"Like a Movie"

The "bus" from Tenampulco to Ayotoxco (Puebla)
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I've been wanting to go to Cuetzalan for months.  ADO - the first class bus line  said they didn't go there from Poza Rica. According to them, the only way the get to the place was to travel all the way down to Puebla (the city) or Mexico City and then turn around and head back North.  This would have taken twelve hours and was out of the question. So we decided to take whatever transportation we could find, eventually working our way to Cuetzalan one town at a time.

Me in Tenampulco, Puebla.
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We began our adventure with a twenty-minute/50-peso cab ride from the bus station to Coatzintla -  which is basically a suburb of Poza Rica.  We have been through the place a few times on the way to Papantla, El Tajin and Xalapa.  But this is the first time we have actually stopped to take a look around.  We were only there about an hour. We took a few photos and then got back on the road, hopping a second-class bus to Espinal.

Among the Totonacs of Puebla State.

Church in Plaza (Tenampulco, Puebla) - notice volador pole to the right of the Church.
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Espinal, a tiny place with about 5,000 people in the town itself and about that many more in the immediate surrounding countryside. Where there just long enough to eat tacos and ask how to get to Tenampulco. We were told a bus comes through twice an hour.  Promptly on the half-hour, a small Nissan pickup with two benches in in its covered bed pulled up.  Much to our surprise, this was the "bus" we were waiting for.  The road for most of the trip to Tenampulco was mostly a one-lane dirt affair passing through jungle and the occasional farm.  Somewhere on this leg of the journey we crossed the Veracruz/Puebla state line. Our fellow passengers were a friendly bunch of mestizo farmers who had relatives working in the US and liked to talk. We passed trough Tenampulco and then stopped in Ayotoxco where things got very different.

Mural in City Hall (San Antonio Rayon)
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While the ride thus far had been extremely rustic and one might say "primitive," it was nothing compared to what came next.  We changed trucks - this time crowded cheek-to-jawl with barefooted, Nuatle-speaking Totanacs, bags of corn, grain and chickens.  I took no pictures for fear that the young woman to my left, who was already twisted around uncomfortably to avoid eye contact with me, might leap from the truck and to her death at the sight of my camera. Meanwhile Iavoided eye-contact with Denise, afraid I would start laughing at the Borat/Taliban/National Geographic Channel nature of the situation we were in.

Mural in City Hall 2 (San Antonio Rayon)
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In San Antonio Rayón we upgraded to a small minivan for the last leg of the trip into Cuetzalan.  Denise, who has lived in Mexico all of her 31 years, looked at me and said "My God, that was just like a movie. I've never seen anything like it." The whole trip took bout 5 hours.