Roadside Adventures (December 24)

(Map of the day.)

We had an early start for the pyramid site of Cacaxtla, which is near the small city of Puebla. We headed for the East bus station (as opposed to the North one, which we had been using so far), and got first-class tickets for the 2 hour ride. Free drinks and snacks, and the bus was even clean. Bonus!

We arrived at CAPU, which is Puebla's bus terminal, and tried to find what bus line would take us the rest of the way to Cacaxtla. No luck; each bus company kept directing us to another counter. Finally, someone managed to convey to us that we should take a micro-bus, which were stations at a seedy hotel across the freeway. We boarded a rickety minibus whose driver indicated to us that he could get us were we wanted to go.

(These minibuses are a major means of transportation for the public. At intersections, or even as they drive, the driver's partner is leaning out the door, yelling out to pedestrians the direction in which we're headed. If the bus is going your way, hop on, and tell the driver your end-point. From that, he'll charge you an appropriate amount of money -- it's very cheap. If they don't have enough change for you, you give your large bill, and then have to sit and wait while they take more fares, hoping that enough change will collect before you disembark. Also: every one of these buses has religious iconography on the dashboard, windshield, ceiling, seat-backs, etc.)

The ride turned out to be an hour of lurching through streets, which gradually turned into remote countryside. Eventually, the driver stopped at the bottom of a steep hill, in a little town, and pointed up the hill for us. There was no pyramid in site (and needless to say, no signage). We began the hike up, and eventually saw the pyramids about 2 miles away, across a road-less valley. The road we were on did not in any way lead to them. It was already about noon; much time had been lost in CAPU and on the minibus (whose top speed seemed to be about 40 km/h).

Andrew was in favor of trekking cross-country to the site; instead we stopped a passing colectivo van (similar in function to the micro-bus, except it's a van), which took us back down the hill. We then took the next bus that the van driver indicated to us, but after 5 minutes we saw we were driving away from the pyramids. We got off this bus, flagged down another bus, which dropped us at the same start point again. Andrew hailed a fifth van, which finally got us to the gates of the site.

The pyramids were about 600m from the gates, but it was all worth the effort. The site has one enormous pyramid (which was in the midst of excavation), the remains of another pyramid, and a distant third pyramid, located about 30 minutes away (we didn't get to this one, as the time was now 3pm, and we were worried about getting back to Puebla. The sun sets at about 5:30, and we didn't want to be flagging down rides in the dark in the remote country).

There were only a handful of other visitors, but there were three different ticket check-points, with armed guards...

Who wouldn't want to give us a ride:



A set of wooden steps took us to the top of the pyramid, which they figure was inhabited from 400-1000AD. There were the remains of foundations everywhere, and very little had been restored (which was nice after Teotihuacan):





Walkways took us all over, and there was a section of wall that was latticed:



Impressive stonework:



Many murals had also survived the ages, which is amazing because they were dated to be about 700 years old:





These two murals were side-by-side, behind protective glass. On the left picture, note the carved stone to the right of the painting:



The unvisited pyramid. I guess there's always next time (ha!):



We left the site, hailed a bus, and had a quick, uneventful ride back to CAPU. We hitched a ride to the city's Zocalo, and as we approached the city centre, the buildings became more colonial, and beautiful. As it was Christmas Eve, most of the stores and tourist sites around town were closed. We headed on foot towards the Cathedral of San Francisco -- the site of an actual canonized saint, San Francisco. Not only was the man a saint, but his body is incorruptible.

With the help of the gift shop girl, we found the body. It was kept in a glass and silver coffin behind the church's alter (there wasn't a mass going on, so we could approach freely). The body was dressed in monk's robes. Francisco was accepted into the Catholic order at age 75 after devoting his life to the church, and died in 1600 at the age of 98. They discovered shortly after his death that his body had become waxy, and remained flexible. Letters were written to the Pope, and after investigations (and whatever other hoops existed back then), he was canonized.

The body did indeed look waxy. There were no bones or decay, except for on his feet, which just looked fibrous. The man himself:



For supper, we headed back to the crowded Zocalo, and ate at an Italian place called Vittorio's. Our Christmas Eve meal was spent enjoying the mild air, soft lights, bustling people, and live guitar while we sat at a sidewalk table. The funny thing, is apparently this place held the world record for largest pizza back in the late 1970's.

We caught our bus back to Mexico City, but were dismayed to see that the subway was no longer selling tickets (although they were open for another hour). At the encouragement of two seedy looking guys, we jumped the turnstiles, and bolted for our train...