Cholula, a Big Pyramid and Fresh Grasshoppers: Part 3 of South East from Mexico City

A Bus Ride to Puebla, a Visit to Cholula and a Mole

Catching the Bus from Mexico City to Puebla

Mexico

We arrived at Mexico City’s Terminal Oriente bus station in plenty of time for our 10.15 bus to Puebla but the electronic sign over the gate failed to mention a 10.15. Checking in our luggage caused heads to be shaken, teeth sucked and the 10.15 on our tickets crossed out and replaced by 10.45. The sign showed no 10.45 either.

The relevant corner of Mexico City's Oriente bus station

The 9.30 bus came and went as advertised, but later times proved fictional, no bus actually arriving until 11.30. We joined the queue, the driver surveyed our tickets, sucked his teeth and shook his head. The luggage check-in man appeared to argue our case, and as no one else had tickets for seats 7 and 8 we were allowed on.

Puebla is 100km south east of Mexico City

Puebla State

Curtains were drawn, a film started and the bus set off – nobody but us showing the least interest in the outside world, though there was actually little to see beyond Mexico City’s multi-lane ring road and ninety minutes of autopista. The bus was comfortable, the road in good condition and we made up a little time. At Puebla, G, who had been waiting with mounting concern, found us and drove us to our hotel in the city’s centro historico.

Lynne walks down the road outside our hotel, Centro Historico, Puebla

I will leave the delights of our characterful hotel until the next post, which is devoted to Puebla. G departed while we strolled down the road to find lunch. Sitting outside a café (the day was warming up nicely) in a small square I had a cheese enchilada and Lynne ate some tacos - corn dough products seemed unavoidable. G reappeared at the agreed time and took us to Cholula.

Cholula and a Giant Pyramid

Cholula is a city of 100,000 people and although it is within the 3.5 million strong Puebla Metropolitan Area we crossed a clear boundary between Puebla and Cholula which felt like a different city. It has two districts, San Pedro and San Andrés, and is further divided into 18 barrios, each with its own patron saint so Cholula has many churches and many saints’ days to celebrate. Nuestra Señora de los Remedios is the overall patron and her church looks over the city from the top of Cholula’s pyramid.

Nuestra Senora de los Remedios on the great Pyramid of Cholula

The World's Biggest Pyramid?

The pyramid is Cholula’s main tourist attraction and, according to Google the ‘world’s biggest’. The Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, (previous post) is the third tallest (66m), after the Pyramids of Khufu (138m) and Chephren (136m) in Egypt. Cholula is, by comparison, stumpy, only 55m tall, but has a base 400 metres square compared with Khufu’s 230m x 230m, and a volume of 4.5 million m³ against Khufu’s 2.5 million. So, Mexicans can say Cholula is the biggest, Egyptians Khufu and both are right and both are wrong*.

The Pyramid's History and its Museum

The pyramid is largely grassed over and could almost pass for a natural hill. Like the pyramids of Teotihuacan it was built between the 4th century BC and the 8th AD in four stages, a series of steps and platforms being constructed one over another.

Model of Cholula Pyramid, Museum at Pyramid site

At its peak ancient Cholula had 100,000 inhabitants, but the pyramid was abandoned in the 8th or 9th century (at much the same time as Teotihuacan) and the population dropped dramatically. The remaining inhabitants continued to bury their dead around the pyramid until the Toltecs took over in the 12th century and built a new temple. When the Spanish arrived Cholula was still a population centre but the pyramid was completely grassed over; they still thought it worth popping a church on top to be safe.

Excavations started in 1931 and we entered the small but thoughtfully laid out museum to see what they found.

The 57m long mural of ‘The Drinkers’ was discovered by accident in 1969. 1,800 years old it is the oldest known mural showing the drinking of pulque, the fermented sap of the agave. This was done for pleasure, but also to bring the drinker closer to the gods. The mural is not on show, but a section is reproduced in the museum showing pulque being drunk by an old man, a soldier about to go into battle and a pregnant woman – all people in need of a little divine assistance (and we can ignore the modern view that pregnancy and alcohol do not mix). I do not have a good picture, and I cannot find one in the public domain, so here is a link to a picture by AndreaB.

There is also pottery from all periods of the site’s use. It is interesting to trace the development of the craft from crude beginnings to the first steps towards mass production, where a stamp was used to create a uniform design in the base.

