Mexico Redux

I never posted pictures from the last leg of our Mexico adventure, so I thought I'd take a moment to finally do that. Part of it is reminiscing and part is looking forward to our next trip down that way, which should be in February. It's funny to look back at old photos. I took a moment to look at my pictures from India just now as well... that trip seems like a lifetime ago.

We spent the last week or so of our trip in San Miguel de Allende, a place that was recommended to us by many people for its beauty, but one that we were wary of going to because it is very popular with Americans and Europeans. We were going back to the U.S. soon, so we were not exactly seeking to be surrounded by Americans. Nevertheless, we went, and it was quite lovely. We really took it easy, spending lots of time in our spacious hotel room watching some very old and strange movies. We found a great little stand in this indoor market just outside of the center that sold delicious tortas (sandwiches) and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Our torta of choice was avocado and cheese. Mmmm... I often crave some of the things we ate on this trip.

Following about four nights in San Miguel, we hit the road and headed back to Mexico City. We ended our trip the way we began, staying with my boyfriend's family, being fed incredibly well, and being shown the best parts of DF (Distrito Federal). One of the highlights was a trip out to Teotihuacán, a collection of pyramids just outside the city.

 The cathedral overlooking the main square in San Miguel de Allende.

 Beautifully painted buildings line the streets.

Transportation

 Pyramids at Teotihuacán

Guanajuato!

What a beautiful city. There are lots of little hills and narrow alleyways here, and the buildings are painted in bright colors. It has a kind of European feel to it, actually. We arrived here yesterday around noon and have been exploring ever since. Today we took the funicular up to the top of the mountain to take in the view. Then we walked down and wandered some more. It's Monday, which we've discovered is the day when a lot of places are closed. Tomorrow morning we will get an earlier start to make sure we go inside the Teatro Juarez and the Diego Rivera house. We found the Callejon del Beso, where the balconies across from one another are close enough to kiss the person on the other side. I can see why people are so charmed by this place.

Adios, Morelia

The time has come to leave Morelia and move on to explore other parts of Mexico before returning home. We had our last interactions with students on Thursday and said our goodbyes. Shayna and I had a fun, and very late, night out on the town that night with some of our students. We went to an eclectic restaurant/bar and an even more eclectic club where there was a band playing cover songs on request interspersed with dance music. It was nice to unwind and see another side of these great people we've been working with. We had many, many laughs.

Tomorrow Shayna and I will head to Guanajuato, a couple hours north of here, and spend at least two nights there. From there we will likely make a stop in San Miguel de Allende, a very popular tourist town. We are told there are something like ten or twelve thousand retired Americans living there, which is normally not a selling point when traveling, but we hear it's also quite beautiful. We may add another town to our list, and eventually will make our way back to Mexico City to spend our last days with my boyfriend's family and see a few more of the sights. It is safe to say that both Shayna and I are looking forward to getting home.

The storms here during the rainy season are epic. We've gotten pretty good at reading the weather to know how much time we have before we need to find shelter. This storm was rolling in the other day as we were heading out for lunch.

Forgot to reserve your mariachi band? No problem! Just drive around the streets of Morelia and you will find groups of musicians on various street corners waiting to be hired.

Telma, one of my students, doles out champurrado for us on the last day of school. It's a thick chocolatey drink made with corn and a hint of cinnamon. Delicious.

It was also one of my student's birthday on the last day we went in. Apparently in Mexico the tradition is for the birthday girl or boy to lean in and take a bite of their birthday cake while someone smashes their face into it. Here Monserrat shows off her lovely cake face. The cake was delicious, by the way. It was tres leches, which may be my new favorite dessert.

Last night we went up into the hills to have a nice dinner out. The view of downtown from there is spectacular.

