Surviving the first week

My first week of school went really well. I had good teachers, made some friends, and went out almost every night (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday). I’ve been to the downtown area a couple of times and also a huge salsa place in the north called Mambo Café. Apparently, the big party nights here are Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. The only problem with this is that a lot of places don’t get going until super late. For example, the live salsa band at Mambo Café never starts before midnight, so nobody’s dancing until then even though the club is open earlier and plays recorded music. I guess I’ll just have to get used to taking an evening nap if I want to go out late, because I can’t miss my 8 a.m. classes the next day.

This weekend, I went on two trips with the school. The first was to a city about 40 minutes away called Tepoztlan, which is known for having “curative powers,” lots of massage places, and the Tepozteco pyramid. My body definitely could have used some “curative powers” after climbing up to that pyramid. I’ve never been on such a steep trail before. It was a little over an hour of climbing on huge rocks. There was maybe one short, flat stretch, which meant you always had to look down at where you were going to keep from falling. The pyramid was impressive, though. It was built by Tlahuicas in the 12^th century, before Aztecs arrived. We climbed to the top of the structure, where you could see the whole city below and even part of Cuernavaca in the distance. Next to the pyramid, a gang of wild coatis, raccoon-like animals, came right up the tourists to beg for food. I have some good close ups on my photo site. (Yes, I’ve finally posted more! Find the “Mexico” collection. Within that, you’ll see a group of photos showing my host family and house, the school and Cuernavaca. Another group, called “Mexical Travels” will take you to pictures of weekend trips like this one.)

The climb down was much easier on the lungs, though scarier for those afraid of heights. We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping in the market set up around the downtown and I spent the night in (for once!) to catch up on some writing. Good timing, I guess, because there was another crazy thunderstorm that kept knocking out the power. Those happen almost every night right now, but usually later. I often wake up from booming thunder at 3 or 4 a.m.

Then, today, Sunday, I left early in the morning for a tour of the Teotihuacan Pyramids and Mexico City. This time it was a small group – just me, Meghan and Frances, a high school student from Baltimore. We started at the pyramids, which were about two hours away, maybe a half hour or 45 minutes past Mexico City. Unlike yesterday, we didn’t have to do any hiking to get to these. The whole place was also much larger because it was essentially the ruins of a whole city – several high platforms and two big pyramids built for religious worship surrounded by walls that had made up the homes of the Teotihuacan people who were holy or important enough to live that close to the pyramids. The pyramids were occasionally used for ritual sacrifices, but our teacher/guide Nadia said that was only maybe once a year, not nearly as much as the more violent Aztecs who lived in what is now downtown Mexico City.

Apparently, the largest pyramid there (Pyramide del Sol) is the third largest in the world, following one in Egypt and another in South America. We climbed all the way to the top, which still wasn’t as strenuous as our hike the day before. It was a beautiful view. The ruins also included a small “museum,” which was essentially a garden with carved stones that had been preserved from the pyramids, and a restored home that had colorfully painted walls and carved posts.

We were eager to get to Mexico City by then, but those plans were killed by a huge cycling event which apparently had shut down the main roads into the downtown. I’m not sure why the school didn’t know about this ahead of time – our driver said there are often events like this on Sundays, and he’s told the office staff that before. We were all pretty disappointed, especially the other two girls because they have only a few more weeks here. Nadia said we’d check with the office staff tomorrow to schedule a time when we could go back, possibly during the week.

Instead of heading straight back, we asked to stop for lunch. The restaurant, Arroyo, had a huge group of dancers, singers and musicians entertaining the customers when we arrived, but they stopped after just a few songs so that all the soccer fans could watch the game on TV. After we got back to Cuernavaca, we did some shopping in the “black market” downtown and relaxed at an outdoor café. And now I had better go to sleep or I’ll be out of it at school tomorrow!