Pottery from the Cholula pyramid site

The Manuscrito Aperreamiento is a copy of a 16th century codex held in the National Museum of France. At the top is Hernán Cortés and Doña Marina, Cortés’ Nahua translator and mistress. At the bottom is Andrés de Tapia, one of Cortés’ henchmen, and in between is a record of their mistreatment of the indigenous people.

Manuscrito Aperreamiento, Cholula Museum

Inside and Outside The Pyramid

We made the short walk to the base of the pyramid...

At the base of the Cholula Pyramid

…and followed a series of tunnels into the interior. Archaeologists have dug 8km of tunnels through the pyramid, locating altars and finding offerings and human remains. Construction involved successively building a newer bigger pyramid over its predecessors. Each pyramid had steps up the side and it was eerie coming across the steps of an earlier pyramid deep in the interior.

The steps of an earlier pyramid inside the Cholula Pyramid

We emerged on the far side and followed a path through a grassy area and round to more excavations at the side of the platform.

Excavations at Cholula

‘The Drinkers’ is in a building near here, but so far only 6ha of the 154ha site have been dug. There are no current plans for further excavation, but there are undoubtedly other major finds waiting to be made.

Excavations at Cholula

We finished in the Courtyard of the Altars a large open rectangle with four altars on the perimeter. It may have been used for major ceremonies like those associated with the passing of power, but nobody really knows.

On the Courtyard of Altars, Cholula

Modern Cholula

The Markt: Grasshoppers with Chili and Lemon

Leaving the archaeological site we found ourselves in a open square with a market on two sides.

Market, Cholula

G paused at the grasshopper stall. We tried grasshoppers fried plain with a squeeze of lemon, grasshoppers fried with garlic and grasshoppers fried with chilli, which we liked best, so we bought some. I think G was a little taken aback, but we have enjoyed them before as beer snacks in Laos, so it was not a new experience. I have, though, drawn the line at some of the larger beetles and scary arachnids we have seen in Cambodian markets.

Grasshopper saleswoman, Cholula

We walked through the colourful streets of modern Cholula…

Cholula

…where some buildings showed damage from the September earthquake…

Earthquake damaged building, Cholula

…including San Gabriel, built in 1549 as the main church of the Franciscan Monastery and plonked, with heavy handed symbolism onto the site of the former temple of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent who had previously been Cholula’s presiding deity.

San Gabriel, Cholula

The oldest part of the San Gabriel complex….

Capilla Real, San Gabriel, Cholula

…is known as the Capilla Real though it has no royal connection. The 1540 building was remodelled in the 17th century but what makes it unique, at least in Mexico, is the mosque-like pillars and cupolas.

Inside the Capilla Royal, Cholula

We reached a pleasant central square. ‘Have a coffee,’ said G pointing to the cafés lining one side of the square ‘while I fetch the car.’ After being walked up to, into and through a pyramid and then round the town we had no idea how far away or in what direction the car was, but that was not our problem. We chose a table and ordered two cappuccinos (or should that be cappuccini – perhaps not in Spanish).

Puebla, the First LA in the Americas

G was an enthusiast, and although darkness was falling he felt the need to show us another aspect of his city before finishing for the day. En route we stopped at traffic lights but for once no gang of would-be windscreen washers appeared, instead there was a girl with a hula-hoop. She performed an impressively athletic little act, finishing just in time to collect her money as the lights changed.

‘Puebla’ is the feminine of ‘pueblo’, meaning simply ‘town’ but formally it is Heroica Puebla de Zaragoza – calling a city by a nickname or part of its name is common in Mexico (and not unknown at home, ask the residents of Kingston upon Hull). Puebla was founded in 1531 as Puebla de los Ángeles (‘The first LA in the Americas’ said G) and the new business district is known as Angelópolis. G drove us through this gleaming city of steel and glass; no doubt it is the image the modern city of Puebla, home to the highly automated factories of Volkswagen and Audi, would like to project, but it feels characterless and could be anywhere.

After seeing the Puebla Hilton - exactly like 400 other Hiltons in 40 other countries - we happily returned to the unique Méson Sacristía de la Compañía in the old colonial city. The restaurant has a good reputation, so we decided to eat in.

