Wendy In Mexico: Trip to the Pyramids!

This is a few weeks behind, but I got back last Saturday from Mexico City ( one fantastic week, blog post soon to follow), then kind of lost all motivation for a while there due to a rather nasty stomach bug.

Anyhoo, this is the catchup post about an excellent weekend in the late February/ early March area.

On this particular week, my school was hosting a nationwide soccer tournament for the secondary school, called Codemar. As my salon is Biology, we were elected to be the unofficial paramedics for the games. So a few weeks before, we had been rather hastily trained by a doctor on the basics of First Aid. The day of the tournament, we were split into groups of four, given these fancy Paramedic shirts, and sent onto the field to wait expectantly for any adolescent injuries. I have to admit I was pretty excited at first, but soon my enthusiasm began to wane as I realized that really, apart from juvenile athletics nothing much happens at these tournaments. It got to the point where me and my classmates began to wish for an injury just so we could rush to the individuals side, check out the damage and then watch the real, qualified Paramedics take action. It's never a healthy frame of mind when you're wishing injury on someone for your own entertainment. In any case, it was a change from school for a few days!

Giovanni and I all prepped to be paramedics with our special t-shirt

When I came home after a particularily monotonous day on Thursday, I was excited to hear that my family would be staying with Gosia's in Guadalajara for the weekend! We would be staying in their house (they are a rather well-off family and travel quite a lot). So Friday afternoon came around and we set off for Guadalajara. After arriving, and all becoming aquianted with one another, we set off to eat! By now it was 10:00 pm, sometimes the Mexican meal hours still get to me! Anyways, we arrived at this awesome pizza joint which was basically set up in a garden and had incorporated various tables and chairs around trees. The general decor was very eclectic and creative- the chairs were awesome tree stumps (a bit difficult to move around but surprisingly comfortable). I loved it! I guess Mi Lola (a restaurant in Tepic I wrote about sometime in 2013, also makes delicious pizza) had gotten their inspiration from this place! It was gourmet pizza, and so not long after ordering we ravenously tore into some interesting combinations including blueberry, goat cheese and mushroom (which was my favourite!).

The menus painted on plywood

You can see the blueberry combo on the bottom left.

The group picture! The Flores on one side, then Iliana, Gosia, me and Pepe on the left.

The next day the adults had to go off and do Rotary business, and so after a lovely breakfast of tortas ahogadas, (basically a meat baguette soaked in tomato soup very specific to the region of GDL), we were ready to get out of the house and seize the day! Well, Gosia and I got off to a bit of a lazy start hanging out in our PJ's watching the movie Chicago, but eventually we roused ourselves and headed to the mall for some sorely needed shopping. Tepic unfortunately has only one very small mall, and the prices are not very friendly for a cheap exchange student. Guadalajara on the other hand, has an excessive amount of enormous malls with stores for everyone's budget. Luckily, a mall very near to the house contained one of my favourites- Forever 21. Awesome clothes, very low price. I managed to find two light sweaters for under 20$ (Huzzah bargain shopping!) and we picked out a very nice clubbing outfit for Gosia. Very pleased with our purchases, we went to the food court and ate with Marius, one of the French exchange students living in GDL for the year. It was great to see him as we hadn't seen anyone outside of Tepic since the island trip (beginning of January).

By now it was nighttime, and we returned to the house to rest a bit before going out and eating tacos for cena (but at 10:00 more like a late-night snack). This taco restaurant's specialty was ham (or at least I think it was ham), with pineapple. Strange combination, but of course delicious. Following this the parents continued the night by going out to a bar and listening to a band play, while Gosia and I hung out at the house watching movies. I have to say I was a little more enthused about our night- hardcore bargain finding is tiring sometimes!

The next day we got up bright and early and made our way back in the general direction of Tepic towards this archaeological site called Los Guachimontones. We stopped for a surprisingly good torta at a gas station (I was a bit skeptical but was pleasantly surprised), and arrived at the pyramids late morning. At the bottom of the site there was an excellent interactive interpretive centre not only about this specific location, but rather the development and movement of the pre-hispanic people across Mexico. It was really interesting- with giant maps, building blocks, and various dioramas demonstrating the everyday life of the indigenous.

The interpretive centre!

A mural depicting a religious demonstration- they would start at the top of the pole and swing down all artistically .

A map showing all of the pyramids in Mexico

Explaining the structure of these pyramids

The Flores examining the feathers of the various birds the indigenous would hunt

A mural demonstrating the religious ball game the Mayans would play

We then walked up to the pyramids. It was bloody hot, but definitely worth it! Though even the largest was fairly small, it was pretty cool to see the circular pyramids and various other ruins. These are considered to be some of the oldest pyramids still standing, and therefore are more basic. I can't wait for the Ruta Maya when we will get to see the more advanced stone pyramids. They will be absolutely amazing. We were warned that if we thought this was a hot day, we were in for an unpleasant surprise visiting the pyramids in May. 'A heat that burns through clothes' was their description. But in any case, the views and excellent photos will be well worth it!

Gosia and I

A pretty nice view (you can see the laguna below in the distance)

The required family photo in front of the principal pyramid

Reflecting on how fantastic Mexico is...

An awesome but entirely impractical souvenir I picked up at the pyramids

A menu of pre-hispanic drinks. We tried a few, they were certainly interesting to taste. Mostly consisting of fermented grains and plants, and very... earthy tasting.

Following the pyramids, we went to lunch at a restaurant on a laguna nearby. Gosia and I elected to try frog legs (her empanizado, me con mantequilla y ajo). It was good, a bit like a cross between chicken and fish. However, it was a lot of work to get the meat off of the legs. So, in the future I think I'll stick to chicken and/or fish!