Sara, Fancy and Tall

Viva Puebla!

This past weekend, we all got up at the crack of dawn on Saturday to hop on the 7 a.m. bus to Puebla, which is about two hours away. No worries, because these are like fancy pants tour buses, so we were plenty comfy. When we made it to Puebla, we traveled into the downtown area, or the Zoccalo and saw many beautiful streets.

We first toured the city a little and also went into the Largest Cathedral in Latin America. It took almost 115 years to complete the construction of the cathedral, and when you go inside, you can see why. It's HUGE.

One of the best parts of our day was a trolley tour throughout the entire city. Since we are in Mexico, we walk everywhere, and to sit down and take a ride somewhere is a real treat. We had a lot of fun on the trolley, even if we couldn't always understand the tour guide.

There was a ton of shopping in the city, and vendors were everywhere we went, so it was easy to find things we wanted. For lunch we chose this really cheap, hole in the wall place, that was actually really good. We got gorditas and quesadillas, and were quite pleased...until later when I felt sick. Yuck, I didn't feel good the rest of the weekend, so I didn't eat much after that. Bummer.

Saturday night, we wound up in Cholula, a smaller city right outside Puebla, because thats where our plans were for Sunday, and we also had reservations at an all girls hostel. Yes I said hostel, not hotel. Well by the time we made it there, it was around 9 p.m. and the hostel already decided to give our rooms away!!! Ahhh!! We were kinda nervous and short on ideas. Fortunately, we found a different hostel, that was twice as expensive, but it had room for all 7 of us. The girls ate some cholupas from the street, and then we all crashed for the night. Our feet were killin us!!

On Sunday, we got plenty of rest and then headed over to the ruins in el centro de Cholula. It was a beautiful warm day, so we got tons of pictures and walked through the whole park. First we had breakfast at one of the many food stands surrounding the soccer fields. The girls all had cemitas, which are like toasted sandwiches piled with pork, cilantro, onions and salsa. It looked soo good, but I felt so sick.

Oh hey, did I mention our little group of six has an addition?? Yes! Her name is Betsy, and she is in the picture above in the pink shirt on the right. She also teaches at the same school as us, but in a different program similar to ours, but with adults. She is SOO much fun, way nice, our age, and basically a lot of fun. We invited her on our little adventure, and we hope she comes on lots more!!

Anyways, our day continued looking at the awesome ruins, the cathedral of Cholula, and the gorgeous weather. We learned a whole lot and walked even more. We hiked all the way to the top of that half pyramid..holy cow, the view was scary, and it was even scarier that there was no railing or handle bars..Yikes!!

Overall, we had a super fun weekend, ate lots of random food, saw crazy people, and lots of neat stuff too. By the time we came back, we were way too tired, dirty and sunburnt. Puebla was Awesome!!

L to R: Me, Betsy, Jen, Courtney, Ashley, Mandy and Bonnie

-Sara Jacqueline