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.

Dentista!

Before I came to Mexico I decided that I was going to take care of two medical things here. One, get my teeth cleaned, and two, buy some glasses. Because everything costs less here. Well, let's face it, everything costs less pretty much everywhere outside the U.S. So this morning I asked Maria if she knew of a good dentist in town. Turns out her husband is a dentist! Awesome! So an hour or so later Shayna came with me and we walked to the other side of town, close to the aqueduct. We took a wrong turn at the end, but fortunately he was expecting us so he was keeping an eye out and saw us go the wrong way. It's pretty hard to miss two gringas in this town. So as we were asking some folks about the address we had been given, we turned around to see Doctor Fernando there on the sidewalk; he had come to fetch us on his bicycle. :) Apparently he owns several blocks worth of buildings and Maria had given us the wrong address. No harm done; we followed him up the street to his office and he went to work. He was super super nice. He spoke some English, but spoke mostly in Spanish and I was able to follow. I learned lots of good new words, too, like toothbrush, floss, flat (I should be using a completely flat headed toothbrush). He had me chew on these red tablets which are supposed to show where the plaque is on your teeth. It was pretty shocking; I kind of looked like a vampire and I think my tongue is still red from the experience. Anyway, he gave me perhaps the most thorough lesson on how to brush and floss my teeth that I have ever had. An hour or so later, after the cleaning and after he showed us his pictures of Machu Pichu, we were on our way. And all for about a third of what I would have paid in the U.S. Mexico just keeps getting better and better.

A view of the aqueduct on our way back into town. Shayna has all the dentist pictures on her camera, so maybe I´ll get some of those from her and post them here later.

As promised... here I am in the dentist chair making my best scared face. I really don´t like going to the dentist.

Nice clean teeth and a neon tongue.

Recovery

Ah, the wonderful world of new and different bacteria. You try to be careful about what you eat, but at some point you will fall prey. First it happened to me, and now Shayna. Thankfully it only lasted 24 hours, and I'd like to say it will be the last time, but who knows? Fortunately for us, we have Maria, our Mexican-American mom-away-from-home, here at the inn. She hooked us up with some yerba buena tea, which apparently is just spearmint. It was super yummy and I guess good for your tummy. I don't know if it was the agave nectar she put in it, but it smelled and tasted a little bit like melted butter. Good stuff. She also called the man nearby who delivers jugo verde, which is also said to be really good for you and I guess cleansing. Then for lunch she whipped up some caldo de pollo, delicious chicken soup packed full of veggies. So that has been lunch for two days in a row, with the occasional saltine (saladitas) and coconut-flavored pedialyte. Good stuff. We also ventured out in the afternoon yesterday to the bakery down the road, La Jarochita. I think I will get to know those folks very well over the next few weeks.

Enjoying some caldo de pollo in our sunny courtyard.

Pátzcuaro and beyond

Shayna and I got back from Pátzcuaro last night, after deciding to spend only one night there. On our way back we went to the island of Janitzio and the town of Tzintzuntzan, which is super fun to say. Earlier in the day we said goodbye to Carrie, who joined us and was the driving force behind our adventures for the first week. It doesn't feel the same here without her. :( I'm not feeling very verbose at the moment, so I will let the photos do most of the talking.

This is in Pátzcuaro. There are lots of old Beetles all over Mexico, though, and I've heard that they're actually still made here. I was almost run over by a man on a horse while I took this picture. :)

Close to our hotel was this amazing bakery. You turn the corner and all you smell is bread and sweets. We went a little crazy and got just about one of everything to try. The funny thing about bakeries here is that they generally don't open until the afternoon, rather than bright and early in the morning.

I love cobblestone streets, and there are lots of them here.

Janitzio is famous for charales, these little fish that are fried up and eaten whole. You can also get them with chile... you can get just about everything with chile. Vendors offer you samples as you pass by; Shayna tried one and said it was like a French fry.

There are lots of musicians here as well. On our way back from the island we were serenaded by this little makeshift band.

Here are the fishermen of Janitzio fishing for charales. They have very interesting nets. They also seem to coordinate fishing in a circle and lifting up the nets simultaneously.

Food, food, and more food

I've always felt that one of the main reasons to travel is to eat. My travel companions and I have been putting this theory to the test ever since we arrived in Mexico. Yesterday was a very low-key day. It was sunny and gorgeous out for a little while, and then we had a major thunderstorm that I thought might blow the inn over, complete with some serious hail. The only things we left the inn for yesterday were to go to the mercado de dulces (sweets market) and then later the Inmaculada, a church where every night volunteers serve food and aguas frescas (literally fresh water) for incredible prices to raise money for the homeless. Apparently they raise something like four thousand dollars a week, and all of this at an indivual price of well under $4 apiece. Amazing. We all got a different dish, chicken enchilada, sopes, pozole, quesadilla, corundas, and for dessert a buñuelo, fried goodness doused in caramelized sugar, and gelatina (jello) topped with rompope, an alcoholic drink that is similar to egg nog. The aguas frescas are basically fresh fruit juices that are slightly watered down, and so delicious. We had mango, pineapple, and guayaba (guava). All in all a major culinary success.

The four of us along with Rosa, the owner of the inn, ended up staying up into the wee hours of the morning chatting and drinking wine. This morning we woke up to the smell of chilaquiles cooking for breakfast, made for us by the fabulous Maria, the manager here. Shayna and I were commenting to one another that we have felt like part of the family ever since we arrived in Mexico, in one family after another.

