Click on a photo to enlarge it.
It was quite loud on the street where we were parked and so we slept on and off throughout the night. We went to see
if Maria was in which she was. We spent nearly three hours chatting to her and playing with her sister-in-law's new
puppy. Maria doesn't know whether to stay in Mexico or to return to Kiel, Germany. There couldn't be a bigger
difference between the two towns.
We gave her the CD with photos from San Cristóbal and our website on it, and then drove off to the ruins of Monte
Albán, high above Oaxaca. We went for lunch first in the restaurant and then spent 1.5 hours wandering around in the
blazing heat.
When we got back to Winnie who was baking in the sun, Kirsten had a mad fit hunting for a camera chip. She looked
just like a dog kicking up dirt behind it, after doing its business! She was throwing things all over the place and
turning Winnie upside down in the process!
Then we couldn't find our purse and had a bit of a panic, only to find that Kirsten had buried it under other things
whilst searching for her chip! It was all very frantic, especially in that heat!
We finally left at 3-40pm and set off on the long drive to Puebla (about 240 miles, 385 km). We managed to find the
free road which curved all the way up into the mountains and so it was slow going. At 7-30pm, just as it was getting
dark, we found a Pemex, literally in the middle of nowhere and parked up for the night.
On Tuesday, we left early and continued on the slow road. It was a long driving day and we finally made it to Puebla
and promptly got lost, despite having maps of the city! We found a supermarket and went shopping. Then we asked where
we were!! We were heading for Cholula which is a smaller town on the west side of Puebla, where there is a campground.
On the way, we found a Wal-mart. It was 5-45pm and as we were still about 1 hour away from the campground (it wasn't
very far but the traffic was bad) we decided we were too tired to drive any further and decided to park there for the
night.
On Wednesday, we drove to two churches on the way to the campground. The first was closed for renovations but the
second was quite spectacular - Templo de Santa Maria in Tonantzintla. The inside walls are covered with colourful
stucco saints, devils, flowers, birds etc and is very elaborate.
We stopped off in the centre of Cholula for a look around the main square and then drove to the campground where we
stayed for the next three nights. The rest of the day was spent on the computer and chatting to neighbours, Petra and
Lothar from Paderborn, Germany. It turned out that they met Ingo Engemann in the Grand Canyon 2 months after we had
met him and his wife Marika in Baja California! Small world!
On Thursday, we decided to leave Winnie at the campground and use local transport to get us to a town called Tlaxcala
about 30 miles away (50km), to visit one of the best churches in Mexico.
We used "collectivos" which are mini vans and are an excellent and cheap form of local transport throughout Mexico
and will get you virtually anywhere you want to go. Just be prepared for a bumpy ride and don't watch where you're
driving - near misses are frequent!
On the way there we had to get two collectivos and a coach. We stopped at the tourist information office and then
went for coffee and cakes! Afterwards, we walked up the steep hill to the Basilica de Ocotlán. From the outside it
looks like a wedding cake, but it wasn't as spectacular as the church at Tepotzotlán.
Back in the town, we looked at the murals in the presidential building and walked around the centre. Then we got a
collectivo back to Puebla where we wandered around more churches and watched a parade where lots of different police
agencies in uniform marched to the square to take down the Mexican flag - a ceremony that takes place once every
year, so we were lucky to see it. The flag is raised again the next morning.
We caught our last collectivo of the day back to the campground, arriving at 7-15pm. The cost of all the transport
for the two of us was only $8. It would have cost us more in petrol!
On Friday, we had a relaxing morning and in the afternoon we walked into Cholula to look at the largest pyramid (in
volume) in the world - even larger than the pyramid in Cheops, Egypt. The problem is that it isn't recognisable as a
pyramid! It's just a large grassy mound with a church on top!
On Saturday, we went through the usual cleaning ritual to leave the campground and then spent 2 hours saying goodbye
to Petra and Lothar! Consequently it was 1-40pm before we left.
We wanted to drive around the south side of Mexico City and head for Guadalajara which is about 850 miles away!
(1360km). We also wanted to avoid toll roads as much as possible. The first leg of the journey took us past 2
volcanoes which were shrouded on smog from Mexico city! We managed to find a Pemex at 7pm and parked up for the night.
On Sunday, we ended up paying a toll because we couldn't avoid it and then managed to find the free road. It was steep
and windy and once we got to Cuernavaca, we had to stop and study the maps to find the free road towards Pátzcuaro.
Oh God what a road!! It was so steep that Winnie crawled along at 1 mph, in first gear for over an hour!! We never
thought we were going to make it!
Every time we went round a bend, we said "Oh no"!! as we saw that it just kept going up and up! Winnie just kept
crawling along and we were both sweating like mad and promising we would never come back - if we made it, that is!!
We finally got to the top and then found a shady spot to give Winnie (and us!) a rest. We had a late lunch and then
set off down the other side of the mountain! We managed to get through another large town and find the right road.
At one point we had to stop as we had forgotten to secure the fridge door, and our yoghurt flew out as we went around
one of the many bends. It took us a while to clean up the mess! We set off again and drove until 7-15pm when we found
a Pemex for the night.
