Puebla Trip Part 1

After Christmas we took a trip to Puebla where Gary served his mission over 15 years ago! We left the day after Christmas day. It only took us about 2 hours to get there so we had plenty of time to explore the city. We stayed at a nice hotel that was once an apartment building. It was a fun place to explore.

Front Entrance

 Dining area

After we settled in to the hotel we visted the town square (Zocalo) which was only a block away.

 

They still had all of the Christmas decorations up that was so fun to see. I believe this was the Administration building.

 Tunnel of lights!

 It's amazing all the silly faces one makes in order to get their child to smile! ;)

 The next day we took a bus city tour around Puebla.

Beautiful architecture everywhere you look!

  

 A beautiful building decorated in lots of Talavera


Pictures do not convey enough how beautiful this church is in person!

Cinco de Mayo Statue

We visited a really neat Talavera factory called Uriarte.We had wanted to take a tour there on how they made them, but we arrived to late. We did get to take a tour at another factory called De La Luz.

So beautiful!


Puebla is famous for their mole poblano and chiles en nogada.

 This band played a Coldplay song called "When I ruled the world"

We found out that Aurora really likes oranges!

Couldn't resist taking another photo by the tunnel of lights!

The decorations were SO pretty!

Nativity Scene




This street is called the "Alley of the Frogs" It's a colorful street filled with lots of handmade & antique markets.

 On the second day we visited Cacaxtla. Before going to the ruins we visited the museum that had some artifacts they found at the site.

Site of Cacaxtla (The entire site is covered by this pavilion to protect the murals that survived). 

One of the main squares.

The Venus Temple that is also located underneath the roof contains two murals on two columns of two figures. On the right column, there is a male figure with a mask covering his face. He wears a skirt with the Venus symbol on the front and has a scorpion tail. On the left, a fragment of the other figure is visible, probably representing a woman with a skirt also bearing a Venus symbol. The presence of Venus on the garments of the figures and their representation around both of them indicate that the murals allude to some astronomical phenomenon or calendrical data associated with the planet Venus, which at that time was related to warfare and sacrifice.

The Mural del Templo Rojo is located at the Governors' Room

Pillars 

Scrollwork

The most famous of Cacaxtla's preserved paintings is the "Battle Mural"

Feline Man

Xochitecatl public ceremonial complex viewed from Cacaxtla.

 Xochitecatl Ruins

 

Round Pyramid!

As Gary was going down memory lane he found the house with the blue trim where Gary lived as a missionary!

We also visited a Cuexcomate which a lot of people think is the smallest volcano of the world, but in reality it is a geyser.

There is a spiral staircase that goes down into the geyser.

According to Gary there wasn't any water down here, but it was a nice feature they added.

Gary mentioned that they have improved this site tremendously since the last time he was here. It use to just have a dirt floor where people would defecate in it. Gross! I'm glad they decided to clean it up and make it a nice place to visit! This was the only good picture we could get of the two of us..haha

A pretty church

We went out to lunch at a taco place and these waiters were just crazy about Aurora! It was so cute!

After lunch we ran into Herbie the Love Bug!