Silent on the scene

I usually don't blog this infrequently unless I'm home... which must mean this place is starting to feel like home. And it really is. We've been in Morelia off and on for about 3 1/2 weeks. The area where we're staying feels like our neighborhood and I have my favorite spots for my favorite things. There's the awesome lady at the market who sells the best fruit, and who always teaches me things when I'm there, like the names of certain fruits and which ones are maduro (ripe) and which are verde (literally green, not ripe yet). There's the churro place near the cathedral, for those churro cravings that seem to come daily. Who wouldn't crave that fried stick of goodness coated in cinnamon sugar and pumped full of chocolate? Mmm. To counteract those churro attacks, there's the health food store a bit further away where we get our granola... and sometimes ice cream. Counter-productive, I know, but so yummy. Very close by is our friend Azael, a.k.a. "Juice Guy", whom we often visit to order lunch and jugo verde. He delivers.

My students obviously picked up on my love for food because today when I walked into class they greeted me with a small feast. There was a container full of cooked chiles and tomatoes and a small molcajete (mortar and pestle) for me to try my hand at making salsa. They also had a little bit of masa and a metate (basically a tool for kneading dough) so I could learn how to make tortillas. Shortly into this activity, one of the students' relatives brought us all the fixings for tacos - fresh corn tortillas, chicken mole, and rice. It was so delicious! I was informed that this week our conversation classes would be dedicated to food, which totally made my day. Tomorrow they want me to try carnitas and chicharrones, both pork products. Normally I'm not a fan of the swine, but I've had a little along the way here and I'm told these two things are delicious. When in Rome...

Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera this morning, expecting just a regular old conversation class. I'll have some photos of these awesome students and the food we try soon. In the meantime, here's some of the other sights we've seen.

 This is Aylín, the daughter of Susana, one of Shayna's students. A-dorable.

 Carnitas. In other words, pig. All of it.

On Saturday we went to Paracho where they were having a paper balloon festival. They come in all shapes and sizes and were pretty fun to watch. It rained pretty hard for a while, but fortunately cleared up in the afternoon.

 Some of them are enormous. They're made out of tissue paper and held together by glue.

 Unfortunately some of the balloons don't fare so well. This one went down in a blaze of glory. Thank goodness for terra cotta roofs.

Paracho is also known for guitars. In fact there is a guitar festival there next weekend.

On why we're here

All I've been blogging about since we arrived is our adventures in travel, eating, and the people we've met along the way. What I've failed to talk about, however, is our students, which is the real reason we are here. It's taken a little while to get the ball rolling, but now we've got a good thing going and some really nice and interesting students. Tomorrow we start going to the North American Cultural Institute to do a short 1/2 hour of conversation with some of the English classes in the morning. In the afternoons we usually meet individually with the students we are tutoring. Shayna meets with Susanna to help her prepare for the TOEFL, Candace meets with Gabriel for the same, and I am now working with Mireya, the lady who works here at the inn, basically helping her with the English she would need to interact with guests here. I also sometimes work with Miriam, Susanna's cousin, who has lived in Miami and is looking to practice her in English some more. In the evenings we have a conversation group and the participants keep changing. Froy, our most faithful participant, is kind of like a Mexican Deepak Chopra, full of wisdom that he wants to share. Tonight we had two new people join. One was Jupiter, a very cool guy that we met at the organic fair yesterday, who makes and sells instruments, 7-seed energy bars, and jewelry. The other was Azael, who runs a juice and sandwich bar just down the road from us. He is the one who makes and delivers green juice when we call and order it. Super, super nice guy as well. In the evenings I also sometimes work with Dani, who does movie and film festival marketing here in Morelia and in Tlalpujahua.

So all in all, a fantastic group of people. It's work, but mostly it's fun helping them with their English, and along the way we learn a little Spanish as well.

I can't get this image to rotate, but turn your head to the left and you are looking down the leaf of a giant maguey, also known as agave. These things are so impressive... almost a little sci-fi they're so huge. I took this today at Tec, the school where we meet Susanna and Miriam.

