My past few articles have covered some pretty heavy subjects, ranging from eating dog tacos, to an island full of haunted dolls and to the ruins of one of Mesoamerica's greatest cities. To lighten the mood a little, I decided to put together a photo essay of the beautiful city of Puebla.

Puebla is much smaller than Mexico City so it isn't as noisy, it isn't as rushed and it's much more walkable. While there are still 1.4 million people living here, it doesn't feel that way. To be honest, if I was to choose between Mexico City or Pubela to revisit, I would probably choose Puebla.

Puebla is known worldwide for its colourful buildings, narrow streets and hundreds upon hundreds of churches. I was told by one gentlemen that there are 365 churches in the city – one for each day of the year – but when I told another gentlemen that, he looked at me surprised and asked "Is that all?"

When I visited Chernobyl last year I ran into a young woman from Wales that had been planning the trip for years. While chatting with her, she kept throwing around the word "urbexing". For those unfamiliar with the term, urbexing, or "urban exploring", is the act of going into abandoned locations and taking pictures inside them.

And apparently there's a whole subculture based around it.

For years I have had an interest in abandoned locations, even before I went looking for the old smallpox hospital in New York. As early as my teens I have been going into abandoned locations, and I got caught a few times. Because of this, my mom has plenty of stories about the phone calls she got following these misadventures, and I don't blame them for calling her.

For years I have been trying to find some way to bring the stories from the Regina Cemetery into the school curriculum. I've spent countless hours emailing principals and teachers around the city, trying to find some way to arrange a fieldtrip to the cemetery – or maybe even bring the stories into the classroom. In my opinion, cemeteries are not only a wealth of knowledge, history, and teaching opportunities but they also give students a sense of local identity.

I wanted to make 2020 the year of cemetery tours, but it is not going to happen – primarily because of the COVID-19 pandemic but also because of some municipal red-tape. But I think it is fair to say the way students are getting educated this year is different than past years, and that a fieldtrip to the cemetery would be a nice change.

So for all those parents out there that are now teachers, or teachers with online classes or smaller class sizes, or anybody who wants to bring local history alive, here are seven stories form the Regina Cemetery you an add to your school curriculum.