Hello again from Xalapa!
Things here continue to go very well for me and in the past 2 weeks since I wrote last, I´ve done more things than usually fit into a 2 week span. The past two weekends, I´ve travelled away from Xalapa, the first weekend our group went to Oaxaca which is a state that borders the pacific ocean about 8 hours from Xalapa by bus. This past weekend, I went with a friend, who is from Xalapa, to a festival in Tajin, an archaeological site where they hold a cultural festival once a year. Both weekends were incredible experiences. In addition to the trips on the weekends, the weeks have been packed with school, friends, my weaving workshop, carnaval in Xalapa, playing and watching soccer and frisbee, trying new foods (it seems like there is always something new to try) and speaking as much Spanish as possible.
I´ll first give you a bit of an overview of our trip to Oaxaca. We took an overnight bus ride last friday night to arrive in Oaxaca at around 8 am. From there, we took a tour of the city to see some of the main sights, like the cathedrals, markets, etc. In the afternoon, we went to an archaeological site which is called Monte Alban. The amazing part about Monte Alban is that it was built on top of mountain (not quite like Machu Picchu) but nonetheless impressive. In the evening, I went out with a few friends to try the famous ¨tlayudas¨which is a typical food in Oaxaca. Its basically a giant toasted tortilla with beans, meat, tomatoes, lettuce, salsa, aguacate, etc. and they are´delicious. The next day, we were free to do tour the city for ourselves and see the things that interested us. I spent the day in some of the giant markets in downtown Oaxaca as well as going to see the supposed biggest living organism on earth, which is a giant tree close to Oaxaca. It´s over 2000 years old and pretty massive, although I´m not totally convinced that its bigger than the seqollas. To return back to Xalapa, we took another overnight bus and got back late to Xalapa on Monday morning but luckily we didnt have class on Monday because of carnaval in Xalapa.
The past weekend, I went with a friend, Alejandro to Poza Rica for the cultural festival there. We took a bus on friday night and arrived in Poza Rica around 12:30 am, at which time we went out for ¨supper¨on the street and ate some tacos with Alejandro´s cousin who lives in Poza Rica. His cousin and aunt were nice enough to take us in for weekend as they live close to where they festival took place. On Saturday, we spent the day at the festival, first visiting the famous ruins of Tajin and then entering the cultural festival nearby. The festival basically consists of lots of workshops and entertainment, all revolving around the culture of the area. I think around 20,000 people come to festival each year and its a really impressive event. The workshops vary from local dances to weaving to indigenous languages to juggling to painting and so on. Once you pay the entry fee, which was about 10 dollars, you can visit any workshop and they give you the materials and let you keep whatever it is that you made. There are also people constantly demonstrating various talents, like dances, tight rope walking, gymnastics or a famous ritual that is done from a really tall pole and consists of one person at the top of the pole playing the flute while 4 other people are suspended with rope by their feet and spin around the pole and are slowly lowered until they reach the ground. After spending a while at the festival, we went back to the ruins after dark where they had a light and sound show at the ruins. They projected different colored lights and images onto the pyramids while there were sounds projected from speakers or people performing. The idea is that its a passage through time to learn about the civilization who built the pyramids, but its done in a really creative and entertaining way. On Sunday, we spent the day at the beach near the festival before taking a bus back to Xalapa at 1:30 am. We arrived back to Xalapa at 6:30 am at which time I went to my house for breakfast and headed off to my 8 am class at the university. It was just about as long of a weekend as you can have :)
Hopefully those summaries of my past two weekends didnt drag on too long. As I said before, I´ve been doing lots of things during the week as well, I feel like I hardly have time to stop in a my house for more than a meal on most days. Every thursday after class, I go to my weaving workshop (telar de cinturón) for a few hours which I continue to enjoy. I´m getting into more of a rythme here with my classes and extracurriculars and I continue to get to know people, my surroundings and the language better, which is a big plus. Its hard to believe that my time here is Mexico is now just about half way done, I am really looking forward to the second half and already know that it will be difficult to leave, but knowing that makes me enjoy every moment that I have here. I hope everyone is well, until next time!
The photos are of the following:
1-the pyramids of tajin during the light and sound show
2-me in front of the giant tree in Oaxaca
3-the weaving workshop and the scarf that we are making
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