Click on the link below to see the pictures from my Semana Santa travels, which I discussed in my last post:
Semana Santa 2010
Enjoy!
Friday, April 16, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
Semana Santa Travels
In Mexico, which is a Catholic country, the week before Easter is a big holiday called Semana Santa (Holy Week). A lot of people have at least part of it off from work, and my university here had a week of vacation. So, naturally, a couple of friends and I decided to do a beach trip/tour of southern Mexico. The following is an overview of the places we saw, and as always, upcoming pictures will give you a much better taste of our experience. But for now:
Acapulco, March 28-29
Our tour began when we flew into Acapulco, a popular beach on the southwestern coast of Mexico. We figured we might as well check it out and see what draws so many tourists to it every year.
Although it was clearly a tourist attraction, I really enjoyed Acapulco. First of all, it’s beautiful: huge mountains speckled with white houses line awesome beaches and the gorgeous ocean.
Acapulco also has a lot for visitors to do. For example, one night we saw famous cliff divers – local teenagers! – jump off a HUGE cliff into the water below, at night! It was pretty scary to watch but also astonishing, and I highly recommend that anyone visiting Acapulco goes to see it. We also took a boat tour of Acapulco bay, walked through a beautiful park, and of course spent some time lounging on the beach :).
Puerto Escondido, March 30-31
Overnight buses are awesome. They are cheap transportation, and they allow you to travel from one city to another city (like Acapulco to Puerto Escondido, which is what we did), without having to sacrifice a day to travel. Puerto Escondido is further south down the coast, and therefore was HOTTER!
It’s a lot less touristy and a much smaller town than Acapulco; in fact, the name means “Hidden Port.” It has beautiful beaches as well, and world-famous surfing (my friends did a surfing lesson). I loved Puerto Escondido because a lot of the beaches were very locally-focused; there were lots of local Mexican families gathered to cool off from the heat, as well as many fishers who kept their boats on the same beach.
The City of Oaxaca, April 1-2
The only non-beach we went to was the city of Oaxaca, the capital of the state of Oaxaca, of which Puerto Escondido is a part. Oaxaca was a cute, colonial city with a “hippy-esque” culture of art and natural foods. Our first day there we went to the ruins of the ancient Zapotec capital city, Monte Albán, which sits on top of a hill right outside of Oaxaca.
The following day we had the opportunity to go for a hike in the Sierra Norte mountains outside of the city. It was amazing.
Not only did we get to experience the natural beauty of the mountains, but we also learned a little bit about the mountain village life, as our guide was a woman who lived in the village at the top of the mountain on which we hiked.
Lastly, as a closing to our trip, back in the city of Oaxaca we were fortunate enough to see a Guelaguetza show, which is a Oaxacan folk dance that showcases incredibly beautiful and colorful costumes!:
As always, stay tuned for more pictures.
Acapulco, March 28-29
Our tour began when we flew into Acapulco, a popular beach on the southwestern coast of Mexico. We figured we might as well check it out and see what draws so many tourists to it every year.
Although it was clearly a tourist attraction, I really enjoyed Acapulco. First of all, it’s beautiful: huge mountains speckled with white houses line awesome beaches and the gorgeous ocean.
Acapulco also has a lot for visitors to do. For example, one night we saw famous cliff divers – local teenagers! – jump off a HUGE cliff into the water below, at night! It was pretty scary to watch but also astonishing, and I highly recommend that anyone visiting Acapulco goes to see it. We also took a boat tour of Acapulco bay, walked through a beautiful park, and of course spent some time lounging on the beach :).
Puerto Escondido, March 30-31
Overnight buses are awesome. They are cheap transportation, and they allow you to travel from one city to another city (like Acapulco to Puerto Escondido, which is what we did), without having to sacrifice a day to travel. Puerto Escondido is further south down the coast, and therefore was HOTTER!
It’s a lot less touristy and a much smaller town than Acapulco; in fact, the name means “Hidden Port.” It has beautiful beaches as well, and world-famous surfing (my friends did a surfing lesson). I loved Puerto Escondido because a lot of the beaches were very locally-focused; there were lots of local Mexican families gathered to cool off from the heat, as well as many fishers who kept their boats on the same beach.The City of Oaxaca, April 1-2
The only non-beach we went to was the city of Oaxaca, the capital of the state of Oaxaca, of which Puerto Escondido is a part. Oaxaca was a cute, colonial city with a “hippy-esque” culture of art and natural foods. Our first day there we went to the ruins of the ancient Zapotec capital city, Monte Albán, which sits on top of a hill right outside of Oaxaca.
The following day we had the opportunity to go for a hike in the Sierra Norte mountains outside of the city. It was amazing.
Not only did we get to experience the natural beauty of the mountains, but we also learned a little bit about the mountain village life, as our guide was a woman who lived in the village at the top of the mountain on which we hiked. Lastly, as a closing to our trip, back in the city of Oaxaca we were fortunate enough to see a Guelaguetza show, which is a Oaxacan folk dance that showcases incredibly beautiful and colorful costumes!:
As always, stay tuned for more pictures.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Retos y Hitos/Challenges and Milestones
That is definitely the theme of this year: challenges and milestones. In the beginning my experience consisted mainly of challenges, but I think I have finally reached the point where I’m starting to see the milestones.
Although my last few posts may suggest otherwise, I am busting my butt in school. This semester I am taking the following classes:
“Flujos de Comunicación en el Continento Americano” (Flows of Communication in the American Continent). Essentially what the name says, we are studying the flow patterns of mass communication – mainly television so far – back and forth between countries, especially in the Americas. In other words, we are learning about the exportation and importation patterns of various media, from their history up to the present day, while analyzing their impact on the economies of various countries.
“Seminario de Comunicación Internacional” (International Communication Seminar). This class has a philosophical focus; we discuss and analyze international communication, starting from the concept of “nation.” Actually, we even started as basically as “what is the purpose of education?” and it was interesting to hear the perspectives of Mexican students and if/how they differed from mine.
“Investigación Cualitativa de Comunicación” (Qualitative Communication Research). Whereas last semester I took quantitative research, this qualitative research class covers the basic stages of a qualitative research investigation. We are simultaneously reading an absolutely wonderful book called “Los Hijos de Sanchez” (“The Children of Sanchez”), by anthropologist Oscar Lewis, in which he transcribed years of interviews that he conducted of the Sanchez family, who lived in a poor neighborhood in Mexico City. I highly recommend the book to everyone; it’s available in English and Spanish, and gives you a firsthand sense of one of the many cultures that reside in Mexico, as well as the culture of poverty in general and what it’s like to live from day to day not knowing where your next meal will come from.