Mole Poblano, Margaritas and Talavera Pottery

Those who know me - whether personally or through this blog - will be aware that I am not given to standing back when drinks are being poured. It is therefore some admission to say that tequila had never before passed my lips (or Lynne’s), so we ordered our very first margaritas. And excelent they were too, I liked the flavour and the glace frappé, and they were big enough to drink throughout the meal, but I struggled to understand the point of the salted rim.

Lynne and a margarita, Puebla

Lunch had been smallish, but Lynne’s difficulty digesting corn dough meant she settled for soup. Mole poblano, though, is Puebla’s speciality, so I had to try it. There are other moles in Mexico, mainly heavy, rich dark sauces which dominate the dish. I had rice topped with a slice of radish, the ubiquitous beans sprinkled with cheese and spiked with a nacho, and a nicely cooked piece of chicken lurking below the sauce, but these were the side shows, I was eating mole.

It was not unpleasant, the smoked chillies give it a mildly spicy flavour, but I found it seriously underwhelming. Searching for mole poblano recipes, the first I found had 26 ingredients. By the time you have that many the inevitable result is a fuzzy confusion of flavours. There are many, Rick Stein included, who hold moles in high regard – on this evidence, I am not so sure.

Mole Poblano, Mesones de Sacristia de la Compania, Puebla

The dishes were heavily embossed, distinctively blue and decidedly chunky. After 25 years as North Staffordshire residents we have acquired the Potteries habit of turning over side plates to discover their origin. The waiter clocked this and took his opportunity to launch into a lengthy lecture on Talavera pottery.

Maiolica was brought to Mexico early in the colonial period and the fine clay of the Puebla area led to the development of a local style. The golden age of Talavera pottery was 1650-1750 but there has been a recent revival with a Denominación de Origen now protecting Talavera Poblano made using the original 16th century method. Each piece is thrown by hand and all are unique and individually signed.

*Excluding the platform on which the Cholula pyramid sits, Khufu wins on both counts, though neither can compete with the as yet unopened 330m tall Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang (see Last day in Pyongyang).

South East from Mexico City

Part 1: Mexico City (1): Celebrating a Revolution
Part 2: Mexico City (2) Centro Historico and Teotihuacan
Part 3: Cholula, a Big Pyramid and Fresh Grasshoppers
Part 4: Puebla, Cinco de Mayo and Street Food
Part 5: Oaxaca (1): Monte Alban
Part 6: Oaxaca (2): Cooking a Mole
Part 7: San Cristóbal de las Casas. Chamula and Zinacantán
Part 8: The Sumidero Canyon and Chiapa de Corzo
Part 9: San Cristóbal to Palenque via Toniná
Part 10: Palenque and Back to Mexico City
Part 11: Mexico City (3) Kahlo, Rivera and Trotsky

THE END

Mexico City (2), Centro Historico and Teotihuacan: Part 2 of South East from Mexico City

Aztecs, Conquistadors and Others in Mexico City, and the Pyramids of Teotihuacan

Mexico

Mexico City

By 9 o'clock we were breakfasted and waiting in the lobby for F. By 9.05 we were fretting; after being let down by a different guide yesterday our fear of an immediate repeat was not entirely irrational. F arrived at ten past – not bad considering Mexico City’s tangled traffic - perhaps we have become spoilt by East Asian guides who must arrive before their clients or they would lose face.

Tenochtitlán

We drove into the Centro Historico. Built over the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán, the Spanish Cuidad de México was founded in 1521, 40 years before the oldest European city in the USA (St Augustine, Florida) and much longer before almost everywhere else north of the Rio Grande. In part, the 16th century grid pattern still survives and there are many narrow streets, but it was Sunday morning so hold ups were minimal - by local standards.

Al Pastor

Pulling into a multi-storey car park with valet parking – a new one on me, but common here - we walked to the Zócalo (main square) passing several stalls setting up what looked like doner kebabs, though constructed of pork. Doner kebab was brought to Mexico in the 19th century by Lebanese immigrants, and although still available the local variant, pork marinated in chillies, spices and pineapple, is more popular. The meat, looking less than appetizing when raw, is described as al pastor (shepherd style) a nod to the lamb-y original.

Setting up the 'al pastor' Mexico City

On the Zócalo we walked between the cathedral and a large temporary grandstand. An NFL game was to be played in the Azteca stadium that afternoon and the weird ritual that is American Football had spawned sundry side shows.

