Tepoztlan

Happy Labor Day everyone! Oh, except in the states you have to wait until September... Happy Labor Day to everyone in Mexico, most (all?) South American countries, and most Western European countries, and happy May Day to those in the states! Holidays all around. Seeing as I almost never have a week-day off, I thought it would be a great idea to get out of town for the day. Apparently, everybody else in Mexico City shared my idea. I left my apartment this morning with no small level of bull-headedness: I was going to catch a bus to Tepoztlan, a small "pueblo magico" that I've been wanting to visit for a year, no matter what. I arrived early to the bus station, but it was packed, even before 8 am. After waiting in line forever, I finally got a ticket to go. It took about two and a half hours to arrive to a place supposedly 45 minutes away, since there was so much traffic going out of the city. Let's not travel on holidays anymore.

Luckily, the bus was clean and comfortable, and even had a movie playing! Too bad they chose to play "127 Hours", on a bus full of people who were going to go hiking. That was mean. Still, the bus dropped me off just outside of Tepoztlan shortly after 10, and from there I was able to walk to the city. (Mostly I was just lucky in guessing which direction to walk along the highway). Upon arriving, I fell in love with the town. Here's why:

The main square has a very old and beautiful church and ex-convent.

The front of the church 

Inside the ex-convent, there were beautiful wall murals, although I didn't fully
understand the relevance of some of the artwork. I'll get to that in a minute.

I think I could live here.

Some of the artwork in the Ex-Convento de la Natividad. It's cool, sure, unique. But
how is it related to the ex-convent? If someone could explain this to me, that'd be super.

The inside of the church. I've found that the ones that aren't particularly awe-inspiring
on the outside can be some of the most surprisingly gorgeous ones on the inside.

After visiting the church and ex-convent, it was time to visit the main attraction of Tepoztlan: El Tepozteco, a pyramid at the top of a mountain just next to the city. I walked along the main avenue, which let me straight to the trailhead.

Tepoztlan's main avenue. Tepoztlan has no cement or asphalt streets, and no buildings
taller than 2 or 3 floors. The town is colorful, calm, and has an old-timey feeling to it.

Towards the beginning of the trail. This looks easy enough!

The rest of the trail. Oh my god, why is it so steep and when did I get so out of shape?!

Towards the top of the mountain, these creatures appeared!

I later learned that these creatures are called 'coatimundi' or 'coati' and are in the raccoon family.

And they love when humans share their food...

 Now let me tell you a coati story. I was beyond excited to discover small cat-like creatures at the end of my hike. They came right up to people, weren't shy at all, super cute and friendly.....and apparently, giant bullies and awful thieves.

So I'm all goo-goo eyes over these strange but cute little creatures, and I think it would be a nice gesture on my part to offer a piece of my granola bar. Then I could have all the coati friends! So I dig through my bag and pull one out. I put my bag on the ground, and one coati immediately dives in to my bag. (Think cats and cardboard boxes). Instead of trying to pull a strange animal out of my purse, I think it's a better idea to persuade him with a little food. The wrapper crinkles as I'm trying to open it, and all of a sudden the coati is climbing up my leg! I didn't know if they bit, but the claws were sure sharp. As soon as the claws touched somewhere they really shouldn't have, I panicked and threw the entire granola bar down in front of me. And started an almost-to-the-death coati fight between 3 of them. They were so aggressive with each other; these seemingly cute and sweet creatures had a dreadful dark side! And they stole my lunch. And didn't give me the wrapper back, which essentially forced me to litter. Moral of the story: these creatures aren't really your friends.

The reward at the end of the hike, the Tepozteco pyramid

The view of Tepoztlan, as seen from the Tepozteco pyramid

Who's this sunburned blonde girl in the way of the view?

If you didn't want to pay 43 pesos to climb on the pyramid, you could
hang out down there and have lunch with the coati. Bad choice, I imagine.

That marks the last interesting point of my day. Unless, of course, you're interested in the ice cream at Tepoznieves. You really haven't experienced Tepoztlan until you've eaten at their famous ice cream store. (I'm talking rose-petal flavored ice cream, people). But, I never have my food in front of me long enough to take pictures of it, so you'll just have to use your imagination. Post-ice cream, I decided I had enough sugar to walk back up to the bus station and catch a ride home. Aaand that marks the end of my day in Tepoztlan.