplexed scholars (they did not know the civilizations were interacting).

The colors were really impressive.

This site was discovered in 1974 by looters.

There were not even any guards in the complex, it was just us. You can see some of the murals in the background.

We have been at many places where we are the only vehichle parked. Not many tourisits driving in Mexico right now. Oh, and I am eating an ice cream at 10am in the picture. Don’t judge =)