“Responsabilidad Social Corporativa” (Corporate Social Responsibility). This class teaches us the historical and contemporary concepts of corporate social responsibility, while forcing us to question and analyze the pros and cons of this increasingly-popular idea in the business (and organizational communication) world. We even had a debate in class a few weeks ago!
I wanted to share with all of you a particular milestone I had a few weeks ago, not to brag about myself by any means, but rather to give you some insight into what it’s like to take classes in a foreign language.
Last semester I didn't participate in class. Not because I didn’t want to; I firmly believe that participating in class is one of the best ways one can learn a subject. But rather, by the time I understood what the teacher was saying (the Spanish of it), processed it, synthesized it, analyzed it, etc., they had already moved on to another subject before I had a chance to say something. It was frustrating to say the least, but that is part of the language learning process.
I cut myself some slack because I was the only non-Mexican in my classes, meaning that I was the only one who didn’t understand perfectly. I tried very hard and made progress, but even by the end of the semester I still had to ask one of my classmates every once in awhile, “What was that homework assignment, again?”
I began my second semester determined to overcome that “disability”, especially since in one of my classes we receive 3 points for participation every single class (and we get a 0 if we don’t participate). After a few weeks into the semester, I finally felt that I was understanding the class on an analytical level, and even worked up the courage to ask one question. Nevertheless, my teacher came up to me and told me that I needed to participate more – even in English was fine, but I need to participate. Well, I did not come to Mexico to participate in class in English. And although it was uncomfortable that he called me out, I was determined not to let it get to me, and to prove to him that I could do it.
It also happened that I had to do a presentation for the next session of that class as well. The way the class works is that we’ll have one assigned article that everyone has to read, which is the one we discuss, and then a student is assigned to read another article and do a presentation on it (i.e. teach the class). So, I decided to spend all weekend – literally – working on these assignments so that I would not only prove to my teacher that I could step up to the challenge, but more importantly, prove it to myself.
I was surprisingly nervous about participating in class (imagine, just a little thing like class participation can be a much bigger deal to a person in another language and country), especially since it was really the first time I had forced myself to participate. However, during the next class session, not only did I feel that I was really able to engage in the discussion on an intellectual level, but I also thought that my presentation went well and that the teacher really liked the discussion I led at the end of it. One of the greatest senses of accomplishments I’ve felt, though, was when I checked my grades online: not only did I receive a 3/3 on participation, but I got a 12/12 on the presentation! But for me, the reward was not as much in the number that my grade was, but in the fact that to me it showed that he saw and appreciated how hard I was trying, and that I had succeeded in overcoming this personal challenge that I had set for myself.
I wrote this story to give you insight into the challenges and milestones that come with studying a subject in a foreign language in a foreign country. I felt that on that day, I reached a very significant milestone in the language acquisition process, and with the confidence I gained in proving to myself that I could do it, I now participate in class on a much more regular basis. Climbing over that “bump” was uncomfortable to say the least, but after the first awkwardness of class participation, it gets easier every time.
This story also gave me a lot of empathy and appreciation for all the foreign students with whom I’ve ever had a class. Even if one’s conversational abilities in a language might be 99.99% perfect, mastering that language on an academic, intellectual level is a whole different ballgame. And I feel that I am one step closer to that goal.
**Side note: I posted various pictures from this semester so far: ice skating (yes, in Mexico!), gift exchange with Rotaract, my new house, and a cabin weekend . Check them out here**
Although my last few posts may suggest otherwise, I am busting my butt in school. This semester I am taking the following classes:
“Flujos de Comunicación en el Continento Americano” (Flows of Communication in the American Continent). Essentially what the name says, we are studying the flow patterns of mass communication – mainly television so far – back and forth between countries, especially in the Americas. In other words, we are learning about the exportation and importation patterns of various media, from their history up to the present day, while analyzing their impact on the economies of various countries.
“Seminario de Comunicación Internacional” (International Communication Seminar). This class has a philosophical focus; we discuss and analyze international communication, starting from the concept of “nation.” Actually, we even started as basically as “what is the purpose of education?” and it was interesting to hear the perspectives of Mexican students and if/how they differed from mine.
“Investigación Cualitativa de Comunicación” (Qualitative Communication Research). Whereas last semester I took quantitative research, this qualitative research class covers the basic stages of a qualitative research investigation. We are simultaneously reading an absolutely wonderful book called “Los Hijos de Sanchez” (“The Children of Sanchez”), by anthropologist Oscar Lewis, in which he transcribed years of interviews that he conducted of the Sanchez family, who lived in a poor neighborhood in Mexico City. I highly recommend the book to everyone; it’s available in English and Spanish, and gives you a firsthand sense of one of the many cultures that reside in Mexico, as well as the culture of poverty in general and what it’s like to live from day to day not knowing where your next meal will come from.
“Responsabilidad Social Corporativa” (Corporate Social Responsibility). This class teaches us the historical and contemporary concepts of corporate social responsibility, while forcing us to question and analyze the pros and cons of this increasingly-popular idea in the business (and organizational communication) world. We even had a debate in class a few weeks ago!
I wanted to share with all of you a particular milestone I had a few weeks ago, not to brag about myself by any means, but rather to give you some insight into what it’s like to take classes in a foreign language.
Last semester I didn't participate in class. Not because I didn’t want to; I firmly believe that participating in class is one of the best ways one can learn a subject. But rather, by the time I understood what the teacher was saying (the Spanish of it), processed it, synthesized it, analyzed it, etc., they had already moved on to another subject before I had a chance to say something. It was frustrating to say the least, but that is part of the language learning process.
I cut myself some slack because I was the only non-Mexican in my classes, meaning that I was the only one who didn’t understand perfectly. I tried very hard and made progress, but even by the end of the semester I still had to ask one of my classmates every once in awhile, “What was that homework assignment, again?”
I began my second semester determined to overcome that “disability”, especially since in one of my classes we receive 3 points for participation every single class (and we get a 0 if we don’t participate). After a few weeks into the semester, I finally felt that I was understanding the class on an analytical level, and even worked up the courage to ask one question. Nevertheless, my teacher came up to me and told me that I needed to participate more – even in English was fine, but I need to participate. Well, I did not come to Mexico to participate in class in English. And although it was uncomfortable that he called me out, I was determined not to let it get to me, and to prove to him that I could do it.
It also happened that I had to do a presentation for the next session of that class as well. The way the class works is that we’ll have one assigned article that everyone has to read, which is the one we discuss, and then a student is assigned to read another article and do a presentation on it (i.e. teach the class). So, I decided to spend all weekend – literally – working on these assignments so that I would not only prove to my teacher that I could step up to the challenge, but more importantly, prove it to myself.
