Laura's Visit and Teotihuacan

After Monterrey we returned to Saltillo, where we returned Hector's car and boarded an overnight bus for Mexico City.  We spent the next day visiting the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.  Our camera had quit working, so we don't have any pictures from the Museum, but we got to see an exhibit on Pompeii along with all the other exhibits, and we watched voladores, which are performers who swing in a circle from a pole, tied by one foot and descending slowly.  It's an Aztec ritual dance.
That evening Laura and her baby, Rebecca arrived - our first visitors from the states!  We met them at the airport in Mexico City, and headed to a hotel for the night.  Laura is Krista's twin sister.  She lives in Blacksburg, Virginia with her husband Mitch who graciously agreed to watch their three other kids (ages 6, 4, and 2) so Laura could come down for a visit.  Fortunately, his parents took pity on him and came down from Canada to help. 
Laura arrived on December 30th.  The next day was New Year's eve, and we headed out to Teotihuacan, about 45 minutes from Mexico City.  There are three large pyramids at this site - the temples of the sun and moon, and the citidal - and lots of smaller buildings which were platforms for other temples, and even some living quarters.  It was a very impressive site, but we felt a little bit overwhelmed with all the vendors there who just swarmed us trying to make a sale.

Here are Laura and Rebecca, with the pyramid of the sun in the background.

The pyramid of the sun as viewed from another structure.  Daniel is in the foreground.

Joseph, Stephen, and Daniel, who is holding up a cool rock that he bought.

Krista, Chiara, Laura, and Rebecca

a close-up

Rebecca looked so cute in the hat Laura purchased to keep the sun off her fair skin.  December in Mexico - the weather was perfect and quite sunny.

Watts girls

Rebecca gets a nap.

We actually took quite a few pictures at Teotihuacan, but our brand-new camera was accidently left in the taxi, and never recovered.  Fortunately, Laura had taken some pictures with her camera, too.

After Teotihuacan, we had planned to take the bus back to Puebla, but the taxi drivers talked us into letting them take us instead, so we took two taxis all the way from Mexico City to Puebla.   Being New Years Eve, the traffic was horrific!  What should have taken about 2 hours, took us about 5 hours, but we made it.  We were happy to be back home in Puebla.