Find big-sky beauty in central Mexico

On the Sunday before Mexican Independence Day, Sept. 16, the town of Tlaxcala was overlaid with banners and lights in the red, green and white of the national flag. At dusk, there were celebratory firecrackers and, in the morning, the cloudless sky was a piercing aquamarine.Compared with the hazy-brown air surrounding Mexico City, just two hours to the west, Tlaxcala's palette is almost kaleidoscopic. The low colonial-era buildings are painted in burnt umber, salmon pink and mustard yellow, and the domes of the tangerine-toned cathedral are covered with cobalt blue talavera ceramic tiles. And unlike Mexico City, where the overwhelming traffic can feel like a glue trap, Tlaxcala has a compact center that makes an easy base for exploring the big-sky beauty of the surrounding countryside.

This is the central appeal of Tlaxcala, the small capital of Mexico's smallest state and home to about 15,000 people. It is a town built on a modest scale that has retained its historical charms -- perfect for a weekend getaway from its big-city neighbor. (It is also the seat of the safest state in Mexico, with a low crime rate to match.)

Tlaxcala (pronounced Tloks-KA-la) is set amid a sweeping valley where maize and chilies have been cultivated in the rich, volcanic soil since pre-Columbian days. The twin Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl volcanoes stand tall in the distance, capped in snow, with Popo occasionally smoking. On this fertile earth, Tlaxcalan ancestors built cities of stone and painted them with depictions of jaguars and feathered serpents; they warred with a powerful rival nation, the neighboring Aztecs. When the Spaniards landed, the area's indigenous warriors allied with the European conquerors.

In the centuries that followed, about 1,000 haciendas were built in the state -- large, rural estates that grew a mix of Old and New World crops, raised livestock and produced pulque, the slimy, fermented sap of the agave plant (known in Mexico as maguey). Today, about 200 or so haciendas remain, clusters of churches, stables and schools rising above the cornfields. Most are decaying relics, but about a dozen have been restored and are open to visitors, either as hotels packed with antiques and artifacts or as restaurants. In the landscape of central Mexico's highlands, these crumbling adobe and stone complexes give an eerie, cinematic glimpse into Mexico's gilded age.

Drinking in the highlands

Head to the small town of Huamantla, about 45 minutes from Tlaxcala, and you'll find Soltepec, the best known of the functioning haciendas. It towers above the surrounding farmland like a castle, with imposing stone towers and a tall wooden door. The hacienda reopened in 1994 with a swimming pool, tennis courts and a white-tablecloth restaurant. The rooms are drafty and, in the evenings, when only the overnight guests remain, Soltepec's maze of narrow, high-ceilinged hallways can feel like a south-of-the-border answer to the Overlook Hotel in "The Shining."

On the afternoon of my visit, Soltepec's owner, Javier Zamora Rios, had agreed to take me on a tour of the Tlaxcalan countryside. I had told Zamora, who often takes his guests to visit Tlaxcala's rural haciendas, about my appreciation of pulque -- a viscous, white, lightly alcoholic beverage, historically brewed on these rural estates.

We climbed a narrow spiral stone staircase to the orange domed roof. Looking down on the town, I saw children playing in a plaza and, beyond, the tallest peak in Mexico, Pico Orizaba, rising above the swaying grasses of the landscape.

Later, the three of us drove along narrow lanes through endless cornfields, then up into the low hills. We soon arrived at Hacienda Tepeyahualco, one of several haciendas that Zamora's great-grandparents once owned. His grandfather spent the family's pulque fortune and lost nearly all of their estate. The hacienda is now run by three brothers who have dedicated it to the life of the charro, a Mexican cowboy, with bullfighting posters, ancient branding irons and rusted rifles on the walls.

Next, we climbed higher into the hills, to the home of Valentin Montiel Calderon, 78, a pulquero. His pulque, Zamora said, would be stronger and fresher than any I'd tasted.

At the modest Montiel family home -- carved into a hillside of terraced cornfields -- we were greeted by Joel Montiel, 17, the grandson of Montiel, who was ill. Soon, we were stomping through the fields, Joel leading the way, bushwhacking cornstalks to clear a path.

When we emerged, we stood beside a giant maguey -- a 12-year-old plant with the wingspan of a manta ray. Joel stepped onto one of the big leaves, lifting a flat rock from the heart of the plant, revealing a well of a golden, iridescent liquid beneath. He dipped a blue plastic mug into the maguey's center and handed it to me. I took a shallow sip of the agua de miel -- honey water -- to avoid drinking the drowned bugs at the bottom of the cup. (When fermented, this raw liquid becomes pulque.) It was surprisingly refreshing -- like coconut water, but sweeter. We stood, taking turns, sipping from the cup, then refilling it.

I stood with Joel senior, our arms locked as if we were wrestling, each of us with a raised hand, holding a glass of pulque. Zamora filled mine, topping it off with a mischievous grin. Joel senior gave a short speech, welcoming me to his humble home, and I gave one, too -- in my inferior Spanish -- thanking him for his hospitality. Then we drank long gulps of pulque until our glasses were empty.

Joel senior tossed the small bit of remaining liquid onto the concrete. "Un alacran!" he said, pointing to a resulting mark on the ground in the shape of a scorpion. Look, he explained, that's how we know the pulque is good.