I was surprisingly nervous about participating in class (imagine, just a little thing like class participation can be a much bigger deal to a person in another language and country), especially since it was really the first time I had forced myself to participate. However, during the next class session, not only did I feel that I was really able to engage in the discussion on an intellectual level, but I also thought that my presentation went well and that the teacher really liked the discussion I led at the end of it. One of the greatest senses of accomplishments I’ve felt, though, was when I checked my grades online: not only did I receive a 3/3 on participation, but I got a 12/12 on the presentation! But for me, the reward was not as much in the number that my grade was, but in the fact that to me it showed that he saw and appreciated how hard I was trying, and that I had succeeded in overcoming this personal challenge that I had set for myself.
I wrote this story to give you insight into the challenges and milestones that come with studying a subject in a foreign language in a foreign country. I felt that on that day, I reached a very significant milestone in the language acquisition process, and with the confidence I gained in proving to myself that I could do it, I now participate in class on a much more regular basis. Climbing over that “bump” was uncomfortable to say the least, but after the first awkwardness of class participation, it gets easier every time.
This story also gave me a lot of empathy and appreciation for all the foreign students with whom I’ve ever had a class. Even if one’s conversational abilities in a language might be 99.99% perfect, mastering that language on an academic, intellectual level is a whole different ballgame. And I feel that I am one step closer to that goal.
**Side note: I posted various pictures from this semester so far: ice skating (yes, in Mexico!), gift exchange with Rotaract, my new house, and a cabin weekend . Check them out here**
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
Tour de México Part 2
I hope you all have had enough time to read my last post about Part 1 of my holiday travels around Mexico. If not, go back and read that one first! :)
Like I said last time, after Puebla, a town in central Mexico about an hour south of Mexico City, I flew to Memphis, Tennessee, where I spent Christmas with my dad, my brother and sister, my dad’s girlfriend, and her two daughters. I was debating for awhile whether or not I wanted to go home for the holidays, but ironically, Mexico made me decide to go. The culture here is so family-oriented that it has really made me appreciate my own family, and I couldn’t imagine spending the holidays without them.
After Christmas, my brother, sister, and I flew to New Hope, Pennsylvania, to where my mom just recently moved. There we spent New Years with my mom, her boyfriend, his daughter, and my boyfriend, who flew up from South Carolina. Needless to say, my family is rapidly expanding! And I love it.
However, as this is a blog about Mexico, I won’t go into too many details about my time at home. Just know that I had a wonderful time, and it was a great refresher to kick off my second semester in Monterrey.
Cancun: January 1-3
On January 1, my brother, sister, boyfriend, and I flew from Pennsylvania to Cancun, Mexico, where we met my dad for a week of traveling through the Yucatan peninsula. I was very excited to show them the country that to me has become like home. However, my one previous time in the Yucatan peninsula was 6 hours in Tulum off of a cruise ship, so this part of Mexico was almost all new to me too!
Cancun is divided into two parts: 1) downtown Cancun, which is the main city, where all “normal” life goes on, and 2) the “Zona Hotelera” (Hotel Zone), which is a peninsula jutting out into the Caribbean, where all of the tourist resorts are.
We spent our one full day there wandering a few different beaches in the Zona Hotelera, and discovered that the stories are true: Cancun has amazing beaches. However, as great as the beaches were, we also discovered that Cancun is best if you have money to splurge on the beachfront resorts (which we didn’t). Instead, we stayed in a basic, but cute, locally owned hotel in downtown Cancun, and enjoyed getting to know the more “local” culture. We did, however, still enjoy a great seafood meal at a water-side restaurant in the Zona Hotelera and watched the sunset!
Tulum: January 3-7
From Cancun, we took a bus to Tulum, which is a few hours south of Cancun. It is another incredibly beautiful beach town, but with a much more relaxed, “hippy” vibe (great for my family, which is made up of a bunch of people who should have been born in the 60s ;) ).
One of the things that Tulum is famous for is its Mayan ruins site, which was actually just about a ten minute walk from our hotel! I had already been there once on the cruise a few years ago, but it was still amazing to go back! Not only is it fascinating to see the ruins of an indigenous tribe that were built hundreds and hundreds of years ago, but the ruins are on a cliff overlooking the clearest green water of the Caribbean Sea and the whitest sand I’ve ever seen.
In my opinion, Tulum is one of the best places in Mexico you can vacation to. There you can relax on some of the most gorgeous beaches in the world while walking through an extraordinary piece of Mexico’s history. After we walked around the ruins, we walked down to the beach below and relaxed for the afternoon.
The next two days in Tulum we spent renting bikes and discovering that there were even more spectacular beaches! In fact, Tulum was set up along a long strip of beach, so we could ride our bikes on the road next to the beaches and pick where we wanted to go! Just like the beach by the ruins, the sand was the whitest I had ever seen and the water the clearest. There’s not much else I can say about the beaches except that it was paradise. I highly recommend Tulum as a relaxing vacation get-away; it is my idea of perfection. In fact, we ended up staying an extra day because we couldn’t pull ourselves away!
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention something else that Tulum was perfect for: a marriage proposal! My dad’s girlfriend Jennifer flew in on Wednesday, January 6, to spend the second half of the week with us. That evening, on the perfect beach, under a perfect sunset, my dad proposed! We kids were all waiting for them at a beachside restaurant, where we celebrated with a wonderful dinner, wine, and live music.
Chichén Itzá: January 7
On Thursday, January 7, we rented a car to drive to Mérida, the capital of Yucatan, located on the west side of the peninsula about 30 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico.
Before arriving in Mérida, though, we made a stop halfway at Chichén Itzá, the most famous of the Mayan ruins sites, and one of the new seven wonders of the world. Chichén Itzá is so much more than the ruins in Tulum, and so much more than just another ruins site. It is strongly recommended that you hire a guide, which we did, because he will explain to you all of the archeological intricacies that make the site so unique.
It is made up of temples and pyramids that are ingeniously crafted to coincide with the Mayan astronomical calendar. For example, on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes every year, at particular times of day, the sun shines on the main temple, El Castillo, in such a way that it produces an illusion of a serpent crawling down the temple’s stairs:
**I took this picture from http://www.diagnosis2012.co.uk/kuk.gif so that you can see the snake on the day of the equinox. Can you see it there towards the left??
In fact, the whole structure of El Castillo is essentially designed to be a Mayan calendar, where each of the levels and staircases are the days and months of the year.
The acoustics in Chichén Itzá are also very scientific. For example, in the Gran Juego de Pelota (the great ball court where the Mayans would play an ingenious ball game, although no one is sure exactly how it was played), if you clap you can hear the clap echoed clearly 7 times.
