Only a few miles away from Puebla, Cholula is known
for its archaeology park, which contains the pre-Hispanic Great
Pyramid of Cholula, 1500 BC, the largest in the world by volume.
It’s topped by the Church of Our Lady of Remedies, a
16th-century structure built by the Spanish, where we get
great views of the city and the impressive Popocatépetl and
Iztaccihuatl volcanoes.
Took an uber to Cholula. We had seen online that the pyramid was open [The Great Pyramid of Cholula, also known as Tlachihualtepetl,[Mon-Sun 10-5, 80 MXN =Video cam charge, The tunnels are closed because of Covid, but you can still visit the museum, and the ruins. ], in reality, it was closed as was the museum, the guards said, no opening date yet.
The church on top of the mountain is currently only
accessible from Friday to Sunday; we planned our visit of
Cholula accordingly.
The Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios (Our Lady of Remedies Church)
is a 16th-century Mexican Catholic parish church built atop the Tlachihualtepetl pyramid in the municipality of Cholula located in the central Mexican state of Puebla.
The church was built with carved stone and embellished with 24-carat gilded panels and shims, called laminilla. It has an altar in the neoclassical style.It was built between May 1574 and August 1575 and consecrated on March 25, 1629.
We walked up the ramp and reached the lovely church.
Devotees were chanting prayers and taking the idol out for a procession.
The interior is exquisite with shining gold panels.
Our Lady of the Remedies
The image of Our Lady of the Remedies that protects the church is 27 cm high and is carved and gilded. It arrived on Mexican soil in 1519 with Captain Juan Rodríguez de Villafuerte, who brought it from the Basque Country, Spain, to protect him during the campaign.
In 1520, when the Spanish under Cortés were defeated by the Aztecs while fleeing by way of Naucalpan, de Villafuerte concealed the image in a native temple on the highest part of the hill of Otocampulco. Twenty years later, indigenous people discovered it there under an aloe plant, and from then on, the virgin was kept in the house of the chief of San Juan Totoltepec, until he built a chapel. On the map of Santa Cruz, this chapel is shown with the name of Our Lady of Victory.
Since 1594, the church has been dedicated to Our Lady of Remedies
We went in to the 3 chambers aroun d the main altar also, when a guy pointed us to. He gave us a register where we left a message of our appreciation and our prayers for peace and health for the entire world.
Then we walked down the colorful streets and bought some souvenirs from a huge shop which was almost like a museum.
Son has the habit of latching onto some fav in every trip. This trip he had been fascinated by the water /wine pots in museums, shaped so creatively , with human figures carrying a pot at their back.
SURAI, he'll say at the sight of them... we saw so many at all museums. He bought one piece for himself from the shop and was mighty happy!!
We saw a church
Walked toward it.
Then we walked toward the museum. It was closed. They told us the Pyramids were also closed.
We were quite disappointed but the church had been magnificent.
It was just 1. 30. We went to the Tourist train station, but the train to Puebla was only at 5 pm.
We decided to take an uber.
Instead of going back to the historic center, we decided to go to the MINIATURE park in Puebla, 8 km from the center.
Our uber guy was quite rash and careless, tried to drop us off at random places, we insisted he drop us at Parque Paseo de los Gigantes.
After 3 wrong turns, he did... later we saw he had overcharged us... more than the orginal estimate, though it was his fault.
We decided not to complain or give him a bad feedback.
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