CUETZALAN!!!

Just you wait until I tell you about this beautiful place.

I just barely got back but I was so excited to share all of the awesome things that happened this weekend! Hopefully I get everything in before I fall asleep because I'm SOOOO tired! Well, here we go!

We left on Friday afternoon around 11:00 and got to Cuetzalan without a hitch around 6:00. We looked around the zocalo (city center) for a little, and decided to go find a place to eat.

Okay- this place was the weirdest place I've ever eaten. After we sat down, one of the girls asked the waitress if they were out of anything on the menu (because it was sort of late and restaurants tend to run out of things). She let us know that there was no more french fries, but they had enough of everything else. We weren't planning on ordering french fries anyway, so this wasn't a huge blow and we continued to order. A series of things went wrong:

1. Christina ordered a drink called jamica for herself, which apparently meant that they brought a large pitcher for everyone at the table. Thanks for the drink Christina!

2. Sylvia and I ordered enchiladas with our meal which never came... curious.

3. Danielle and Christina tried to order some chicken... but they were out of that. No worries, if they ordered tostadas, chicken came with that.

4. Sylvia's and my meal was seasoned beef with a side of epaghetti... who knew?

5. When I ordered "chocomilk" (that's what it said on the menu), the waitress looked at me like I was crazy. I then rephrased it to "leche con chocolate". She gave me a nasty look and walked into the kitchen. She came back a minute later and asked if I wanted the chocolate milk with strawberries or vanilla. I responded that I just wanted chocolate milk. She again gave me a nasty look. I then responded "fresa? (strawberry?)" I recieved a strawberry milkshake that tasted like the leftover milk from fruity pebbles cereal. I guess they were out of cocoa pebbles so they couldn't make chocolate milk.....?

6. The waitress had to borrow one of our menus to calculate our total.

So that was weird. By the time we got out of the restaurant it was late and raining. We decided that since it was getting dark, we would catch a taxi to get to our hostel which was pretty far away. Easier said than done. Cuetzalan is set on a mountain so to get from one point to another, you have to hike at least 5 flights of stairs. Seriously.

So we were wet and sweaty and we had to explain to the driver how to get to our hostel. When we got there it was all dark and we had to knock on a lot of doors before someone answered. They didn't get our reservation but graciously let us into a room anyway.

The room was really nice- lots of comfy bunkbeds. There were a few bugs that we had to dispose of, but it was overall really nice.

We woke up the next morning, ate breakfast (with a side of maracuya juice, my new favorite juice), and headed down the street to look at the pyramids. We got a guide which was actually incredibly useful because otherwise, it would have just been some cool rock formations. He talked about all of the uses of the different buildings and about the history of the culture. It was awesome! And, it never hurts to have someone on hand to take group pictures :)

The "pyramids" were incredible! Did you know that they actually aren't called pyramids? They're made in the formation of mountains because that is the place closest to God?

Another interesting thing that I learned. In the ballgame (if you don't know what I mean when I say ballgame, watch the movie El Dorado), the winners were actually sacrificed! It was actually an honor because they believed that this earth was just a type of limbo before the next life (which is a lot better than this life). I thought that was interesting! They didn't do sacrifices to punish, but to reward!

After the pyramids, we headed to a waterfall called Las Brisas (the breezes). It was a really long hike but totally worth it! The waterfall was beautiful and picturesque! I've never seen anything so beautiful. Don't worry- we all jumped in. It was FREEZING but again, totally worth it. What beautiful creations God gives us to enjoy!

After the hike back, we were pretty much done for the day so we headed back to the hostel and went to sleep (after killing a few bugs of course).

On the last morning, we spent most of our day in the market looking at bags, baskets, produce, etc, etc. We also had the privilage of watching the voladores (the people that hang off of a high pole by their ankles). Let me explain something that I learned from our guide about this ritual: Before the ritual even begins, the voladores have to be cleansed from all sin (I'm not sure how this works... but anyway). When they are on the top of the pole, they are closest to God and do some sort of a prayer. And when they come down from the top swinging by their ankles, it's symbolic of them bringing down God's power from the heavens. Make sense? Kind of cool huh? I think so.

Yeah. It's SUPER HIGH!!!

What to do when you're on top of the world? Dance of course! Yeah, he's dancing up there.

I took a video of them spinning around... I need to figure out how to upload that...

After another exhausting day of traveling, we ended up back home extremely late. But, I'm so glad that we went! We all had such a great time!

A little sidenote (which shouldn't be a sidenote really), is that it was Mexican Independence Day this last week! My family and I celebrated by going to El Grito "The Call/Cry Thing". To quickly summarize the history there was a lot of oppression coming from the Spaniards when they came over to the Americas, and the people were sick of it. So after a lot of ideas and plans for freeing themselves from the Spaniards, they finally acted. It basically all started when Don Miguel Hidalgo yelled a series of things while ringing the church bell. The call said a lot of things but it said "Viva Mexico" a lot. This cry caught on and was repeated in many cities. Directly after, the Mexicans faught for their freedom. That was a really quick summary, and I hardly did it justice. Be sure to look up the story- it's really fasinating.

Anway, my family and I went the El Grito in the zolcalo in Tehuacan. It was really fun! There was lots of dancing and singing and FOOD! The grito was done by the mayor of the town. And last but definitely not least were the fireworks! They were AMAZING! Provo definitely could learn some things about the fireworks from the Mexicans! It was a very cool night. I unfortunately did not get any pictures of the actual grito because my family said it was unwise to carry expensive things to such a crowded event. But, I have some pictures of how I dressed before- I should be a Mexican huh?

Well, that's all of the news that I have for this awesome week! I hope everyone is well!

Just a very cool picture :)