Plaza del Templo Mayor

Beyond the cathedral and the adjacent Sagrario Metropolitano, built to house the archives and vestments of the archbishop but now the city's parish church, is the Plaza del Templo Mayor. The Templo Mayor, whose excavated remains occupy one corner of the plaza, was the centrepiece of Tenochtitlán, the Aztec city destroyed by Hernán Cortés in 1521.

The remains of Moctezuma's Templo Mayor, Mexico City Centro Historico

Cortés built his new city over the top, Tenochtitlán disappeared and was accidently rediscovered only in 1978 during cable laying.

Model of the Templo Mayor as it might have looked, Centro Historic, Mexico City

The history of pre-Hispanic Mexico is complicated, involves long and unpronounceable names and, in the absence of written records, is often guesswork. The Aztecs (the people of Aztlan) migrated south from Aztlan which was located either in north-west Mexico or in mythology. According to that mythology they were on a quest to build a city where the earth met the sky. Where Lake Texcoco lay in a high mountain valley the pressure of population had driven the inhabitants to build floating islands on which to grow crops. On one such island the Aztecs saw an eagle, representing the sky, holding a snake, representing the earth. This was so obviously the place to build their city that the eagle and serpent motif still features on the Mexican flag and coinage.

Mexican flag with eagle and snake motif

The story suggest Tenochtitlán was not the first settlement on this site, but by 1325 it had become one of a cluster of Nahuatl speaking city states. Ruled by the Mexica dynasty the city increased in size and power and in 1428 linked with two neighbouring cities to form the Aztec Triple Alliance, later known as the Aztec Empire, which ruled central Mexico from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

The Coming of Hernán Cortés

In 1517 Hernán Cortés arrived with 550 men and 16 horses, gave the mighty empire a push and it collapsed like a house of cards.

The Spanish had armour and horses. Horses were previously unknown on the American continent and horse and rider were initially thought to be a two-headed beast that could separate and re-coalesce at will. The Aztecs also lacked the wheel (if you have no horse to pull a cart, why invent a cart?) and their leader, Moctezuma II, mistook Cortés for a god whose appearance on earth had been expected imminently. But, with only 16 magical two-headed beasts and a few hundred men in armour he would have been brushed aside but for his ability to exploit grievances on the outer fringes of the empire which enabled him to lead an army against Tenochtitlán reputedly 100,000 strong. Perhaps even more important were the diseases Cortés’ men brought with them. Finding a whole new population with no natural resistance, smallpox cut a swathe through the empire, killing maybe 50% of the population of Tenochtitlán, far more than Cortés’ soldiers.

The red lines are the approximate limits of Aztec domination at its greatest extent

The Aztecs had built their city on a lake with canals for streets. Cortés, with his horses and wheeled vehicles, had no use for a Mesoamerican Venice and when, as a good Catholic should, he destroyed the religious and ceremonial buildings he dumped the rubble in the canals to become the foundations for his new city.

Model of Tenochtitlán in the Plaza del Templo Mayor, Mexico City, showing the widespread use of canals

The Sinking City

The Templo Mayor was only a small part of Tenochtitlán, the rest remains beneath the modern city. The regular appearance of sink holes is not the worst consequence of Cortés’ cavalier approach to foundations - the whole Centro Historico is sinking at a rate of several centimetres a year.

Calle de Tacuba leading away from the Templo Mayor, Mexico City
The further you look down the road, the further the buildings have sunk

The cathedral and adjacent Sagrario Metropolitano now perch on a concrete raft, but this solution is impracticable for the whole area and several churches and old houses lean at interesting angles.

The Sagrario Metropolitano and, behind it, the Cathedral, Plaza de Temple Mayor, Mexico City

Calle Moneda

We left the plaza following Calle Moneda, once the home of the mint, past the National Palace.

Calle Moneda with the wall of the National Palace to the right, Mexico City
The awning marks the tourist entrance. There is, I believe, an impressive façade on the Zocalo - if the NFL let you see it

To our left, the tower of the former convent church of Santa Teresa la Antigua seemed on the point of toppling.

Santa Teresa la Antigua, Mexico City

After a while the narrow street slopes gently into one of the city’s earliest sink holes.

Calle Moneda dips down into an old sink hole 

The Iglesia de la Santisima Trinidad has also slipped elegantly and largely intact into the hole. F indicated the church’s original floor level.

F shows where the ground level - and the church - used to be

Graffiti is ubiquitous throughout Mexico, but it often rises above mindless tagging to become street art. On the side of the sink hole one such artist has shared their view of the September earthquake.