Every night at Chichén Itzá there is a light show, which you can attend for free if you toured the site that day. We decided to stay to see it, and we were so glad we did! The temples and structures were lit up in different colors as the whole history of the place was told:
Whereas I believe that Tulum is one of the best beaches you can go to in Mexico, if you’re looking to experience Mexico’s rich history, I highly recommend Chichén Itzá.
Mérida: January 7-9
Mérida is a great colonial city, much like Puebla (which, if you remember, was the last place I went in central Mexico before going home for the holidays). As it is the capital of the Yucatan, it is very rich is traditional Mexican culture. We spent the few days that we had there walking around and taking pictures of the central plaza, the many churches, and the beautiful architecture of the houses:
We also did a bus tour around the city which gave us a great overview of the sites and history. Like Puebla, Mérida has many beautifully-colored houses and churches.
Mérida is also known for its great hammocks (in fact, I think it’s the hammock capital of Mexico), so if you want a hammock, it’s a great place to go. We also found some great hand-woven blankets for very cheap.
Unfortunately, as we only had about a day and a half in Mérida, we didn’t have time to explore the many museums and a great many other things that the city has to offer, but we did get a wonderful overview during the time that we were there, which I will soon show you through my pictures.
Like I said last time, after Puebla, a town in central Mexico about an hour south of Mexico City, I flew to Memphis, Tennessee, where I spent Christmas with my dad, my brother and sister, my dad’s girlfriend, and her two daughters. I was debating for awhile whether or not I wanted to go home for the holidays, but ironically, Mexico made me decide to go. The culture here is so family-oriented that it has really made me appreciate my own family, and I couldn’t imagine spending the holidays without them.
After Christmas, my brother, sister, and I flew to New Hope, Pennsylvania, to where my mom just recently moved. There we spent New Years with my mom, her boyfriend, his daughter, and my boyfriend, who flew up from South Carolina. Needless to say, my family is rapidly expanding! And I love it.
However, as this is a blog about Mexico, I won’t go into too many details about my time at home. Just know that I had a wonderful time, and it was a great refresher to kick off my second semester in Monterrey.
Cancun: January 1-3
On January 1, my brother, sister, boyfriend, and I flew from Pennsylvania to Cancun, Mexico, where we met my dad for a week of traveling through the Yucatan peninsula. I was very excited to show them the country that to me has become like home. However, my one previous time in the Yucatan peninsula was 6 hours in Tulum off of a cruise ship, so this part of Mexico was almost all new to me too!
Cancun is divided into two parts: 1) downtown Cancun, which is the main city, where all “normal” life goes on, and 2) the “Zona Hotelera” (Hotel Zone), which is a peninsula jutting out into the Caribbean, where all of the tourist resorts are.
We spent our one full day there wandering a few different beaches in the Zona Hotelera, and discovered that the stories are true: Cancun has amazing beaches. However, as great as the beaches were, we also discovered that Cancun is best if you have money to splurge on the beachfront resorts (which we didn’t). Instead, we stayed in a basic, but cute, locally owned hotel in downtown Cancun, and enjoyed getting to know the more “local” culture. We did, however, still enjoy a great seafood meal at a water-side restaurant in the Zona Hotelera and watched the sunset!Tulum: January 3-7
From Cancun, we took a bus to Tulum, which is a few hours south of Cancun. It is another incredibly beautiful beach town, but with a much more relaxed, “hippy” vibe (great for my family, which is made up of a bunch of people who should have been born in the 60s ;) ).
One of the things that Tulum is famous for is its Mayan ruins site, which was actually just about a ten minute walk from our hotel! I had already been there once on the cruise a few years ago, but it was still amazing to go back! Not only is it fascinating to see the ruins of an indigenous tribe that were built hundreds and hundreds of years ago, but the ruins are on a cliff overlooking the clearest green water of the Caribbean Sea and the whitest sand I’ve ever seen.
In my opinion, Tulum is one of the best places in Mexico you can vacation to. There you can relax on some of the most gorgeous beaches in the world while walking through an extraordinary piece of Mexico’s history. After we walked around the ruins, we walked down to the beach below and relaxed for the afternoon.
The next two days in Tulum we spent renting bikes and discovering that there were even more spectacular beaches! In fact, Tulum was set up along a long strip of beach, so we could ride our bikes on the road next to the beaches and pick where we wanted to go! Just like the beach by the ruins, the sand was the whitest I had ever seen and the water the clearest. There’s not much else I can say about the beaches except that it was paradise. I highly recommend Tulum as a relaxing vacation get-away; it is my idea of perfection. In fact, we ended up staying an extra day because we couldn’t pull ourselves away!
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention something else that Tulum was perfect for: a marriage proposal! My dad’s girlfriend Jennifer flew in on Wednesday, January 6, to spend the second half of the week with us. That evening, on the perfect beach, under a perfect sunset, my dad proposed! We kids were all waiting for them at a beachside restaurant, where we celebrated with a wonderful dinner, wine, and live music.
Chichén Itzá: January 7
On Thursday, January 7, we rented a car to drive to Mérida, the capital of Yucatan, located on the west side of the peninsula about 30 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico.
Before arriving in Mérida, though, we made a stop halfway at Chichén Itzá, the most famous of the Mayan ruins sites, and one of the new seven wonders of the world. Chichén Itzá is so much more than the ruins in Tulum, and so much more than just another ruins site. It is strongly recommended that you hire a guide, which we did, because he will explain to you all of the archeological intricacies that make the site so unique.
It is made up of temples and pyramids that are ingeniously crafted to coincide with the Mayan astronomical calendar. For example, on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes every year, at particular times of day, the sun shines on the main temple, El Castillo, in such a way that it produces an illusion of a serpent crawling down the temple’s stairs:
**I took this picture from http://www.diagnosis2012.co.uk/kuk.gif so that you can see the snake on the day of the equinox. Can you see it there towards the left??
In fact, the whole structure of El Castillo is essentially designed to be a Mayan calendar, where each of the levels and staircases are the days and months of the year.
The acoustics in Chichén Itzá are also very scientific. For example, in the Gran Juego de Pelota (the great ball court where the Mayans would play an ingenious ball game, although no one is sure exactly how it was played), if you clap you can hear the clap echoed clearly 7 times.
Every night at Chichén Itzá there is a light show, which you can attend for free if you toured the site that day. We decided to stay to see it, and we were so glad we did! The temples and structures were lit up in different colors as the whole history of the place was told:
Whereas I believe that Tulum is one of the best beaches you can go to in Mexico, if you’re looking to experience Mexico’s rich history, I highly recommend Chichén Itzá.
