Grammie and Grampie Visit

Karl's parents and brother Greg came for a visit at the end of March.

Chiara went right over to Uncle Greg and sat on his lap, even though she hadn't seen him for months.  The kids always love Greg!

They arrived during our spring break, so the day after they arrived, all ten of us piled into our van, and we headed for Oaxaca. 

We stopped about 20 minutes after leaving to visit the smallest volcano in the world, which is located here in Puebla.  This is what it looks like from the outside.

Looking down into the volcano.

Heading down the narrow staircase.

There is a small cave like space at the bottom and some pools of water.

Joseph heading up.

Chiara loved the stairs and had to climb them all by herself.

After several hours on the road, our car died!  It didn't seem like it had over-heated, so we didn't know what was wrong.  Karl was pretty worried.

We headed for that tiny tree so that we could wait in the shade, while Karl went for help.  He hadn't walked very far when a passing driver told him to go back because someone would come.  Sure enough, along came the "Angeles Verde."  They are like a road patrol who help stranded motorists.  They got the car to start, and even drove it a little ways to see what the problem was.  I guess the transmission wouldn't shift down when the car got too hot.  We were headed uphill, so the car couldn't keep going in the gear we were in.  (We had tried starting the car before the Green Angels arrived, but it needed to cool down before starting).

 

We had trouble finding the hotel that we had booked online, so it was evening when we finally arrived (this picture was taken the next morning).  Most of us were starving, since we'd only had snacks all day since breakfast.  Joseph, on the other hand, wanted to go straight to the pool.  We convinced him to go to dinner first, and the kids got in the pool when we got back - around 9:30 or 10pm!

The restuarant we ate at was right downtown.

There was live music playing outside the window we were seated by.

Elena and Stephen inside the restuarant.

Elena ordered a Tlayuda, which is a specialty of Oaxaca.  We had no idea it would be so BIG!

The food was good, and we enjoyed seeing Oaxaca's Cathedral while downtown.  It rained on us a little, but not bad, and it had cleared up by the time we got back to the hotel for a swim.

Other Fulbright Teachers Visit

March 15th was a holiday here, so some of the other Fulbright teachers came to Puebla for the weekend.  We had fun seeing the sights with them.

This is beautiful church that is only about 15 minutes from our house.  It is covered with Talavera tiles.

On the way out to see the ruins at Cacaxtla, we saw these people in costume getting ready for Carnival.  In the US, this is traditionally celebrated before the beginning of Lent (think Mardi Gras in New Orleans), but in Mexico they celebrate anytime before Easter.  Each town picks their own date.

When we went out to Cholula, we were able to it on the pyramid and watch the pole dancers.  We had seen this done in Mexico City, but our camera wasn't working then.  The dancers start at the top of the pole, and spin upside down held on by one foot until they reach the ground.  One of the dancers was playing a kind of flute-like instrment.

This faith healer was also at Cholula.  We saw this in Mexico City a well.

People being healed.

Inside the world's smallest volcano, Cuexcomate.  I think it is actually a vent of Popocatepetl.  It is no longer active.  Pictured here are Nick, Gretchen, Tim, Hilary, and Hilary's boyfriend.

When you look up . . .

this is what you see.

Here's a view from the top, looking down.

While at the volcano, Karl and friends watched another Carnival parade.

This guy dressed as a girl jumped into Karl's arms!

Artifact Hunting

The following pictures show a memorable excursion with a friend named Carlos and his sister Nataly to a town 40 minutes outside of Puebla named Cuatinchan. Like so many areas in the valley of Mexico, the region has at least a thousand years of inhabited history. We searched for traces of those who came before.

Shards of pottery and fragments of obsidian blades are everywhere.

First find: an arrowhead!!

We simply trudged through plowed fields hoping that fresh artifacts would appear in the upturned earth. Advantage: chance at a find. Disadvantage: most things were broken. Notice the town with the prominent ex-convent from the colonial period.

Traces of ancestors found in petroglyphs in a dry stream bed.

Apparently, these people knew birds.

A true treasure washed down the stream bed! It is broken at the base. As we imagined what could have been the lower portion (a snake? a totem?), Stephen found it about 15 yards away. It tapers to a point like a golf tee. This would have been a decorative pendant of some Cuatinchanian maybe a thousand years ago. We do not know what kind of stone it is made of.

Ahead on the trail, Carlos spotted a small wildcat scurry into this cave.

Unfortunately uncaptured by the camera, Stephen made the find of the day: a jade face pendant about the size of a fifty cent piece. Joseph also found a nice arrowhead and I found a broken grinding stone for a metate. All of us found plentiful fragments of obsidian blades.

Then we toured the ex-convent with rare access to the bell towers and a narrow catwalk circumscribing the buiding.

Spiral staircase!

It was a long ways down from the catwalk.

This was as far as they dared venture onto the catwalk:)