Puebla & Pyramids

Wednesday we toured Puebla where my parents live, and some old pyramids. We drove around quite a bit to see the city and here are a few of the pictures from that. I loved how colorful the buildings were. It was also humbling to see the way some of the residents live, and makes me very grateful for everything we have in our lives.

We then went to a wonderful Talavera shop that is owned by my mother's friend's friend. My mom made an appointment so they would show us the steps they do to make the talavera. We drove up and walked into this little store and started looking around. When we got to the back of one room it led into another room, then another. There were around 8 rooms that were all connected with talavera ALL over every nook and cranny! It was amazing, every room looked like you took power washer full of paint and splattered it all over the place but ended up with gorgeous designs covering every wall and floor. There was talavera stacked in piles and piles as far as the eye could see and under every display table.

It was neat seeing the whole process in front of you from the start to the colorful end result. We saved up some money to bring some Mexico treasures home with us and I was completely excited and overwhelmed with all of the options they had, I was in heaven! I wish I could have a whole set of dishes, but Tyson wouldn't have gone for that. I decided to pick out the pieces I loved and walk around with them so they wouldn't end up lost in the talavera abyss forever. I put them together to make the final decision, otherwise there would be no way to remember what room had which pieces and what they looked like after 5 minutes of wandering and searching through piles. After much searching, contemplating, walking around through the store hugging a vase/bowl I found we ended up with some pretty cool stuff.

Below are our findings from the whole trip which I will treasure forever. The black pottery on the left is from a market they had and came from Oaxaca which is a city known for their clay pottery. The egg-shaped one has a candle holder base and when you light it up it shines through all of the carvings, and the cup-looking black pottery can be a pencil holder. We got a talavera cookie jar (thanks to my husband letting me buy just one more thing that I loved at that amazing store), the adorable vase/bowl which is one of my favorites, a serving dish, as well as a veggie/trip tray where the sections come out. Also there are some little dresses for when Ty and I eventually have a girl as well as the jewelry I bought in Jalcomulco and the Sun Stone from our pyramid trip which is now in our bathroom.

Then we headed to a cute market that had some adorable things. The sellers weren't in your face trying to convince you to buy things like they usually do in the border cities. We then went to pick up Jenny and on the way we saw these police driving around in the back of a pickup with machine guns...that was an interesting sight, and it was weird to see them guarding some banks. While we were waiting for Jenny to get out of school my mom bought us Churros (or Churritos we used to call them in school) which I really missed being able to eat!

One of Tyson's requests was to go to the Harley store which we were able to find. He got a few shirts from my parents as a belated b-day gift from there which were neat.

That night after driving all over I asked my mom to teach us how to make her amazing cinnamon rolls and she obliged. Tyson had never made them so he joined right in (I love that he loves cooking), and it was fun capturing all of his faces in the process.

...and here are some other faces that were made in the process.

Thursday we woke up bright and early to head to Teotihuacan which is NE of Mexico City. It was Tyson and I, my mom, and her friend Laurie (our guide) who's dad is an archaeologist - and she is in my mom's ward. Her father taught her and her sister all about ruins and they went with him all over the world to study archaeology and would compare it to the information in the Book of Mormon. It was great to have her there because she did all sorts of research on these pyramids. She said that they believe the people of Ammon used to live at Teotihuacan and they were eventually run out by the Lamanites. They used cement to build a lot of the structures and the archaeologists who are now working on the pyramids also found a baptismal font supported by 12 oxen. They don't let people inside because they can't explain it - supposedly the area didn't have oxen there at that time. She also believes that Christ came to Teotihuacan and areas around here to visit the people. It was very interesting to hear her thoughts on all of this!

We walked around and Laurie said you can find little pieces of old pottery on the ground. We picked up some good ones and put them in a bag my mom had. There was a vendor that sold us an arrowhead he found in the area which was also pretty cool. The pyramid below is the Pyramid of the Sun which is the most famous and takes FOREVER to get to the top because it's so huge and the elevation is killer. Halfway up we saw a gopher going in and out of his hole which was weird...I wonder where his tunnels go! The one on the right is us touching the center which supposedly rejuvenates you (according to some tourists on top).