Mérida: January 7-9
Mérida is a great colonial city, much like Puebla (which, if you remember, was the last place I went in central Mexico before going home for the holidays). As it is the capital of the Yucatan, it is very rich is traditional Mexican culture. We spent the few days that we had there walking around and taking pictures of the central plaza, the many churches, and the beautiful architecture of the houses:
We also did a bus tour around the city which gave us a great overview of the sites and history. Like Puebla, Mérida has many beautifully-colored houses and churches.
Mérida is also known for its great hammocks (in fact, I think it’s the hammock capital of Mexico), so if you want a hammock, it’s a great place to go. We also found some great hand-woven blankets for very cheap.
Unfortunately, as we only had about a day and a half in Mérida, we didn’t have time to explore the many museums and a great many other things that the city has to offer, but we did get a wonderful overview during the time that we were there, which I will soon show you through my pictures.
Monday, February 1, 2010
PICTURES from Tour de Mexico Part 1!
If you all have not seen my pictures posted on my Facebook page, I finished posting my pictures from Part 1 of my travels over the winter holidays, which coincide with my previous blog post. View them by clicking on the following links:
La NANI Event with Rotaract
Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende
Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta
Cuernavaca (and Taxco) and Puebla
Hope you enjoy!
La NANI Event with Rotaract
Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende
Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta
Cuernavaca (and Taxco) and Puebla
Hope you enjoy!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Tour de México Part 1
It’s January 23, 2010, and about two weeks ago I got back to Monterrey from my month-long Tour de México, with a brief hiatus in the good ol’ US of A for Christmas and New Year’s. Please bear with me as it will take me awhile to post all of the pictures (I think I have about 1500! And will probably just be posting a sampling), but here is a recount of my many adventures as I backpacked from place to place, hitting a different city every two or three days.
NANI with Rotaract: December 4-6
Before I even began my backpacking trip, I went on a weekend trip with the Rotaract Monterrey Club to Ciudad Valles, about 7 or 8 hours south of Monterrey. NANI stands for La Navidad por el Niño Indígena (Christmas for the Indigenous Child) and is an annual gathering of Rotaract clubs from the district. As with all Rotary activities, part of the weekend was focused on service, and part on fellowship. We arrived at midnight on Friday and there was a party going on in the fellowship hall of the hotel we stayed at. Members of Rotaract packed the room, dressed in Christmas costumes like angels and shepherds. There was a DJ playing all sorts of music, everyone was dancing, and delicious tamales were being served (a Christmas tradition in Mexico).
The next morning we were up early for the actual service part of the NANI. For months before, each of the clubs had been collecting different items to donate to the indigenous families in Ciudad Valles (for example, my club in Monterrey had been standing outside grocery stores asking for food donations). On that Saturday, the whole indigenous community about an hour outside of Ciudad Valles gathered together to accept the donations. It was an incredible experience. As a few hundred Rotaracts pulled up in buses, a few thousand indigenous people waited for us. We walked through a pathway lined with members of the community there, and they placed beautiful handmade flower leis on each one of us.
Then we walked down to the field where everyone in the indigenous community was gathered, and we handed out all the gifts we had brought them: everything from food and blankets to toys and school supplies for the children. There was entertainment going on simultaneously, and my friend Kristen even put on a stuffed bear suit and played with the kids!
It was an incredibly moving event; as we drove through the community, we could see how desperately they needed those items; it was not uncommon for them to have tin roofs and run-down houses. As the weather was beginning to get very cold, I was so glad we could give them things like blankets to keep them warm. One woman even came up and gave Kristen and me a hug to say thank you. Other than the knowledge that we were helping them out tremendously, one of my favorite parts was talking to the people of the community and learning some words from their language (most of them spoke both Spanish and an indigenous language)…unfortunately, I can’t remember what the words are anymore!
That night, Rotaract put on a fancy gala to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the NANI, which was a blast for me because we danced salsa! (For those of you who don’t know, I’m obsessed.). The next day we bussed back to Monterrey.
I spent the whole day after I got back from the NANI packing up my room. I decided to move this semester, and am now living with a friend from class and her brother. It’s about a 15 minute drive from campus, and in a more residential neighborhood than I was in last semester (I was literally living on one of the busiest streets in Monterrey). Now, I live up the side of the main mountain here, Cerro de la Silla, and have an incredible penthouse-style view of the other mountains and the city below!
After I ran around getting everything moved to my new house, I had just about enough time to enjoy one last leisurely dinner with several of my international friends, all of whom were leaving after the semester. Then we grabbed our bags and headed to the bus station for an overnight trip to Guanajuato!
Guanajuato: December 8-10
Guanajuato is the most picturesque town I’ve seen in Mexico. It’s a couple hours northwest of Mexico City, located in the mountains. It has a Venice-esque feel of old brick, colonial houses and narrow alley-ways, only with cobblestone pathways rather than canals. We stayed at an adorable little hotel called Casa Bertha, which had a terrace overlooking the colorfully packed houses of the city.
However, we had an even better view of the sprawl of the city when we climbed to the lookout:
We had just recently seen a new Mexican movie in the theaters called El Estudiante, and as it was filmed at the University of Guanajuato, we made sure to walk around its campus [side note: El Estudiante is about an old man who decides to return to school and enters the University of Guanajuato. It was so good it brought tears to my eyes, and although I’m not sure if it can be found in the U.S., I highly recommend that you try!
It’s like a breath of fresh air seeing a movie made straight from Mexico]. Anyway, the university campus is really actually just one big building, and like everything else in the city, it is made of very old architecture; I felt like I was living 100 years ago!
Another Guanajuato favorite was the childhood house of Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, where he lived till he was ten years old. The first floor was still set up like a house, but the rest of the floors were a museum with a lot of Rivera’s work as well as some other guest artists.
Guanajuato was by far my favorite of the cities in central Mexico, so I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a true Mexican pueblo with a lot of history, cultural, architecture, landscape, and overall beauty. As with all the places I will describe in this entry, my pictures will tell a better story than my words, so once I post all of my pictures you will have a better idea of what I did and saw.
San Miguel de Allende: December 10-11
San Miguel de Allende is another cute, colonial town, but I have to say that I was spoiled with Guanajuato. However, San Miguel is blessed with countless beautiful cathedrals and churches,
so we spent a lot of time just walking around taking pictures (and eating. We did a lot of eating not only here but everywhere we went!). It also had a great artisan market, where I was able to get some good Christmas shopping in.
Guadalajara: December 11-14
Although I already said that Guanajuato was my favorite city that we saw, I had the most fun in Guadalajara. As usually happens at busy hostels, we became instant best friends with the people staying at ours: an assortment from England, Scotland, Canada, Colombia, the United States, France, and then us, at this point a group from the United States, Australia, and Sweden (my travel group metamorphosed several times throughout the trip as people came and went).
