After having a week full of ups and downs in northern Mexico, we started to head down again. The plan was crossing central Mexico while avoiding Mexico city and head toward Oaxaca in Southern Mexico and see as much as we can in between. We arrived at the province of Hidalgo north of Mexico city and spent few days around a city called Pachuca. While we were looking for a campsite in the area, we noticed an interesting rock formation and a waterfall nearby called Prismas Basalticas. After spending a peaceful night at a nearby campsite we went to the waterfall for a visit. It was stunning! This area was mountainous with great weather and looked like that it is the popular spot for people living in New Mexico to spend the weekend and enjoy clean and fresh air. It is also surrounded by cute magic towns or Pueblos Magicos as Mexican call them. We’ve spent few days in the area, had great local food and also spent a freezing night in a pine forest nearby. Didn’t expect to experience minus two degrees celcius in central Mexico!
From there, we continued south on the western side of Mexico city to a town called Teotihuacan, famous for its Pre Colombian Archeological site and its famous temples called temple of the moon and temple of the sun. We had a rough day driving in the area. Dusty busy roads with a lot of traffic and we had a rough idea about where we wanted to stay. It was close to sunset when we got close to the archeological site and pretty much all the options for our potential camp site were either not existed or we couldn’t find them! As we were driving around looking for one of them, we found another spot with a big metal gate that looked like a camp site. The guy watering the garden came out and said that it is a camp site but the price was high for us and for Mexican standard so we said it is too much and were about to leave when he brought down the price. We decided to stay, paid him and headed where he said we could camp. We were the only ones there and we were happy to be amongst the trees after a rough day.
As soon as we started to set up camp, he showed up and said that we can camp in a better stop and we need to follow him. We drove a little dirt track uphill to the top of a hill where we could see both temples. The view point was just awesome! Then he started to ask for more money again because of the view. I was so pissed off that he made us move and now he wants more money. We were so tired and honestly had enough in last few weeks so I told him that we are not paying and we are not moving because we already moved so he agreed that we stay in the same spot. He was saying something about the next morning but with my broken Spanish, I didn’t realise what he meant.
Next morning, we woke up and saw hundreds of Balloons in the sky with the amazing view of both temples from our bedroom window and just realised what he meant. It was a surreal setting and we were so happy with what we were witnessing.
We had a great time at the temples complex after breakfast and headed back on the road toward south after that.
The next stop on the way was a small place called San Andres de Cholula on the outskirt of Puebla city. We’ve heard that there’s a festival going on there so we decided to have a look. It also has a unique and different church on top of the hill with the view of a volcano. It was on our way south so we decided to have a stop.
We just got there around 4:00 pm and the traffic was really bad around Puebla city. We finally got to the center of Cholula and it was everything but a small town on the outskirt of Puebla city that we expected. It was busy, vibrant, modern with so much traffic and very few options to spend the night. We didn’t find a sign of festival and it was too late to drive out of town so we stayed in a carpark with the view of the church and volcano next to a shopping complex with lots of bars and restaurants.
That’s Mexico, one night we had an epic camp spot with stunning views and the next day, shopping mall car park is our home for the night!
We locked the car and headed to one of the bars looking over the church and our carpark for a drink and something to eat! We knew that we needed a good drink if we wanted to be able to sleep in this busy neighborhood.
We had few drinks while watching sun setting behind the church and were about to leave that a young couple next to us ordered Mezcal and the waiter brought them an interesting bottle! We were heading to the land of Mezcal after here so Amir decided to ask about the Mezcal that they were serving. The waiter didn’t know English and with our broken Spanish, he didn’t understand our question so he went and came back with the bar owner! He said that this mezcal is an artisenal one, made locally in Pueblo city and it is not possible to buy it elsewhere. We thanked him and got the name of few good brands that we could buy in stores.
We were about to leave that the waiter asked us to stay a bit longer! Then the owner came with a nice platter and shots of the Mezcal that they just served to our neighbors and said, this is our special mezcal for you on the house!!
It was so sweet of him to offer us their special mezcal and his kind gesture really made our day and guess what? The mezcal was really good and set our bar high for our next mezcal tastings in Mexico.
After the last shot of mezcal, we thought we were drunk enough to go to sleep but Mexican bars were loud enough to keep us awake till almost 3:00 am !
That was it, Another wild week in Mexico, full of surprises, ups and downs and as always, you never know what Mexico has for you next.
In the next post, we carry on south and east and successfully finish our detour around Mexico city and enter the area we were looking forward to, Oaxaca!
Till then take care and have fun.
