Today we spent a few hours at La Gruta hot springs.  We decided to get an early start and beat the crowds, so we walked up to el Jardin, bought coffee and pastries, and found two taxis to take us to La Gruta, about 12 km away.  When we were almost there I saw some police activity – federal police officers with giant guns, and I asked the taxi driver if there was an accident.  He said that there wasn’t…that they were just checking documents. 

In the next moment we realized that there was an accident, and I said something I never thought I’d have to say in Spanish, or in English for that matter – “¿Está muerto?”  The answer was – yes, the young man who had been hit by the truck and was laying next to the road was dead.  It was impossible to un-see it at that point.  Very sad.  On the way back I noticed several signs warning of accidents, and a footbridge over the road further down, so my guess is that it’s not uncommon for people to get hit crossing the road there. 

La Gruta was really nice – a series of pools filled with water ranging from warmish to hot.  One of the pools had a tunnel leading to a round masonry enclosure that was like a sauna and pool combination.  It was really relaxing and not crowded at all.  The bathrooms and changing rooms were clean, and there were lockers available.  We had lunch in the restaurant and the food was great – the chicken nuggets and fries got Adlani’s stamp of approval, and my chicken quesadillas with a side of guacamole were delicious.  The rice was so good we had to order seconds. 

We will definitely go back to La Gruta while Ben is here – hopefully with a less eventful drive.

This sign says, “For health and safety all people without exception must wear a swimsuit.”  This means you Larry.

Norah was very proud of her fruit arrangement for dinner:

Yes, shopping in SMA is an adventure (here’s a great article about it).  The shopping is a lot like Morocco actually.  Many of the shops sell one type of item, so for meat you go to la carnicería, for bread, la panadaria, etc.  Yesterday morning we went to the Tuesday market, called El Tianguis, which Google Translate tells me is “the flea market”.  It’s a giant weekly market that transforms dusty fields into a place to buy most anything you need – from DVDs of questionable origin to most of the fixins for dinner.  To get there we took two taxis from the center of town (“Siga ese taxi!”), and both of them took a bumpy dirt shortcut across a field.  Adlani and Norah thought it was very adventurous:

The Tuesday  market is very much like the souk in Morocco, except we didn’t see any donkeys and there was not a lot of meat for sale or butchers to make friends with.  We did see giant slabs of pork rind, which made me a little queasy, but that was about it other than the many stalls selling food that they cooked and served right there.  There was one stall that had giant skewers of raw chicken with spices, onions, and who knows what else – kind of like the meat for gyros, except raw.  The cooks would slice some of it down onto the grill, cook it up and serve it:

We also saw churros being cooked in a giant (scary) vat of oil, and the same family also had homemade potato chips.  Norah had the ones with chili powder on them (“Mom, are my eyes watering?”), and you could also get chili sauce on them.  I had to put my foot down on that one – we have not had a lot of tummy issues yet…knock on wood.  I’d like to keep it that way.

There were lots of vendors selling clothes, including undies:

And plenty of Mexican bling:

Chloe and Hannah bought projects to embroider so it’s been like Little House on the Prairie around here.  Norah wants to go back next week and get a kit of her own:

I was intrigued by these hand-operated sewing machines – I think they could be pretty useful but my problem would be finding it when I’m trying to run out of the house and realize that the hem of my pants has unraveled:

I want to take a closer look at the old metal sometime.  Maybe there is a lock mixed in!

The fruits and vegetables here in Mexico are AMAZING – so fresh and delicious.  We’ve seen some that we didn’t recognize – like rambutan, but we’re open to trying new things.  Well, most of us.  Adlani was very excited that Bonanza had Kraft Mac & Cheese.  Bonanza is a grocery store that has most of the “dry goods” that we need plus milk, cheese, etc.  We bought cheddar cheese there yesterday for our dinner of soft tacos, which was very exciting to the cheese lovers in our party.  We made friends with a lady at the fruit and vegetable market in town (Mercado Ignacio Ramirez), and I asked her where to buy tortillas.  She directed us to an old lady sitting outside next to a basket.  We would have had no way to know what was in the basket, but it was full of corn tortillas.  I can’t remember how much she charged for them but they were very inexpensive.

