Sunday Feb 1

Another beautiful sunny day, we took the metro to Coyacan, and old village that has become part of Mexico City. We walked along Fancisco Sosa along old cobbled streets and sidewalks. There are beautiful homes all behind walls and gates, we looked into every open one and the courtyards are full of flowers. Nothing is visible here, it is all behind the walls. Bouganvilla is hanging over every stone wall. When we reached the plaza there were merchants setting up all manner of stalls, but we went on to the Frida Kahlo museum. It is in the house where she was born and lived with Diego Rivera. The most interesting thing was showing how he painted the huge murals. Paper cartoons were made and transferred to the wall by apprentices, then he painted it sitting on a chair on scaffolds. He was a huge fat man, they must have built it strong.

Our next stop was the Trotsky museum, which was the compound where he lived while in exile in Mexico, and where he was eventually murdered by a Stalinist. A lot of history that we were only vaguely aware of, it would be interesting to read his book about Stalin (maybe the Cliff notes). One of the women we met at The Red Tree House is from Wash DC, daughter of Russian immigrants and knows Trotsky's great granddaughter.

We walked back to the market and wandered around and stopped at a food stall and had lunch, chili rellenos, taco and quesodila. It was delicious, the food stalls are so clean, you can see everything, and most likely cleaner than the back room of resturants. A family with a little 7 yr old boy sat next to us and he practiced his English, when they left he said, "Goodby two Americans". There are not very many people here who speak English.

After Coyacan we went down to the University to see a soccer game, but Len had the directions wrong and we couldn't find the stadium, so we went home. By the time we got back to the neighborhood we were so hot and thirsty we stopped for a lemonade and had it half down before it dawned on us that the ice and water may be bad...

Mon Feb 2

Today we took the Metro to the north bus station and caught a local bus to Teothiucan, the pyramids. It was nearly a "chicken bus", stopped everywhere and vendors got on and off, but we eventually bounced our way the 30 miles out there. The outskirts of Mexico City are miles of slums, some look like reasonable shelter, and others are a lean to in ankle deep dust. We have been wondering who would risk crossing the border, since everyone in the city appears to be comfortably middle class or rich, but once we were out of the city proper the poverty is everywhere.

The pyramid complex is huge, it has a center walking road that stretches 2.5 miles from the main entry to the pyramid of the moon on the far end. The pyramid to the sun is on the side halfway up, with all kinds of other ruins along the way. We climbed nearly to the top of the pyramid to the sun, but stopped when the hand rails ran out. The area is very dry and well preserved.

After returning we walked to Primos for tapas which was very good. This evening there were several new people and we sat and visited with Craig and met a couple from Melbourne Australia. I crashed at 9pm but Len was up late chatting. They moved us to the penthouse suite tonight since we are leaving tomorrow and they had booked other people for 4-5 days. Talk about luxurious, two bedrooms, a private patio, lr, dr, kitchen and bath, all for $85/night. the regular rate is only $150. They have really spoiled us , nothing else will measure up.

Tuesday Feb 3

We took cab to the north bus station and caught Primera Plus to Guanajuato. It was about a 5 hr ride on a nice luxurious bus. All of Mexico is served by luxury busses, run by about 10 different lines. Mostly they specialize in one area, but there is some overlap. The countryside along the ride looks a lot like Montana around Helena.

Guanajuato is a UNESCO world heritage site, and well preserved old colonial town built during the silver mining days. It is squished into a narrow valley and all the roads on the surface lead one way and there is an extensive tunnel system of roads going the other way. It would be a nightmare trying to drive there. Our hotel is the Posada Sante Fe, right on the main city square. A nice hotel, but our room was noisy with the window over an alley leading to a hostel. First evening we walked around and ate dinner across the square. There was music and dancing later.

Wed Feb 4

This morning we took a city tour, it was all in Spanish, but gave us a great overview of the sights. The first stop was a mummy museum, where they have places bodies that were buried around 200 years ago and are preserved by the clay and limestone soil. It was pretty weird. Then we stopped at a mining museum and walked into the hillside in an old shaft. Huge fortunes were made in the silver mines, that built the many elaborate churches in the town. Then we went to Valencia, above the town by about 3miles and visited the cathedral and the "Purgatory museum" where they have preserved all the torture tools from the inquisition. Boy that will make you an athiest in a hurry. There was a family of Spanish speaking Americans on the tour that helped out with some translations.

We have been eating breakfast at a bagel cafe next to one of the churches. Everywhere has fresh squeezed orange juice that is just delicious.

We stopped to look into one of the churches and 5 people were havin a prayer meeting, they would pray out loud and then sing at the top of their lungs soooo off key, it reminded me of Donny Egan.

Late afternoon we had dinner in the alley behind the hotel which was very good. I had tortill soup. The meals are huge , we always have too much food.