Guadalajara is about five hours from Mexico’s western coast, and just a couple hours from the town of Tequila. So, needless to say, we had to tour Tequila, the birthplace of one of the best things to come out of Mexico (just kidding :P). It was a full-day tour, and included transportation, lunch, tours of two distilleries, and of course, tequila. Believe it or not, I actually learned a lot that day! At the first distillery, called “Tres Mujeres” Distillery, we learned that tequila is made from a plant called agave. And when you buy tequila in the store, make sure you look for “100% agave” written on the label, because if the percentage is less, it’s not true tequila.
We went out to the fields at the distillery where the agave plants grow. They look like a huge pineapple, and there is a field worker called a jimador who uses a shovel-looking tool to slice off the big leaves, which are not needed.
Then the main part of the agave plant is squeezed into a juice and distilled to become tequila. At the end of the tour of this distillery, we sampled the main four different types of tequila that the factory produced, in order of the distillation length and darkness: “blanco” (white/clear tequila, the least distilled), “reposado,” “añejo,” and “extra añejo” (darkest and the most distilled).
The “Tres Mujeres” factory was a medium-seized distillery, and the one we toured in the afternoon was a small, family-owned distillery. The Jose Cuervo distillery was also there, but unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to tour it!
In Guadalajara, we also spent a day in Tlaquepaque, one of the best shopping markets in Mexico (i.e. more Christmas shopping!). There was a variety of artisan stands and more expensive shops. Guadalajara also has another market, one of the biggest in Mexico. Literally, it was three HUGE floors! We took advantage of some inexpensive local food there.
All in all, Guadalajara is a great cultural city with a lot of local things to do, see, and buy. One of the best things (in my opinion): it’s WARM all year round!
Puerto Vallarta: December 14-18
Puerto Vallarta is the closest beach to Guadalajara, about a five hour bus ride, so we went there next. There is not much in terms of culture or history there, but there were plenty of beautiful beaches! We ended up staying there longer than planned (we were going to go to Colima but decided to skip it), and had a wonderful time exploring the town and its various beaches.
Here, too, we stayed at a great hostel, called “Hostal de les Artistes” (it was a French name – did I write it right?? I only do Spanish:) ). It was very hippy/artsy; the owner of it had made all sorts of artwork out of rolled up, painted newspaper: wall hangings, rugs, even an entire wall of our room was made of it! This hostel also had a terrace, and one night we had a barbeque with all the hostel guests and owners. Great place, great people. The only problem we had was actually finding the place! We took a cab from the bus station the night we got in, and gave the cab driver the address. Puerto Vallarta is a very hilly town, and we had him driving up and down incredibly steep hills, unable to find the place. However, the time that I was really scared for my life was when he parked the cab on a very steep hill, got out and started running up and down the hills looking at the house numbers! He left us in the cab though, and if my friend Viktor in the front seat hadn’t pulled the emergency brake tighter, we would have rolled down the hill and crashed into some houses! Thank god for Viktor’s cool mindedness.
Cuernavaca: December 18-20
Next stop after Puerto Vallarta was Cuernavaca, a 14-hour bus ride away (don’t worry, we took the overnight bus) and about an hour south of Mexico City. We weren’t here for very long, so spent our time there just walking around, taking pictures, and eating. We sampled some delicious pozole soup, made of shredded chicken and hominy corn in a spicy broth, famous to the area. Cuernavaca is small but has a city feel, with a nice central plaza with street performances and vendors.
Another story from a hostel we stayed at (notice a theme? Hostels are definitely the way to go wherever you’re traveling!): The first night we arrived in Cuernavaca, the owners of our hostel invited us to a “Posada” at the hostel that night. A Posada is the traditional Mexican Christmas celebration, where the people divide into two groups and sing a song about the Nativity, in which one group sings part and then the other group echoes it. Tamales and soup are usually served, and this is where piñatas are used! It was so cute to watch the little kids run to the candy!
Taxco: December 19
We took a day trip from Cuernavaca to the town of Taxco, a silver-mining mountain town about an hour away. I don’t know if you all read my post about Real de Catorce back in October, but Taxco reminded me a lot of Real: quiet, magical, and withdrawn from the world. When we arrived we went to what we thought was going to be an actual mine tour, but it was just a small room designed as a mine for tourists. Nevertheless, they had some wonderful silver jewelry there.
Another Taxco attraction that we took advantage of was a cable car that took us across the Taxco valley and gave us an incredible view of the mountain below, speckled with cute white houses:
Taxco is an off-the-beaten-path town where I would definitely recommend going. The main tourists we saw were Mexican!
Puebla: December 20-22
Our last stop before my brief hiatus to the U.S. for the holidays was Puebla. Puebla is east of Cuernavaca and also about an hour south of Mexico City. This city of 1.5 million was another Tour de México favorite for me. To me, Puebla is one of the Mexican cities that best gives you a sense that you are in “true Mexico” (It is a lot like Mérida, in the Yucatan peninsula. Stay tuned for a description of my time in Mérida in my next post!).
Puebla has grid-like streets and houses of identical size, all attached to each other but of every color you could imagine. It’s known for its culture of high society and conservatism, but understandably so, as it is something to be proud of.
We did a bus tour that took us around all the main historical points of the city, and gave us a great sense of the colonialism that still exists there: there were churches and cathedrals on every street corner it seemed. Puebla is also a significant location in Mexico’s history, as it has the fortress that protected the locals against the French on May 5, 1862, which inspired the Cinco de Mayo celebrations that I’m sure you all celebrate now.
Puebla is also very well known for its DELICIOUS cuisine. Ever heard of mole? That’s from Puebla. Poblano pepper? Also from Puebla. Anything that has the word “poblano” in it means that it comes from Puebla. Actually, when we were there the seasonal specialty was cooked crickets, but I decided to stick with something a little bit more food-ish. It was a chicken dish with a green sauce made from pumpkin seeds called pipian verde, and it was superb. Try it if you go to Puebla!
My favorite thing about Puebla (and one of my favorite things about the whole trip) was a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop we found one night (actually, we were recommended by Lonely Planet, hands down the best travel book you can get). It was also a library and had shelves of books and a dark, relaxed ambience. It was the kind of place that only the locals know about. That night, there was an awesome jazzy salsa band, and everyone in the place got up and danced! It wasn’t even just couples; half of the people were just dancing on their own, doing their own interpretive salsa dancing. We had a blast just watching them – like most Mexicans, they knew how to dance!!
