Uh oh… I have lots to say again! Katie and I have decided that it has been an excellent past twenty-four hours.So last night all of the girls who love in my room (there are four of us all together) went out to eat for some roommate bonding time. We went to a beautiful little restaurant called “La India Bonita.” It was gorgeous, a garden all around lit by candle light. We sat out under the stars on the patio. Not only was it a beautiful setting… the food was delicious as well. We decided to try a traditional appetizer from the city of Tepotzlan because that’s where we were going to go exploring the next day. I have no idea what it was called or what was in it… but it was a really good sort of dip thing we ate with chips and tortillas. For my meal I got enchiladas con salsa verde which was also delicious. Oh yeah… and sangria!
We had made a plan to meet a few of the other girls downtown at 9 to go out for a few drinks and just hang out. The city was bustling with families and couples and a mariachi band also. All of the historic buildings get lit up so it is just beautiful and so alive at night. We went to a bar which has an inside part that is all open to a patio part that is bigger than the inside part. It’s called “Los Arcos” and is right off of the square. They had live music and a few people were dancing salsa. There were so many different kinds of people there, which was very interesting, from young kids out with their friends to families to older couples. We didn’t even know it, but we just barley caught happy hour which ended at 10. I had margaritas which were delicious. There weren’t a lot of people dancing, but a few of us danced salsa when some guys asked us. I’m not so graceful since I’ve barley done it, and am not sure I would be if I had, but they were really good about it, telling us what to do and being encouraging. Salsa is entirely led by the male, so most of it was easy, they just spin you which is so so fun and makes me feel like I’m five again. Some songs or beats have more spins than others though I can’t figure out the rhyme or reason. We all had a really good time and I got to hang out with some people in the program I hadn’t gotten very close to yet. It was great too because two of them, Aimee and Elyn decided to come hiking with us the next day!
We went to bed around one, joking the whole time about us being the old folk of the group. A bunch of the other people stay out a lot later and are just much more into the party scene than the bunch I was with. It was a good time and we laughed about it though, all of us light weights swaying a little bit while walking home. It was easy to get up earlyish this morning to start our adventure which was key!
Today is a special Mexican holiday which I can’t remember the name of, but it’s the end of the Christmas season. Everyone was going to mass today with there baby Jesus dolls that are dressed for god and then left to be blessed and then brought back home and sat up in a little chair to signify Jesus’ growing up. It is a really interesting tradition because all around town adults were carrying these little baby dolls dressed up in fancy clothes around like they were babies- in their arms of in baskets. I had to get really close most of the time to realize they weren’t real children, or in a few cases… that they were real children. Walking through the streets we saw lots of what Lisane, one of the program coordinator, calls “jesui.”
Anyway, that was what we saw both in Cuernavaca and in Tepotzlan where we went on our day trip. Tepotzlan is a city about 40 minutes from Cuernavaca by bus. We walked to the mercado (same place we did the market survey) and then somehow found the right bus. The buses that go city to city are mostly like greyhound buses, but no A/C or bathrooms. It wasn’t crowded at all, so we just hopped on. When we got to the city, the bus backed into this little alley and they told us this was it. We were going to hike up to a pyramid on top of a mountain that is now a national park. It’s a bit of a tourist destination, so we expected it to be easy to find, but there were noooo hints of it.
Eventually we asked a guy for directions. He was very nice and told us to go up two streets and take a right towards the church. We did find a beautiful old church (picture on webshots,) but is, it wasn’t at all the pyramids. The thing is… it’s culturally wrong to say no to someone, so even if you don’t know where they’re asking directions to, you just make it up to be nice. It’s hard to get used to coming from the rushed, one destination mind of home, but I’m learning to relax and go with the flow a little more.
Eventually someone told us to just walk down any street as far as you can towards the mountains. This ended up actually working and along the way we found a really nice dog friend! It was as if he knew we were a little lost and chose to guide the way. We hiked in two groups and he would stay in between the two, making sure everything was ok with everyone. There were lots of other people on the trail and he stayed with us when we took breaks (a lot of them… it was realllly steep). It was really funny. It reminded me of my boyfriend’s family’s dog, Cy who was also always a great leader when hiking.The hike was pretty tough, but we ended up doing it in about an hour and a half. The view from the top was well worth it. The pyramid was neat, but nothing too exciting, but we could see lots of mountains around us and both cities below. It was beautiful.
On the way down there were some stairs that our dog friend was scared to go
down. We decided to keep on moving because it was taking so long and we knew he would go down eventually. It was sad to leave and we all felt a little guilty. A few minutes later though, he came running down smiling… I think I want to write a children’s book about a Mexican dog that runs the town and takes people hiking to the pyramid. He was so funny, never stopping to bark at the other dogs.We caught the bus back to Cuernavaca, walked home and had a nice relaxing afternoon because we were all exhausted.
Tomorrow we leave for a week of rural homestays (two rural homestays and then a retreat to an ex-hacienda). I’m really excited and I think I will learn a lot. I’m a little anxious, especially because they scared us about scorpions, but I think I’ll be ok…
Adios hasta Viernes!
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