This Saturday morning was all "huzzle & buzzle" in our room. Sundar & me got into a bit of an argy-bargy with each other over a most important thing. Yep!! We were on a outing to "Puebla" and we were discussing about our outfit for the trip. :) :) Its a 2 hours drive from mexico city and we were all enthused about this trip. Their travel itinerary had; walks through the tunnel of the biggest pyramid in the globe, Indian - Spanish art, the largest Volcanoes of Mexico and the talavera painting. Woo that would be an wonderful trip. Isn't it? :) :) So did we expect the same thing and how it turned out to be otherwise, is a different story. you will be knowing it through the post.
We started around 10 and our first halt was for the volcanoes. We stopped at a very good view point nearby the Italian Coffee shop. We were able to have a good view of both the peaks. They are covered with ice throughout the year.
Popocatepetl
It is an active volcano and the second highest peak in Mexico at a height of 5426m. This name is derived from the Nahuatl language (Language of the Aztecs, who dominated the central mexico from 14-16th century) popōca means "to smoke" and tepētl means "mountains" and hence also the name "Smoking Mountains". If you wanna know more about this you can check out at Wikipedia which has more information about this. Here s the link for
Iztaccihuatl:
Extinct volcano and the third highest mountain in Mexico. This has 4 peaks out of which the highest one is 5230m. Together these peaks represent the head, chest, knees and feet of a sleeping female figure. This is also derived from the Nahuatl language Iztac menas "White" andcihuatl means "Woman".If you concentrate only on the white parts of the mountain, you can see an image of o woman sleeping with head towards your right as you look at it. There is an "Aztec love myth" behind these mountains which you can see it in "Wikipedia" if you are interested. :)
The two together and the peaks covered in snow almost throughout the year. Though it s not nearer to the peaks, this view point is very enjoyable. You can have a cup of coffee from the nearby cafe and can laze around the place for sometime.
Then we headed to see the largest pyramid in the world. Its base is four times bigger than the base of the pyramid of Giza, Egypt. We were so exicted and on reaching there we were able to find a church on top of the hill just like one of the murugan temples in our place. :( :(. We went to the tour guide and hesitatingly we asked him. Is this the pyramid? He said that there was one long long ago and in due course of time it was destroyed both naturally and also by humans. When the Spanish ruled, they constructed a church on top of this. Its very sad to know that they have lost one of their major assets.
We were not able to believe that this was once a pyramid, until we saw some excavation work going on down. We were so much disappointed that we dint have any tunnel ride. The guide said that its all stopped cuz of the ruins.(We were reminded of how the hotel staff reacted when we went to book this trip. He said it is such a beautiful trip and you have this "toonel"( tunnel) walk etc and all turned out to be craps.) Finally we went up to the church, took few clicks and came back hoping the next stopwould compensate for this.
To be continued in my next post, Puebla Trip II. Dint want to make it too long!!
So long. Happy Reading!!!
