IF you cannot tell by the name of this blog, I thoroughly enjoy adventure (aventura = adventure). And although I am a planner, I believe that a good spontaneous adventure every now and then is good for the soul. So that’s what we did last weekend!
For most people this wouldn’t really be considered “spontaneous” seeing that I got word of its happening on Tuesday and would leave Saturday morning, but like I said I like to plan trips a good two weeks in advance. However, this sounded like a good time with friends (and it’s hard for me to turn down a good aventura). My friend Jocelyn’s dad was coming to visit her and they invited us on this trip in the mountains for the weekend.
Jocelyn lives in Zacapoaxtla, which is a town in the north of the state of Puebla. We met up there early Saturday morning, got breakfast, and made our way to Zozocolco.
Zozocolo is a small Pueblo Mágico in the state of Veracruz. They were having their annual festival of tissue paper (?) lanterns that weekend! I put a question mark next to the term “tissue paper” because in Spanish they called it papel chino, which literally translates to chinese paper. However, I got a good look at the material that these balloons were made out of and I’m pretty sure it was tissue paper… which makes these things even more impressive. We’ll get to that in a bit.
Keep in mind that this entire weekend we were literally in the mountains. Meaning that the road we took to get there was this narrow road with tons of twists and turns.
There were some hiccups in getting there due to closed roads and whatnot but after about 3 hours we got there!
Now this festival was not at all what I expected. I was expecting people to be parading through the streets with these lanterns that they had made. Pero no era así. The main gist was that people would gather in the town center and they would release these lanterns one by one with everyone gathered around. There was also a simultaneous competition going on. The rule was that your lantern had to be in the sky for a minimum of 5 minutes or else you were disqualified. Think about the fact that these things are made out of straight tissue paper and then look at them.
I was impressed. The sad thing though, was that not a lot of them lasted very long. I think the weather had a lot to do with it, but once they’re up in the air, if they catch wind, all it takes is for one piece of paper to touch the fire and the whole thing goes up in flames. It’s actually kind of upsetting when people are telling you that they spent months building this thing and you see it disintegrate within seconds. But I guess that’s something they’re prepared for.
After watching the lanterns for a while, we snuck away to a poza (like a small pool of water). What we (well I) did not know was that we would have to hike to this poza in 2-3 inches of mud. See that picture of me above? That’s what I was wearing for this hike… luckily I was able to change my shoes, but it was not a good day for my jeans haha.
After that, we came back, ate some good food, enjoyed some more of the festival and headed back to Zacapoaxtla!
*** Just want to note that this has been a one-sided telling of this day. My experience in Zozocolco was marred by a few encounters that I will explain in a later post (peep La Negrita part 2 coming soon). But all that aside, it was a cool day.
The next day we were planning to go to Cuetzalan, another Pueblo Mágico in the state of Puebla (NUMBER 4).
As soon as you drive into Cuetzalan there are people screaming at you with tourist packages. I think we had been in the town for 6 minutes before we had already paid for a guided day tour of the area.
First, we went to a nearby town called Yohualichan to see some ruins. Most of the people that live there speak Náhuatl, an indigenous language spoken mostly (I think) in this central part of Mexico. Jocelyn learned some Náhuatl last time she was in Mexico but said she’s forgotten a lot of it. It was a really small town and though we weren’t there for more than an hour, it was still really cool.
Next, we were off to get lunch (yus) and then head to some waterfalls called Las Brisas.
Then we headed back to Cuetzalan and checked out the center for a bit.
And that was basically it! My spontaneous weekend trip up into the mountains! A HUGE shoutout to Jocelyn and her Dad for inviting us and driving us around so we could all experience these cool places!
I also apologize if this post feels like it was very rushed, because it was. I literally leave for another trip in a few hours and I absolutely hate getting backed up on blog posts, so I really wanted to get this one out before I leave. Next stop… Guanajuato! Look out for that post on the festival de globos and La Negrita part 2, both of which I’d love to get out before the end of the month!
¡Qué viva la aventura! 
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