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.