(Written Dec 18, 2013).

Today we went to Cholula. There’s part of an ancient mesoamerican pyramid temple just outside the city. The Spanish destroyed most of the things when they came but this area has a bit left. Jon had recomended that we take a guided your but it was posted at around 280 pesos por person (like ~$22) for an English tour. I didn’t want a tour that bad. But then as we entered the tunnel (oh ya, there are over 10km of originally carved tunnels INSIDE the pyramid), a Mexican guide shouted
After us Why we needed a guide. He told us it was 180 pesos per person (~$15) for a tour in Spanish (he didn’t speak English). I said no thanks and kept walking. Then he shouted how much more helpful it is to have a guide because the tunnels aren’t marked with explanations and offered us the price of 150 pesos total. (~$12 total). So I accepted and we set off on our tour in Spanish. I felt pretty confident That I would understand a majority but I did ask him at the beginning to speak a little more slowly than normal. He was really nice and I understood most of The main points at least. (at least I think, haha). So that was cool.

Afterwards we hiked to the top of the pyramid hill to the church and got a brilliant view of Cholula city. We hiked back down and met Tonio. He showed us to the city center area and helped us find chapolinas – roasted grasshoppers. I ate one. It was even way more Disgusting than I imagined. And then he helped us find an Internet cafe. Yay! After than we wandered around the city, the zocalo, the churches, the artisan marketplace, and enjoyed the afternoon. A guy at the old
Convent gave us a ‘tour’ of the special art exhibit in the convent museum which was actually super cool. But he spoke SO fast. (or probably just normal haha).

Oh ya, I forgot to mention that it’s said that Cholula has the most
Churches of any city in Mexico. There is even a saying that they have a different church for every day of the year… or something close to that…

I think one of my favorite parts of the day was sitting on a park bench in the zocalo near the gazebo thing that all the zocalos seem to have. We just sat there and relaxed and chatted and people-watched for almost an hour. It was awesome. In a lot of ways. We were the only white people around (basically everywhere we went on our trip), and people said some really hilarious stuff to us. My favorite was the guy who came up to us asking if he could draw us as a caricature. We said no. And he asked if he could do it for free. We laughed. At the point, he pulls out a drawing the size of an 8 by 11 of some girl… I didn’t know who she was supposed to be because… well… it was a caricature… He holds it up to Sophie’s face. And says, “hey, it looks like you, don’t you wanna buy it?” (or the equivalent in Spanish). I laugh. She looks at me. And he says, “Only, just open your eyes really wide”. And the 3 of us laughed for a few minutes before he bid us farewell.

Oh, and we bought some Mexican candy from a kid who came around selling it… I ate it for a midnight snack later since we only got 3 meals a day, and even though I did my best to stuff myself at every meal, if you know me at all, you know that I was starving SO BADLY in between meals.