As I write this the five of us are sitting in the sunny courtyard discussing our plans for the next couple of days. Jesús, a taxi driver who often drives for Rosa and her guests, will be driving us to Pátzcuaro shortly. The main topics of discussion are where and what to eat and where and what to buy, because apparently Pátzcuaro is a mecca for shopping and handicrafts. Rosa has lived in the area here for about 8 years, so she is really a wellspring of information on the best places for many different things. We have truly hit the jackpot here in Michoacán.

This is where you buy your tickets for the meal, in denominations of 5 pesos each. One thing I have found interesting here is that even though the currency is pesos, they actually use the dollar sign.

So much gelatina, so little time.

Enjoying our fabulous meal.

Tlalpujahua!

After spending a day in Tlalpujahua I can now comfortably pronounce the town's name, and I can say that it is one of the cutest little towns I've ever been to. In fact, it has the designation of being a Magic Town (Pueblo Mágico), of which there are 34 in Mexico and 4 in Michoacán state. Another one is Pátzcuaro, which we are going to on Friday.

We arrived in the afternoon yesterday, checked into our hotel, and then wandered around a little. Later that night we had dinner with a family, friends of Candace, who were easily one of the nicest families we've ever met. The plan was to meet at their place at 7. When we got there just the two kids, Gonzalo and Natlia, were there. They served us tea and we all chatted for a while until their mom arrived. Everyone in the family has studied English with Candace, so the conversation all night was, for the most part, in English. Mom arrived around 8 and we learned that their dad was at a meeting and wouldn't be home until much later. We chatted some more and more time passed. At this point, having hardly eaten all day, the four of us were all on the verge of passing out. All in all, we didn't end up eating until about 10:30, and I don't know if it was the food, the company, or the fact that we would have eaten our napkins at that point, but it was one of the finest meals we'd ever eaten. We had tacos al pastor, chile relleno, frijoles, and for dessert, capulines (kind of like a tiny cherry with a big seed, served in syrup), and atole to drink. I'd been wanting to try atole, so I was pretty psyched. It's basically like porridge, a thick, semi-sweet drink with corn in it, and I think a little cinnamon. Pretty yummy. I could actually imagine having it for breakfast. There's also a chocolate-y version of this called champurrado, which I'm also excited to taste. It's safe to say we all slept pretty well that night.

This morning we went out for breakfast and met another family friend who took us to the top of the hill where we toured the ornament factory. Tlalpujahua is famous for and is one of the biggest producers of Christmas tree ornaments. It seriously felt like we were walking into Santa's little workshop. We saw men handblowing the glass into various shapes and other men and women handpainting them one-by-one. It was impressive, especially when you consider how much time goes into each one. At the end of the tour we were able to buy them, at about 50 cents apiece. Crazy.

We came back to Morelia today, where we were greeted by our lovely hosts, the owner and manager of the inn, who had arranged for a massage therapist from Pátzcuaro to come and give us massages and made us an amazing burrito dinner with homemade guacamole, beans, and rice. Yum. We also had palomas, a margarita-like drink made with tequila... a Mexican spa day, if you will. Needless to say, we are all feeling pretty spoiled and very appreciative of all that we have experienced here so far.

The doors and windows here are really interesting, so much color and texture.

Did I mention there are a lot of churches here?

Ornaments in the making.

What a painstaking process. Each individual ornament is painted and glittered by hand.

Here's Shayna showing this little girl the picture she took of her. She wanted us to buy her paletas, which Shayna paid for but didn't take.

Vacation

Today was kind of the first day I really felt like I was on vacation. We are here to work/volunteer, but that doesn't officially start until next week. Today the four of us did a few things together, and then I spent some time walking around on my own. I had my first jugo verde (green juice), which is a kind of smoothie made of orange juice blended with nopal (cactus), pineapple, and parsley. There might have been something else in there, but those were the only words I could decipher. It was super yummy and healthy.

We met a couple of our students today and set up a tentative schedule for next week. Both young women are interested in taking the TOEFL exam as well as just practicing their conversation skills. There is tourism here, but it seems to be predominantly other Mexicans, so opportunities to speak English are rare. From a traveler's perspective this is kind of nice because it feels a lot more authentic. There are American brands and things here, but it doesn't feel completely Americanized like a lot of other places in the world. And from a linguistic perspective it's awesome because people don't just automatically switch into English. I'm learning a lot by floundering my way through (and by interrogating Carrie, who is fluent, as we wander around), but I'm hoping to take some Spanish classes here as well. Some of the interesting/funny/fascinating things I have learned so far are:

enchilarse - there is actually a verb in Spanish that refers to overdoing it with chile

The words for married and tired are really close. I'm not sure if that is intentional, I just think it's funny. I thought someone was asking me if I was tired the other day, but they wanted to know if I was married.

Direct and indirect object pronouns run rampant. I feel like the word "se" appears all over the place and sometimes I can't figure out what purpose it's serving.

I'm sure there's more but that's all I can think of at the moment. Tomorrow we head north to Tlalpujahua (yes, good luck pronouncing that... the native words here are like tongue-twisters) where we will meet some more of Candace's friends from years past. Apparently they make blown glass ornaments there so we will see some of that in action.

They are serious about locking their doors here in Morelia.

Tonight there was a fire twirler outside a cafe where we met one of our students. The first time I ever saw this done was in Montreal. Now whenever I see them, though, I can't help but think of the guy I saw in Tommy's Park in Portland who was trying to do some crazy move with a rope around his neck and started to catch on fire. Fortunately he had a friend there to put him out. Crazy.