Traveling on the Pan-American Highway from Mexico City to Puebla, the tourist may feel invited to stop at the small and somnolent town of Huejotzingo. After having succeeded in shaking off the vendors of gaudy sarapes and having tasted the local cider, he may walk around the typical plaza and then he will not fail to be attracted by the old fortress-like church belonging to the sixteenthcentury monastery. In the atrium a pleasant shade of old giant trees shields the visitor, refreshingly, from the tropical heat. As he wanders around, a bunch of youngsters, just dismissed by a friar clad in brown cloth, will watch him from a safe distance. First he will pause before the posas (secondary chapels) at the four corners of the atrium. As he approaches the church a rather sober façade awaits him. The interior of the nave, too, is meager; only a few colonial retablos try to hide the otherwise naked walls. But the gilded high altar with its paintings and carved sculptures still stands in its old place covering the entire rear wall of the apse and commands the admiration of everybody who enters the church.