Here are some fruits and veggies from the Tuesday market.  At this particular vendor, I asked which peppers were not hot, and he sold me 3 smallish green peppers.  When I started chopping them to add to the guacamole I was making for dinner, I thought I should taste them just in case.  HOLY HOT PEPPER!  My hands burned for hours just from cutting half of one.  I don’t know if the problem was my Spanish or his definition of “not hot”, or a combination of the two.

Ben is going to be so excited because there are lots of vendors selling prickly pear fruit (or “prickly pecker” as Aliya accidentally called it).  It will remind him of Morocco.  The red fruit in the photo is rambutan.  It’s REALLY good but looks very weird.

Pomegranates for one of our breakfast faves…fruit and granola mixed together:

Check out the tower of honey!

And the roses were beautiful!  The photos have a weird hue to them because of the various colored tarps forming the roof.

There’s something to be said for walking all over town to various shops and vendors, hauling it all back home, cooking dinner, and cleaning up.  At home I’m always so busy that I don’t usually enjoy cooking, let alone shopping or cleaning up, so Ben ends up doing a lot of the cooking.  Here I’ve been able to settle into the more relaxed pace and it’s very nice – I’m not sure if I can go back.  When Ben comes next Saturday we’re going to have to teach him everything we’ve learned but I know he’ll adapt right away.  Luckily we have a map that we’re slowly marking with our favorite locations, like where to find the tequila-flavored helado.

We had another great day today but I have to get some actual work done, so más mañana!

When we started planning our trip to SMA, I emailed a local girls’ orphanage to see how we could help.  I want the kids to be in the habit of helping to improve the places they visit, not just do the touristy stuff and fly home.  I’ve been emailing back and forth with someone from the orphanage to find out what would be helpful for us to bring, and as I’ve mentioned before, we settled on underwear (270 pairs!), school supplies, crayons, frisbees, and the indestructible soccer balls from One World Futbol.

We weren’t sure which day we’d be able to go visit, or what we’d do while we were there, but I got an email today from my contact saying that she was available this afternoon.  We jumped at the chance to go, especially since there is currently an American woman there (Becca) – a recent college grad who majored in bilingual education.  She is now our connection to the orphanage and was extremely welcoming and informative.  She took us on a tour and showed us the whole facility.  While Elizabeth and I were asking her tons of questions, the kids just naturally started playing together.  They had a great time running around and playing on the swing set.  One little girl – around 7 years old, asked Becca if we were staying forever.  So touching.

I will be posting a lot more about the orphanage, including photos, but I didn’t want to take too many the first day.  At the end of our long talk with Becca, she got some of the girls together for a photo op with the supplies we brought.  The same 7YO girl saw the underwear and got really excited and said “Thank you!” in English.  The girls weren’t very happy to have to give it all back to the director, but it needs to be distributed properly when the time is right.  I would love to find a way to help and stay connected long-term, but we’ll see what the future holds.  For now, we’re going to spend some time there during our trip, just playing and socializing with the girls and maybe helping to organize their library.  I think Becca is going to be a great resource for us and will help us figure out what they need and how to help.

Here’s the photo from today’s photo-op:

If you’re interested in reading more about Casa Hogar Santa Julia, there is a very in-depth article here.  There have been a lot of changes since the article was written and they are currently working on even more including a new dorm, moving the cafeteria to a beautiful space, and improving the play area and soccer field.  To everyone who contributed toward the balls and frisbees, THANK YOU!!!  They will be put to good use!  More later…

After breakfast (turkey bacon and eggs) we talked to Maria about what we’d like for dinner and she headed to the market.  Less adventurous for us, but what a treat to have her cook for us!  She made chicken flautas, homemade salsa, and rice.  We added some chips and sour cream and had a super-tasty dinner.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Guanajuato International Film Festival is in SMA this week, as well as at various locations in Guanajuato.  At noon today they were showing a group of short kids’ movies at the Teatro Ángela Peralta.  The movies were…interesting.  We really liked La Tarea and Rojo Red.  Vivienda Multifamiliar was pretty inappropriate for kids (there was some bed action – with sound effects – that resulted in the bed falling through the floor), and another one was called “Mocos” which means boogers.  And it had A LOT of boogers in it.  It was a good experience to add to our trip though.  And free!

I have no idea why Norah looked like this at the step & repeat:

This was just the beginning of our day.  One more picture to post and I’m finally off to bed!