And A Little Child Shall Lead You! Cuetzalan, Puebla

This weekend, as is my wont, I ran away to a place where I could freeze my ass off even more successfully than I do in Mexico City. Reading descriptions of Cuetzalan, it sounded like a muggy place where my clothes would stick to me (in a pleasant way), and I would find the need for one of my new bathing suits. Alas, even in Mexico, at high altitudes muggy turns to bone-chilling dampness in November. And hotel rooms that look bright and cheery in pictures can be rather dank in real life. Nonetheless, I had an absolutely wonderful time. Even better once I invested in a sweatshirt lined with shiny fake fur.

In a day and a half, I hit just about all the sights that Cuetzalan had to offer. I stuck around my hotel room on Saturday morning, attempting to study for finals and hoping the chipis chipis (incessant misting rain) would dry up. Around 11, I realized that the mist was simply a fact of life, and headed up to the caves in Pahpalapan, about a 10 minute ride straight up from the center of town. I picked one of the worst moments to go riding around in the back of a pick up truck—a wet, muddy, mountainous road with hairpin turns on a misty day.

The cave tour consisted of spending about an hour and a half trudging through a wet creek bed in the bottom of the cave, looking at stalagmites and anti-stalagmites. My camera screen quit working, so most of my pictures didn’t turn out very well. Our intrepid guide (who I was afraid might be dying of tuberculosis by the coughs that interrupted his explanations) obviously had a lot more experience than the rest of us at crawling up and down slippery rocks.

He led us to the farthest point that could be reached in the cave in a pair of ancient sandals, the kind most indigenous men wear here, that basically are a large piece of leather bound to the bottom of the foot with a few leather strings. Rather than explaining anything geological in detail (which admittedly, would have been boring), he shined the flashlight on various formations and related his own personal ideas of what they looked like—among others, we saw what the guide was convinced were formations shaped like a Buddha, an Olmec colossal head, a jaguar, a soldier, an old woman, a fat woman, a seated woman, and a young woman, a crocodile, a frog head, and a snarling dog. The only one I found puzzling was the frog head—I think it’s because my own limited imagination makes it difficult for me to picture where the frog’s head cuts off from the rest of the body. Where is the frog neck?


Having escaped from the cave without breaking my neck or cracking my skull open, I decided to head down to the other side of town to see the waterfalls. On the cave tour I met a couple girls from Puebla named Gaby and Lu, and they decided to go to the waterfalls with me. By then, we were all covered in mud and soaking wet, so no more harm could be done. Lu even tried to convince us to swim out to the waterfall, but halfway in, we realized it was actually freezing.

Strangely, though I was the only non-Mexican, I ended up being the person nominated to figure out where we were going. Most instructions in small villages in Mexico end up sounding like incantations. Our combi driver told me, “I will drive you to a corner where trucks will be waiting. Before boarding one of these trucks, you should look down the street where children will be waiting. You should choose one of these children to guide you. I would not recommend going alone—the way is hidden, and the path is steep and slippery.”

So we got dropped off by the pick-up trucks to San Andres Tzicuilan, and started asking around for a guide. (yes, another pickup truck on a mountain road in the rain) A 17-year old appeared out of the woodwork with an old creased brochure picturing the sightes of Cuetzalan, and offered to take us to the falls for 50 pesos a person. Luckily, he was old enough that I didn’t have to sit around having deep thoughts about ethics and child labor, and I could just lean back and listen to the people chatting in Nahuatl to each other in the back of the truck on the way to Tzicuilan. All of my Nahuatl started coming back!! A most exciting experience. The falls were totally worth it, and I emerged victorious again, not having fallen off the mountain or broken a leg on the muddy descent.


The town of Cuetzalan was full of things to look at as well. Indigenous people come into the restaurants selling things, which some people find annoying, but I always enjoy it. Especially with the rather bizarre variety some offered. Most people sold key chains, hand embroidered napkins, woven rebozos, but my favorite was an old blind man who came in and offered me coffee. When I told him I had no need for already ground coffee, he offered me black pepper. Again, I turned him down. Next, he offered me pine nuts. Finally, after I had turned down about 17 varieties of dried goods, I gave him some change and went on eating breakfast. Everyone was dancing in Cuetzalan—at my hotel, La Danza de los Huahuas


And in the church more dancers






And a market on Sunday