Puebla was by far the coldest place we went on our trip. One of my most vivid memories, unfortunately, was a few cooooold hours I spent in the airport on December 22, on my way home to the U.S. to celebrate the holidays with my family. The airport had no heating system, as it is normally not needed and Mexico is experiencing more cold weather this year than usual. On top of the FREEZING cold weather, my flight (which was supposed to leave at 7 a.m.) was delayed and I wasn’t sure why. So there I was, so cold I couldn’t even stand still, watching the airport workers take their time preparing the plane. I thought that’s all they were doing until I saw the plane backing away from the gate! Confused, I decided to go up and ask some men who also appeared to be on my flight. “Oh, the flight’s delayed because there was ice on the plane, and they had to wait for the sun to come up to de-ice it! Now they’re moving it around so the sun can melt the other side.” I guess when you're not used to cold weather, you don't need de-icing machines, so you resort to nature!
Stay tuned for Part 2 of my Tour de México adventures, and lots and lots of pictures!
NANI with Rotaract: December 4-6
Before I even began my backpacking trip, I went on a weekend trip with the Rotaract Monterrey Club to Ciudad Valles, about 7 or 8 hours south of Monterrey. NANI stands for La Navidad por el Niño Indígena (Christmas for the Indigenous Child) and is an annual gathering of Rotaract clubs from the district. As with all Rotary activities, part of the weekend was focused on service, and part on fellowship. We arrived at midnight on Friday and there was a party going on in the fellowship hall of the hotel we stayed at. Members of Rotaract packed the room, dressed in Christmas costumes like angels and shepherds. There was a DJ playing all sorts of music, everyone was dancing, and delicious tamales were being served (a Christmas tradition in Mexico).
The next morning we were up early for the actual service part of the NANI. For months before, each of the clubs had been collecting different items to donate to the indigenous families in Ciudad Valles (for example, my club in Monterrey had been standing outside grocery stores asking for food donations). On that Saturday, the whole indigenous community about an hour outside of Ciudad Valles gathered together to accept the donations. It was an incredible experience. As a few hundred Rotaracts pulled up in buses, a few thousand indigenous people waited for us. We walked through a pathway lined with members of the community there, and they placed beautiful handmade flower leis on each one of us.
Then we walked down to the field where everyone in the indigenous community was gathered, and we handed out all the gifts we had brought them: everything from food and blankets to toys and school supplies for the children. There was entertainment going on simultaneously, and my friend Kristen even put on a stuffed bear suit and played with the kids!
It was an incredibly moving event; as we drove through the community, we could see how desperately they needed those items; it was not uncommon for them to have tin roofs and run-down houses. As the weather was beginning to get very cold, I was so glad we could give them things like blankets to keep them warm. One woman even came up and gave Kristen and me a hug to say thank you. Other than the knowledge that we were helping them out tremendously, one of my favorite parts was talking to the people of the community and learning some words from their language (most of them spoke both Spanish and an indigenous language)…unfortunately, I can’t remember what the words are anymore!
That night, Rotaract put on a fancy gala to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the NANI, which was a blast for me because we danced salsa! (For those of you who don’t know, I’m obsessed.). The next day we bussed back to Monterrey.
I spent the whole day after I got back from the NANI packing up my room. I decided to move this semester, and am now living with a friend from class and her brother. It’s about a 15 minute drive from campus, and in a more residential neighborhood than I was in last semester (I was literally living on one of the busiest streets in Monterrey). Now, I live up the side of the main mountain here, Cerro de la Silla, and have an incredible penthouse-style view of the other mountains and the city below!
After I ran around getting everything moved to my new house, I had just about enough time to enjoy one last leisurely dinner with several of my international friends, all of whom were leaving after the semester. Then we grabbed our bags and headed to the bus station for an overnight trip to Guanajuato!
Guanajuato: December 8-10
Guanajuato is the most picturesque town I’ve seen in Mexico. It’s a couple hours northwest of Mexico City, located in the mountains. It has a Venice-esque feel of old brick, colonial houses and narrow alley-ways, only with cobblestone pathways rather than canals. We stayed at an adorable little hotel called Casa Bertha, which had a terrace overlooking the colorfully packed houses of the city.
However, we had an even better view of the sprawl of the city when we climbed to the lookout:
We had just recently seen a new Mexican movie in the theaters called El Estudiante, and as it was filmed at the University of Guanajuato, we made sure to walk around its campus [side note: El Estudiante is about an old man who decides to return to school and enters the University of Guanajuato. It was so good it brought tears to my eyes, and although I’m not sure if it can be found in the U.S., I highly recommend that you try!
It’s like a breath of fresh air seeing a movie made straight from Mexico]. Anyway, the university campus is really actually just one big building, and like everything else in the city, it is made of very old architecture; I felt like I was living 100 years ago!Another Guanajuato favorite was the childhood house of Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, where he lived till he was ten years old. The first floor was still set up like a house, but the rest of the floors were a museum with a lot of Rivera’s work as well as some other guest artists.
Guanajuato was by far my favorite of the cities in central Mexico, so I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a true Mexican pueblo with a lot of history, cultural, architecture, landscape, and overall beauty. As with all the places I will describe in this entry, my pictures will tell a better story than my words, so once I post all of my pictures you will have a better idea of what I did and saw.
San Miguel de Allende: December 10-11
San Miguel de Allende is another cute, colonial town, but I have to say that I was spoiled with Guanajuato. However, San Miguel is blessed with countless beautiful cathedrals and churches,
so we spent a lot of time just walking around taking pictures (and eating. We did a lot of eating not only here but everywhere we went!). It also had a great artisan market, where I was able to get some good Christmas shopping in. Guadalajara: December 11-14
Although I already said that Guanajuato was my favorite city that we saw, I had the most fun in Guadalajara. As usually happens at busy hostels, we became instant best friends with the people staying at ours: an assortment from England, Scotland, Canada, Colombia, the United States, France, and then us, at this point a group from the United States, Australia, and Sweden (my travel group metamorphosed several times throughout the trip as people came and went).
Guadalajara is about five hours from Mexico’s western coast, and just a couple hours from the town of Tequila. So, needless to say, we had to tour Tequila, the birthplace of one of the best things to come out of Mexico (just kidding :P). It was a full-day tour, and included transportation, lunch, tours of two distilleries, and of course, tequila. Believe it or not, I actually learned a lot that day! At the first distillery, called “Tres Mujeres” Distillery, we learned that tequila is made from a plant called agave. And when you buy tequila in the store, make sure you look for “100% agave” written on the label, because if the percentage is less, it’s not true tequila.