One view of the Mexico City earthquake 19th September 2017

The National Palace, Mexico City

We returned to join the queue for the National Palace.

Inside the door is a small but spectacular cactus garden.

Lynne in the cactus garden, National Palace, Mexico City

The Cochineal Beetle

The cochineal insect lives among the roots of the prickly pear. I remember my mother icing our Christmas cake sometime in the 1950s and telling me that the red icing was made from the blood of cochineal beetles. The sweetness of the icing overcame my initial unease, but it was not acually blood, nor probably was she using cochineal which had by then been largely replaced by synthetic dyes. Health scares have since seen cochineal making a comeback in food and cosmetics. Carminic acid, from which carmine dyes are made, forms 20% of the insects’ body weight. It seemed a good idea for deterring predators until the big-brained monkeys decided they liked bright red. Cochineal eggs, small white blobs are laid on the cactus’ fleshy lobes. F picked one from the leaf with the corner of his credit card and smeared it on a piece of paper. One tiny egg produced a prodigious quantity of colouring.

Cochineal eggs on the prickly pear, Cactus Garden, National Palace, Mexico City

The palace, still used as government offices, was built by Hernan Cortés, re-using material from Moctezuma’s Palace. It has been much refashioned since but we passed through the remains of Cortés chapel to access a central quadrangle surrounded by a three-storey arcade.

The central quadrangle, National Palace, Mexico City

Diego Rivera's Epic Mural of Mexican History

Covering a substantial area of plaster around the stairwell is Diego Rivera’s epic mural of Mexican history. The scale alone is impressive, but with F interpreting the various sections, it became even more remarkable. It tells a long and complex story, but everyone who has played a part in Mexican history from the Sun God to Leon Trotsky via Cortés, Zapata and JP Morgan is represented.

Just a part of Diego Rivera's historic mural

The Cathedral of the Assumption (and a blessing from the Cardinal Archbishop of Mexico City)

Leaving the palace, we returned to the cathedral, though the scaffolding for the NFL extravaganza prevented me getting far enough away to photograph its façade. Instead, here is a picture of the spectacular door of the adjacent Sagrario Metropolitano, designed by Lorenzo Martinez in Churrigueresque style, a variation on baroque popular in early 18th century Spain among those who thought regular over-the-top baroque was too restrained.

The front of the Sagrario Metropolitano, Mexico City

The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven (snappy title!) was built between 1573 and 1813 over Cortés original church, itself carefully placed to desecrate the Aztec’s most holy site.

Inside the cathedral is the impressive Altar of Forgiveness.

Altar of Forgiveness, Mexico City Cathedral

And a flamboyant organ.

The Mexican Organ, Mexico City Cathedral (it has a Spanish Organ, too!)

The front half of the cathedral was cordoned off for a mass and His Eminence Norberto Rivera Carrera, Cardinal Archbishop of Mexico City, was bringing up the rear of a procession making its way around the altar. His accompanying priests appeared keen on processing but the archbishop kept breaking away to bless members of the congregation. Finally, he made his way to the gawpers leaning on the barrier and moved along the line doling out blessings to foreigners and unbelievers. He laid his hand in Lynne's shoulder, but I received the full treatment - a sign of cross made with his thumb on forehead - I expect I needed it more than she did. [It was, perhaps, a fitting culmination to his career, he retired three weeks later]

His Eminence Norberto Rivera Carrera, Cardinal Archbishop of Mexico City

Into the Estado de México

After that anything in Mexico City would be an anti-climax! We recovered the car and F drove us north out of the Federal Capital into the adjacent state, confusingly called Mexico (in full Estado de México - EDOMEX to avoid misunderstanding). This is commuter territory, houses in bright pastel colours made lines across the hillsides and we passed beneath a cable car that brings workers down to the metro station.

An EDOMEX hillside

Teotihuacan

40km out of the city we reached Teotihuacan, a large archaeological site and major visitor attraction, particularly on this holiday Sunday when food and michelada stalls about which more later - in the Sumidero Canyon) lined the perimeter road. F chose a restaurant and recommended chicken fajitas, a pile of tacos to fill with strips of chicken, onion, peppers, black beans and assorted chilli based salsas. Washed down with Bohemia Obscura, a pleasant dark lager, it was good but remarkably filling.

