Cuetzalan

Saturday we headed up to a small village in the mountains called Cuetzalan. Its just a small town that has almost a feel of being in Italy rather than in Mexico. The traditional culture is really strong here and so we were able to see kids in traditional costumes dancing as well as the Voldores perform. The Voldores are a group of 5 men that climb up a tower probably over 100 feet high and then they tie there feet to rope and dive off the tower, spinning down to the bottom. Pretty much the guys that do it have no fear.


Check out the video of the Voldores spinning down from the pole in front of the main cathedral in town.

Here is a picture of Arad and I overlooking the streets of Cuetzalan.

After seeing the Voldores perform as well as having lunch and doing some shopping in the town we headed to two different waterfalls that are closeby. In order to get to the first waterfall we had to hike down a canyon to get to the waterfall and the hike was rather breathtaking. Once we reached the waterfall we were able to swim in the little gorge there. It was especially fun having Sandy and her kids with us as her kids are way fun to play with.

One Wacky Zoo

We had heard a lot about the zoo here in Tehuacan and so we decided to finally go and check it out on Saturday. Now we know why we heard so much about it. Its the craziest, coolest zoo ever. Its a small zoo but all of the animals are right there up close and personal. In fact its just a chain link fence between you and the animals and so you are even able to pet the cougars, tigers, panthers, etc. Check out these pics!

Of course, my favorite was the cougars!


I know its hard to tell from this picture but we are actually petting the cougar you see in the picture above. How cool is that?


Swine flu anyone?


It was pretty cool to stand face to face with the panther and to only have a chain link fence between you and the panther. We were also able to pet the panther.


The white tigers were probably everyone´s favorite since one of them didn´t like us watching her eat too much. Check out the video below!

Oaxaca

We headed down to Oaxaca this weekend for a little vacation. The first thing we did once we got there was head right over to the LDS temple that is located there. It was fun to meet other members and experience the temple here in Mexico.

Later on Saturday we went to El Tule which is considered the largest tree in the world. It was incredible how massive it actually was. From there we headed out of Oaxaca about an hour to Mitla that has some ruins as well as a temple. We got there about 15 minutes after the main ruins were closed but the people were nice enough to still let us go in and see them anyways!


Our favorite part of Oaxaca, however, was on Sunday when we went to the ruins of Monte Alban. They are located at the top of a mountain overlooking the city and so the view is amazing and so are the ruins. The shear number of ruins and grandness of them makes it hard to describe how cool they were but you can check out the pics and see for yourself.




Lastly, on top of all of the sightseeing there was plenty of shopping mixed in as well.

The Kids!

Here´s a funny video of Guillermo, Yolanda, Arturo, Ilse, and Martin dancing to some Spanish music after class one night. It was hilarious. My favorite part of the video is when Martin does is little YMCA striptease. LOL! One of the best parts of teaching is playing with the kids everyday after class as we wait for their parents to come.

Puebla Day Trip

This weekend we decided to head up to the capital, Puebla, to see some ruins, cathedrals, and of course do some shopping (that´s what happens when it is 14 girls and 1 guy). We left at 6 am and so all of the teachers stayed over on Friday for a slumber party. Let me tell you it was way fun spending the night with 14 girls in one apartment. JK! No really, it wasn´t that bad.

We rented out a tour bus and so it made it really nice because we had our own personal chauffeurs for the entire day. They were way cool and helped us get hooked up with all the goods throughout the day including discounts at the sites, tips on where to go, and snacks.

Our first stop was in the old pagan center of Cholula which is a suburb of Puebla and where one of the world´s largest pyramids is located. Unfortunately, it was covered with dirt before the Spanish came and conquered the city and then the Spanish built a large cathedral on top. Today, the pyramid looks mostly like a large hill but you are able to walk through the tunnels of the pyramid and see some of the ruins that they have excavated.






After going to Cholula, we headed downtown into Puebla where we saw the cathedral that is on the 500 peso as well as a museum with some really cool artifacts of the pre-hispanic civilizations. After that we did some shopping at a famous art street in town and had fun watching the different street performers at the city center.

First Day of Teaching

Today was our first day of teaching at both Discovery and ILP. Everyone teaches at Discovery from 1:30-3:30 and then some of the teachers teach at ILP from 4:00-6:00 and the rest teach from 5:30-7:30. The kids range from as young as 4 years to as old as 12 years old.

Becca works with the older kids at both Discovery and ILP doing elementary while I just roam from class to class everywhere as the head teacher helping the other volunteers in any way possible.

The biggest surprise from today was how good the kids are at English. It is completely different than what we were expecting from our experience in China last year. In China the kids could speak some English but here in Mexico we can have normal conservations with many of the kids including some of the really young ones.