Plan B to Cholula

Tuesday, August 15, 2017:

First and foremost today is . . .

Our Mother Chuny Contreras'

93rd Birthday!

Here she is with my sisters Linda and Marilyn last Christmas.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Now for the saga of our trip to Cholula for our visitation to the Universidad De Las Americas Puebla (UDLAP) campus.

The purpose of this excursion was to spend two days watching the UDLAP Aztecas American football team practice twice and then have a chance to meet their coaching staff to talk some more American football in depth.

We rented a van at the hotel last night through National Rent-a-Car that would be ready at 8:00 a.m. to whisk away to city of Cholula, a suburb of Puebla, about two hours from Mexico City if we got zero traffic issues at that time of the day.

PLAN B

We were in the lobby on time but the van was not. After repeated calls to National we were consistently told that the van was almost their.

But it wasn't.

At about 9:30 a.m. a man from National arrived with the necessary paper work wanting to collect the money for the rental but he did not come in the needed van.

No dice.

We waited until 9:50 a.m. and then jumped into a taxi for a ten minute drive to another hotel where a Hertz van awaited us.

But it wasn't.

The National man was pissed!

Who cares? 

 Waiting for the Hertz van

When we got to the new hotel, we were told that the van had just been checked in but that it had a HUGE dent and as thus could not be rented to us.

A new van would be at our disposal from another Hertz location within 40 minutes, i.e., 10:40 a.m.

It arrived at 12:00 noon.

And we hit heavy traffic.

Pole dancing class anyone?

The little things you see during a traffic jam.

Due to the four hour delay and the traffic, there was no way we would be able to get to the UDLAP campus in time for their 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. practice today.

Only one thing to do . . .

EAT!

This place looked . . .

 GOOD!

In Mexico, roadside food is truly healthy.

The condiments looked good

 These two ladies are hard at work

making our lunch

Cafe Olla and and the soon

to be devoured HOT sauce

Our table to the left

SO good

 Chorizo and HOT sauce

just go perfectly together

 The quesadillas were

OUTSTANDING!

 GRACIAS Señoras!

The UDLAP Aztecas

practice field

 Entrance to the coach's offices

AZTECA PRIDE!

By the time we got there, practice was over and the coaches were going to have staff meetings in about 75 minutes so we decided to check-in at our hotel and then come back for the meetings.

 Church near our hotel

The view to the left of

our hotel's entrance

 Reviewing tape at the UDLAP

Offensive Coaches Meeting

With UDLAP

Head Coach Erik Fisher

and our own Jesús Sánchez

The Aztecas staff was open with us and quite willing to share their entire program with us, GREAT PEOPLE!

Some of UDLAP's

National Championship Trophies

UDLAP's Athletic Weight Room

After all of the football talk was done for the day, Aztecas Defensive Backs Coach Remy Palacios took us to the Los Sonorenses restaurant for dinner.

Chorizo and cheese

INCREDIBLE!

Meat, meat and then

MORE MEAT!

 Seven FULLY sated people

We have not had a bad meal the entire 12 days that we have been in Mexico but Los Sonorenses was easily voted our top meal to date!

Total cost of this sumptuous feast was a meager $20 USD per person.

With Remy Palacios

Solely for leading us to Los Sonorenses, we voted him the #1 American football assistant coach in Mexico!

We are staying the night and will spend a full day with the Aztecas staff and players at practice and meetings on Wednesday before returning to Mexico City in the evening.

VIVA MEXICO!