Chicken fajitas with F, Teotihuacan

We entered Teotihuacan through the ruins of an extensive building near its northern end.

Approaching the central area of Teotihuacan

The main part of the site consists of a broad, walled avenue two kilometres long – the Avenue of the Dead - with a large pyramid at one end - the Temple of the Moon - and an even larger one - the Temple of the Sun half way down. This latter is the world’s third tallest pyramid, beaten only by two of the three pyramids of Giza. Bumps and lumps in the ground suggest more structures are awaiting excavation than have yet been uncovered.

The Temple of the Moon, Teotihuacan

Serious building probably started around 100BCE and continued to 250CE when the population may have reached 125,000. The major monuments were sacked and burned about 550 but the city survived into the 7th or 8th century before being abandoned - nobody knows why.

The Temple of the Sun, Teotihuacan

The excavated area is obviously religious/ceremonial, but how it was used is unknown. The names are no indication, the Temples of the Sun and Moon and Avenue of the Dead were so called by the Aztecs who arrived 600 years after Teotihuacan was abandoned. The ‘temples’ are not really temples, nor are they funerary pyramids like those in Egypt.

Without the use of draught animals or the wheel, the pyramids took decades, maybe centuries, to build using relatively small, light volcanic stones rather than the huge blocks of the Egyptian pyramids. A small flat-topped pyramid was constructed first then a larger one over that and so on for up to seven stages.

Visitors climbing the Temple of the Moon, Teotihuacan

Many visitors had climbed up to the highest scalable platform on the Pyramid of the Moon, but Lynne looked at the high, steep, uneven steps and opted out. I decided to save myself for the larger pyramid which can be climbed to the top.

As far as Lynne went up the Temple of the Moon, Teotihuacan

Walking down the avenue involved negotiating a phalanx of vendors. Many sold stone carvings, including some made from obsidian while others peddled basic tourist tat. Archaeologists found many ceramic jaguar heads scattered about the site. Their use is unknown but they might have been pipes for smoking – tobacco has been cultivated in Mexico since 1,500BCE. Alternatively, it may not be coincidental that boring a strategic hole and blowing into them produces a sound resembling a jaguar. Modern reproductions were selling briskly and we progressed to the Temple of the Sun accompanied by the growls of a thousand jaguars.

After clambering onto the platform beside the avenue Lynne announced that she would not be climbing the pyramid and neither would I, 'It'll ruin your knees for the rest of the trip' she said forcefully. She might have been right, but I looked at the lines of people on the terraces of the pyramid, and decided that if they could do it, so could I.

The Temple of the Sun from the top of the platform

I made the knee creaking descent on the other side of the platform and strode towards the base of the pyramid. I could see the lines of people on the terraces, but the base was hidden and it was only when I reached it that I realized there was a line at the bottom, too. The entrance was in the centre and I walked towards the corner to find the end of the queue. Reaching that corner, 150m away, I found the queue not only rounded it but stretched all the way down the side of the pyramid, another 250m, and appeared to continued round the back. Access to the pyramid was being strictly controlled and the queue, and the lines on the terraces were largely stationary. Admitting defeat, I returned to Lynne disappointed but, on a holiday Sunday, I should have expected it. We met up with F for the drive back to Mexico City. It had been a long day and almost 100% successful – better than yesterday.

The queue stretches round the side of the Temple of the Sun, Teotihuacan

Our lunchtime fajitas had not looked huge but we again found the products of corn dough sat heavily on the stomach. In the evening we went for a walk, pausing for a beer each and a tiny cheese empanada and single taco between us – an order clearly regarded as eccentric by our waiter. It was all we could face.

South East from Mexico City

Part 1: Mexico City (1): Celebrating a Revolution
Part 2: Mexico City (2) Centro Historico and Teotihuacan
Part 3: Cholula, a Big Pyramid and Fresh Grasshoppers
Part 4: Puebla, Cinco de Mayo and Street Food
Part 5: Oaxaca (1): Monte Alban
Part 6: Oaxaca (2): Cooking a Mole
Part 7: San Cristóbal de las Casas. Chamula and Zinacantán
Part 8: The Sumidero Canyon and Chiapa de Corzo
Part 9 San Cristóbal to Palenque via Toniná
Part 10: Palenque and Back to Mexico City
Part 11: Mexico City (3) Kahlo, Rivera and Trotsky

THE END