We went out to the fields at the distillery where the agave plants grow. They look like a huge pineapple, and there is a field worker called a jimador who uses a shovel-looking tool to slice off the big leaves, which are not needed.Then the main part of the agave plant is squeezed into a juice and distilled to become tequila. At the end of the tour of this distillery, we sampled the main four different types of tequila that the factory produced, in order of the distillation length and darkness: “blanco” (white/clear tequila, the least distilled), “reposado,” “añejo,” and “extra añejo” (darkest and the most distilled).
The “Tres Mujeres” factory was a medium-seized distillery, and the one we toured in the afternoon was a small, family-owned distillery. The Jose Cuervo distillery was also there, but unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to tour it!
In Guadalajara, we also spent a day in Tlaquepaque, one of the best shopping markets in Mexico (i.e. more Christmas shopping!). There was a variety of artisan stands and more expensive shops. Guadalajara also has another market, one of the biggest in Mexico. Literally, it was three HUGE floors! We took advantage of some inexpensive local food there.
All in all, Guadalajara is a great cultural city with a lot of local things to do, see, and buy. One of the best things (in my opinion): it’s WARM all year round!
Puerto Vallarta: December 14-18
Puerto Vallarta is the closest beach to Guadalajara, about a five hour bus ride, so we went there next. There is not much in terms of culture or history there, but there were plenty of beautiful beaches! We ended up staying there longer than planned (we were going to go to Colima but decided to skip it), and had a wonderful time exploring the town and its various beaches.
Here, too, we stayed at a great hostel, called “Hostal de les Artistes” (it was a French name – did I write it right?? I only do Spanish:) ). It was very hippy/artsy; the owner of it had made all sorts of artwork out of rolled up, painted newspaper: wall hangings, rugs, even an entire wall of our room was made of it! This hostel also had a terrace, and one night we had a barbeque with all the hostel guests and owners. Great place, great people. The only problem we had was actually finding the place! We took a cab from the bus station the night we got in, and gave the cab driver the address. Puerto Vallarta is a very hilly town, and we had him driving up and down incredibly steep hills, unable to find the place. However, the time that I was really scared for my life was when he parked the cab on a very steep hill, got out and started running up and down the hills looking at the house numbers! He left us in the cab though, and if my friend Viktor in the front seat hadn’t pulled the emergency brake tighter, we would have rolled down the hill and crashed into some houses! Thank god for Viktor’s cool mindedness. Cuernavaca: December 18-20
Next stop after Puerto Vallarta was Cuernavaca, a 14-hour bus ride away (don’t worry, we took the overnight bus) and about an hour south of Mexico City. We weren’t here for very long, so spent our time there just walking around, taking pictures, and eating. We sampled some delicious pozole soup, made of shredded chicken and hominy corn in a spicy broth, famous to the area. Cuernavaca is small but has a city feel, with a nice central plaza with street performances and vendors.
Another story from a hostel we stayed at (notice a theme? Hostels are definitely the way to go wherever you’re traveling!): The first night we arrived in Cuernavaca, the owners of our hostel invited us to a “Posada” at the hostel that night. A Posada is the traditional Mexican Christmas celebration, where the people divide into two groups and sing a song about the Nativity, in which one group sings part and then the other group echoes it. Tamales and soup are usually served, and this is where piñatas are used! It was so cute to watch the little kids run to the candy!
Taxco: December 19
We took a day trip from Cuernavaca to the town of Taxco, a silver-mining mountain town about an hour away. I don’t know if you all read my post about Real de Catorce back in October, but Taxco reminded me a lot of Real: quiet, magical, and withdrawn from the world. When we arrived we went to what we thought was going to be an actual mine tour, but it was just a small room designed as a mine for tourists. Nevertheless, they had some wonderful silver jewelry there.
Another Taxco attraction that we took advantage of was a cable car that took us across the Taxco valley and gave us an incredible view of the mountain below, speckled with cute white houses:
Taxco is an off-the-beaten-path town where I would definitely recommend going. The main tourists we saw were Mexican!
Puebla: December 20-22
Our last stop before my brief hiatus to the U.S. for the holidays was Puebla. Puebla is east of Cuernavaca and also about an hour south of Mexico City. This city of 1.5 million was another Tour de México favorite for me. To me, Puebla is one of the Mexican cities that best gives you a sense that you are in “true Mexico” (It is a lot like Mérida, in the Yucatan peninsula. Stay tuned for a description of my time in Mérida in my next post!).
Puebla has grid-like streets and houses of identical size, all attached to each other but of every color you could imagine. It’s known for its culture of high society and conservatism, but understandably so, as it is something to be proud of.
We did a bus tour that took us around all the main historical points of the city, and gave us a great sense of the colonialism that still exists there: there were churches and cathedrals on every street corner it seemed. Puebla is also a significant location in Mexico’s history, as it has the fortress that protected the locals against the French on May 5, 1862, which inspired the Cinco de Mayo celebrations that I’m sure you all celebrate now. Puebla is also very well known for its DELICIOUS cuisine. Ever heard of mole? That’s from Puebla. Poblano pepper? Also from Puebla. Anything that has the word “poblano” in it means that it comes from Puebla. Actually, when we were there the seasonal specialty was cooked crickets, but I decided to stick with something a little bit more food-ish. It was a chicken dish with a green sauce made from pumpkin seeds called pipian verde, and it was superb. Try it if you go to Puebla!
My favorite thing about Puebla (and one of my favorite things about the whole trip) was a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop we found one night (actually, we were recommended by Lonely Planet, hands down the best travel book you can get). It was also a library and had shelves of books and a dark, relaxed ambience. It was the kind of place that only the locals know about. That night, there was an awesome jazzy salsa band, and everyone in the place got up and danced! It wasn’t even just couples; half of the people were just dancing on their own, doing their own interpretive salsa dancing. We had a blast just watching them – like most Mexicans, they knew how to dance!!
Puebla was by far the coldest place we went on our trip. One of my most vivid memories, unfortunately, was a few cooooold hours I spent in the airport on December 22, on my way home to the U.S. to celebrate the holidays with my family. The airport had no heating system, as it is normally not needed and Mexico is experiencing more cold weather this year than usual. On top of the FREEZING cold weather, my flight (which was supposed to leave at 7 a.m.) was delayed and I wasn’t sure why. So there I was, so cold I couldn’t even stand still, watching the airport workers take their time preparing the plane. I thought that’s all they were doing until I saw the plane backing away from the gate! Confused, I decided to go up and ask some men who also appeared to be on my flight. “Oh, the flight’s delayed because there was ice on the plane, and they had to wait for the sun to come up to de-ice it! Now they’re moving it around so the sun can melt the other side.” I guess when you're not used to cold weather, you don't need de-icing machines, so you resort to nature!
Stay tuned for Part 2 of my Tour de México adventures, and lots and lots of pictures!
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