View from the top of the Sun Pyramid. The bottom-right hand corner is my mom and Laurie walking around looking for small old pieces of pottery which are all over the place. My mom found a spear head and Laurie was really excited about that!

So we went down to the bottom to rejoin them and look at the spear head my mom found and came upon this....there was some police guy standing there lecturing my mom and Laurie. We went over there and supposedly taking things from the ground and buying things like our arrowhead from people is against the law even though there are no signs or ropes around areas or anything. Laurie poured the contents of the bag onto the ground so he could see it was nothing (while he wasn't looking she picked up the spear head and put it in her bra so they wouldn't confiscate it lol). He picked everything up from the ground, all the while Laurie was talking back and forth with him in Spanish...

...then he made us get in their pickup to drive us to the station. All the while I was thinking that this whole situation was really ridiculous and Tyson was afraid we were going to go to a Mexican Prison and he could never get his Law Degree haha. He tends to overreact sometimes which is cute. So here is a picture of us leaving the pyramid in the pickup and heading to the station to see what would happen to us. I was just really hoping they didn't take away the arrowhead because I wanted to put it in the scrapbook!

Our ride over we were just joking about random things that I don't remember. I wonder if my mom had ever been in the back of a Mexican Police pickup truck. It did, however give us some great views of the pyramids and we didn't have to walk over to this other long section that we drove by. So we were taken to three different places, Laurie did some great convincing that the arrowhead wasn't original so they gave it back to us and kept the pottery. They then picked up these two other archaeologists who work there and drove us all back to where they found us so we could show them where we found everything. Then we were let go yay!
So anyways - that was our adventures in Teotihuacan. We were going to go see a mural painted by the old inhabitants of a white man with a beard wearing a white robe with his hands outstretched with blood coming out of them and there are animals and people that look really happy and rejoicing all above him. Laurie believed that this was Christ when he visited the area. When we got there it was closed...thanks a lot police guys!

Friday was our last day and we went to the city of Cholula which is the longest current inhabited city in the America's because people still live there. We went to an area where people painted a mural of old legends and you can see what looks like to be Christ wearing a white robe. The legends say that he came to Cholula and administered to the people teaching them ways of kindness. It said he was there with them for around 20 years.

We then went to their market which was a huge enclosed area where people sold all sorts of things they specialized in. There was TONS of meats, flowers, fruits and all sorts of interesting things. You could buy different parts of chicken like just the heads or feet...gross. It was definitely a sensory overload!

The city of Cholula has an old pyramid with a church built on top of it. We were able to go all through the pyramid and saw lots of secret passages and stairs that would lead to nowhere. It would be really creepy to go there at night...alone...that would totally freak me out!

Here is the inside of the church. It is pretty amazing how intricate they get with the insides or churches/cathedrals which they still use today. My mom and I were walking around the pyramid because Laurie said you could sometimes find pieces of Jade or other things from long ago. We found a lot of pottery and picked up a few. Tyson was just telling me that if I was arrested he wouldn't bail me out because we should know better. When we got home we washed them off and I realised that one of the pieces I found was a face carved in pottery! It was so neat! It has the nose, eyes, lips, and even these earrings you can faintly see (you can click on the picture to make it larger). My mom showed it to Laurie our guide and she said it is authentic. The white in the recesses are there because it was originally painted white, and she would date it between 1400 to 1500 ad. (Pre-conquest, she said.) Pretty cool!

We went on top of the pyramid to watch the sun set behind their active volcano which was the end of our trip. We loved every minute of it, and we are so glad to spend that time with my family. I feel so lucky that we were able to go and spend time with my parents. Thanks guys! It was a blast and I would do it again in a heart beat.