Tlaxcala has an unusual place in Mexican history, because its people were the main allies of Hernán Cortés in the conquest of the Aztec empire. The Tlaxcalans had resisted Aztec expansion for years, and when the Spanish arrived in 1519 they chose to fight with them rather than against them. In return, they received privileges, and the Franciscan friars who arrived soon after chose Tlaxcala as their first base on the mainland. The monastery and its church, begun in the sixteenth century, still stand above the town, a plain, massive building with a fine wooden ceiling in Moorish style.
The group is part of the early monasteries on the slopes of Popocatépetl that UNESCO listed in 1994, and the old town has the sleepy charm of a provincial capital, with a handsome square and arcades, red-painted buildings and a mix of colonial and modern. Nearby, the hilltop site of Cacaxtla has vivid murals painted more than a thousand years ago, among the best-preserved in the country, and it is worth the short detour.
For a rider, Tlaxcala is a good base, in a small state with quiet roads. To the north-east, the volcano La Malinche rises to over four thousand metres, with a national park and roads that climb through pine forest, and the surrounding plains have roads between fields of maize, barley and maguey. Traffic is light outside the towns, though local drivers can be unpredictable. The altitude, around 2,200 metres, means that mornings and evenings are cool, and in the rainy months, between June and September, afternoons bring heavy showers.
Totolac, a short ride away, and Tlaxcala itself have fuel stations, and the town has many places to eat. Try the local pulque, a mildly alcoholic drink made from maguey, in one of the old pulquerías, and tlacoyos, blue-maize cakes filled with beans. Opening hours of the convent vary, and a small entry fee is charged for the museum.