Puebla, Day Eleven

I went to Cholula today, which is a town near Puebla famous for it's great pyramid.  You would never guess it to see it because it has been covered with dirt, trees and scrub for centuries.  On top of it a church was built in 1596, part of the trend of the Spanish to repurpose ritual sites in the Americas.  The pyramid is larger than the Great Pyramid of Egypt.  It is 180 feet high and 1300 feet square at the base. I climbed up to the top, tiring but not exhausting to visit the church which makes up for its lack of size by the lavish ornamentation inside.  Gold everywhere.  Following this I went through the labyrinth of subterranean tunnels underneath. There are five miles of these tunnels and the ones open to the public are much shorter.  They are very narrow with a low ceiling and a triangular shape.  I hit my head once and also my shoulder.  I was offered a guide for an extra five pesos but I declined, partly because it is easy to get pesoed to death here and also because I wanted to do it alone, to really get a sense of how the place feels.  I afterward looked at some of the excavated ruins at the bottom of one slope of the pyramid and tried to get a sense of how this complex must have looked in its complete glory.  I tried to envision how different things would have been had the Spanish invaders not destroyed these buildings of remarkable beauty and purpose and how different Mexico would be now had they treated the indiginous people with respect.  Of course they might have also convinced the Aztecs etc. that maybe they could replace human sacrifice with offerings of flowers and fruits and in exchange refrain from burning and butchering anyone who did not accept their version of the Christian faith.
     The bus ride was cheap, seven and a half pesos or around sixty cents.  The seats were cramped but nicely upholstered and the ride generally not at all friendly for those prone to motion sickness.
Late this morning I had breakfast in the usual place.  I saw whom I thought was the owner but when I asked it turned out she is the owner's mother so in a way, yes , she is the de facto owner.  She would be in her fifties, I guess, with extreme red hair and the personality to match.  Yesterday she looked downright frightening as she was giving orders to one of the waiters to clean a table.  Today I told her how much I like having breakfast in her restaurant and how nice and friendly and great to chat with her waiters are.  Three of them heard me and were smiling ear to ear and I winked at them.