I’m sure it’s hard to believe, but there are things we’ve done this week that I haven’t yet posted on the blog about.  We made a quick trip back to Casa Hogar Santa Julia to spend some time playing with the girls.  Just as we arrived it started to rain a little, so we went into the activity room and played games for a couple of hours.  Everyone seemed to have a great time, and after a while it cleared up and the kids went outside to play.  A large group of visitors passed through, led by the director of a school and summer camp (Luis).  He said that he visits about once a month.  One of the “girls” is actually in her early 30’s, and has special needs, but her love for Luis was obvious.  She was so excited to see him and held his hand as he led the tour.  She is a doll and has a great love of shoes.  Luis told me that she understands a lot of English.  Several of the girls can speak English and I think they enjoy practicing with us.  Some of them were a little shy at first but warmed up quickly.  They were very excited about the lollipops we brought – luckily we saved them until the end of the visit.

Our visits might seem like just play-time but the girls are learning and practicing how to interact with visitors, to take turns in a game, to identify which card is the highest in a hand of War, and to let others win the stack of cards when their card is the highest.  All great lessons.  Hopefully our kids are learning from the experience too. 

You can *like* Casa Hogar Santa Julia on Facebook to help spread the word about their great work!

One of the things on our list of must-dos in San Miguel de Allende was to visit Cañada de la Virgen – an archeological site about 25 km away.  I had read a lot about Professor Albert Coffee (often compared to Indiana Jones), who gives tours of the site, so I called him yesterday and he suggested a trip to the pyramids this morning.  Professor Coffee is not your average tour guide.  He is an archeologist with a degree in Mesoamerican Civilizations, is originally from Louisiana, and was one of the archeologists working on the site in 2004-2005.  He is bilingual, extremely knowledgeable, and he really kept it interesting for the kids with his talk of bloodletting and missing body parts.

Albert picked us up in el Jardin, in front of Starbucks.  Yes, there is a Starbucks here and though I prefer the moka from the cafe up the street, we did grab a quick Starbucks while we were waiting.  We piled into Albert’s Suburban and after a few minutes of getting to know each other, he started telling us about the area and what we would be seeing on the tour.  One thing I found really interesting was that when the dam was built to create the Ignacio Allende Reservoir, it raised the water higher than they had planned and it flooded some homes and colonial buildings.  The spire of a cathedral still sticks out of the water:

After we arrived at the new visitors’ center, Albert took care of our entry fee and we boarded a small bus to take us through private land to the site.  Once there, we broke off into our own little group and headed up the hill, with Albert sharing his passion about the site, the surrounding area, and the flora and fauna.  He told us about the customs of the people who resided and/or worshipped there, and gave detailed descriptions about what the archeologists found during their exploration of the site.  If I tried to recap his tour I would totally screw up the facts, so you’ll have to come to SMA to see it for yourself.  What amazed me most was the relationship of the pyramids on the site to the sun, moon, and planets, as well as the surrounding hills.  It’s amazing what they accomplished and how precisely the structures are oriented, without the use of today’s tools and computers to analyze the solar system. 

We walked up the ceremonial walkway, through the gardens, and past two smaller pyramids.  Then we climbed to the top of the largest pyramid, where we could see beautiful vistas of the surrounding area and an overhead view of the rest of the complex.  After walking back to the drop-off point and a short bus ride back to the visitors’ center, we saw a model of the Aztec settlement which has now become Mexico City, and then rode back to town with Albert pointing out restaurants and shops as we passed.  He was an amazing guide and I would highly recommend him for anyone interested in visiting la Cañada de la Virgen.  Here are some photos from our trip:

As usual, we also saw some critters during our walk:

It was an amazing day and definitely a highlight of our trip to SMA!  According to my UP band, I walked 13, 335 steps today!

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!