On the way back to our hotel just before a huge thunderstorm broke out. An interesting, though perhaps dangerous, way to sharpen a knife.

Taken one night during our conversation with Froy. A nice glass of wine lit by a funky Absolut bottle candle holder.

Daytripping

As it was the weekend we decided we should head out of town for a little adventure. As we are trying to budget a little, we decided to stay somewhat close. In fact, we just went back to Tzintzuntzan; the first time we were there it was pouring and the main market was closed, so we thought we'd try again. It turned out to be a good decision and we were able to stock up on some nice gifts. On the way there we stopped in Capula, a.k.a. pottery central. And on the way out we stopped by this woman's house, a well known embroiderer who no longer has a shop, but does sell out of her home for people in the know. There, too, we scored some really lovely gifts. I can't say enough about the handicrafts here. There are so many different kinds - pottery, textiles, glass, metalwork, jewelry (and we haven't even made it to Taxco yet, which has 4000 silver jewelry shops). It's impressive.

Here's a little pictorial of some of the sights from the day.

You can't start a road trip without a good breakfast. I went out in the morning and got a gaspacho with mango, pineapple, and watermelon, hold the chile and cheese. They also add fresh orange juice and salt to it. Perfection.

This was part of my lunch, grilled corn on the cob slathered with lime juice, mayo and cheese. Normally I'm a mayo foe, but here I make an exception. This has to be one of the best uses of corn ever invented.

There were quite a few street dogs in Capula. This one was in pretty good shape. Sometimes you can interact with them, but often they shy away from attention and you get the sense that they are probably mistreated. There was one dog in particular, a hound of some kind, that was sleeping in the street and got up, I assume, to scavenge for food. I tried to feed her the rest of my corn, but she didn't want it, even though you could see her ribs. She let me pet her and I could see that she had fleas. I'm glad I got to give her a little love, but it left me feeling sad about her fate. I so wanted to take her with me.

Here is the outside of one market in Tzintzuntzan. Those are all decorative hangings made out of corn husks or some other kind of fiber. You can also see some of the baskets they make with the same material.

The view on the way back. It's incredibly green and lush in the countryside, no doubt thanks to the copious amount of rain we've been getting.

Frida Fever

So Frida Kahlo is everywhere in Mexico. On magnets, on shirts, on posters. I think I might actually feel weird leaving Mexico without buying something bearing her image. Tonight at the Casa de la Cultura there was a unique kind of Frida celebration, "Pintate como Frida" (Paint yourself like Frida). We learned about it because the group putting it on was out on Wednesday night distributing flyers. There was a woman dressed like Frida and another woman dressed like Diego Rivera, her teacher and questionable choice of partner in life. They were painting these two models who had bravely volunteered to participate in a recreation of one of Frida's paintings.

This went on for a while and they were even doling out free shots of tequila. Not sure how that was related, but why not?

On the ground there was a huge piece of craft paper with various quotes of hers. I really like this one.

This Casa de la Cultura was amazing, and enormous. There were multiple rooms with music and dance lessons of all kinds going on. In the same square as the Frida performance there was a bachata lesson happening. It was all very impressive.

From there we made our way home and stopped for dinner at this little streetside stand. I had corundas, like tamales but served triangle-shaped and steamed in banana leaves. Candace and Shayna got pambazos, like a big chicken sandwich coated in red sauce. Yum. Oh, and for lunch today, Shayna and I went to the most amazing cocina económica just down the road from where we are staying. It was two courses, a soup and a main course, plus a jar of guava agua fresca for about $3 each. Like anywhere, you can spend a lot for food, or you can spend very little and still get great food. In many cases it's actually better than what you get if you spend a lot.

A picture from inside where we had dinner. They put bottles of soda on the table to show you what they have. It started to get dark while we were there so the waitress climbed on a chair and plugged in a lightbulb from a wire running overhead. This also was the power source for the TV.