Anyway, here is a reallyyyyy long post all about my vacation to la playa for Cinco de Mayo. And as it turns out, Mandaface informed me that Puebla is the only state in Mexico to still celebrate this holiday, so hooray for that!
Let me explain even more. There are 12 of us teachers here in Tehuacan. 10 of us are single girls, and the other 2 are our favorite married head teachers, Kelly and Brian. We get a set amount of vacation days while we are here, and the first 2 were scheduled our first week into the program. We had to plan something quickly and not too far away. The beach sounded like the best idea since a lot of us have a main goal to achieve maximum tan-ness ASAP and [some] of us are [were] unbelievably pale for being half Mexicano.
We had to leave at 5 AM to get the most out of our short 4 day vacation. A few of us spent the night at the school on the floor instead of making our host families wake up super early to drive us there.
We probably laughed hysterically at the whole situation for a solid 45 minutes. We tried to make this picture look as pitiful as possible, so you would feel bad for us. We found window curtains to lay down underneath us with a single bedsheet on top of that. And then we added the chairs to the background so it didn't look so dreary, and if you can't tell, those are towels we are using as blankets. And we said a group prayer (and most likely 2,000 more individual prayers throughout the night) before sleeping to assure that no bugs (namely cockroaches) caused any harm or accident to us. I am very happy to announce that we "rested" 100% bug free, but it was probably the most uncomfortable night of our lives with minimal sleep.
We have the sweetest hookups for group transportation here. The group of teachers before us had a personal tour guide/bus driver named Ruben, and unfortch he was out of town the one weekend we needed him most. BUT, his awesome amigo, Rafael, was happy to help us out instead. And the phrase "help us out" is quite the understatement. Homeboy practically saved our lives on so many occasions, and we were extremely lucky to have him! I regret that I did not snap a pic with him. Instead I will steal a pic from Kelly's blog to show you what a cutie he is!
Left to right: Kelly, Brian (who thankfully served in Spain and is the official translator for the group), and Precious Rafael
Oaxaca is 2 hours away from Tehuacan and there are some Mayan? ruins in the area. I say Mayan with a ? because I don't really know the exact name of them. I just know they were super duper cool. Google "Mante Alban + Oaxaca + Ruins" if you want to know more because A) Google is the best place one could ever spend his or her time and B) I do not have the time or patience to try and look up specifics for you people.
We decided to first walk around the small museum and eat some delicious food before heading out to tour the ruins.
We ate some super delicious melon with yogurt and granola and tasty huevos and melty Mexican cheese whilst enjoying the most gorgeous view of the city below.
Please tell me this room kinda reminds you of the room that Locke killed Jacob in. Am I right? Or wait! Did Ben do it? I can't remember!!!
Fun little rocks with people/monkey image things. Coooooooool!
It was really hard trying to pick a good picture to display the hugeness and awesomeness of these ruins. I tried my best, okay?
I promise that it was really cold when we first got there, and it warmed up later on. Naturally, I had to wrap my jacket around my waist like the American tourist I am.
This picture captures Emily with her "idol", Timber. Timber may or may not look slightly disturbed because maybe Em and I are slightly obsessed with her and her awesomeness. Plus, her name is Timber! Hello! Best name ever!
Just look at her adorable haircut! Not many people can pull that off, but this girl can, and you better believe I am so excited to spend the next 3.5 months getting to know her and the rest of the gang. You can see more pictures of us jumping in the air at the top of the ruins, etc. on FB.
Then we had a treacherous journey through the mountains to get to the beach on the other side. Thank goodness Dramamine helped for the majority of it, but towards the end I wanted to vomit at every turn. I didn't get a very good picture of the drive, but I found this pic to help you sort of imagine it. It was sooooo twisty and windy (wine-dy) every 5 seconds, and we even had to stop and take break at one point for someone to toss their cookies.
And to top it all off, there was a car accident towards the end of the mountain which delayed us for quite a while. And Mexico is not America in the way of traffic laws/police/insurance/etc so we were stuck there for 6 hours while the scene of the accident remained in place until a tow truck/insurance agent could manage their way up these narrow/curvy roads. Seriously. SIX HOURS. We were trapped on the bus in the middle of the jungle, and all we could do was sleep or chit chat. I chose to sleep off the nausea, but the majority of them chose to swap life stories. You'll have to ask Emily how that part was.
When we finally got through the mess of it all and into the city of Hualtuco, we had 2 choices: sleep on the bus or try to find a cheap hostel for the night. I do not do well sleeping sweaty or dirty, so I 100% voted for anything with a shower and a bed. We had heard rumors that Rafael or Ruben could usually score awesome rates at hostels, but we had no idea we could score the deal we did. I really meant to take pictures of the condo we stayed in, but I forgot. Lo siento! I'm telling you though, Google does wonders and wonders. Here you can find pictures of similar rooms at the exact condos where we stayed.
Homeboy parked the van/bus on the street and took Brian with him to try and find a vacancy somewhere. Then some guy shows up on his moped, asks the price we want to pay, leads us there, and VOILA! We got 2 condos, 6 beds, 2 kitchens, 2 bathrooms, freezing cold AC, and cable for 125 pesos a night. Do you even know what that means, amigos?! Approximately $12 a night for what would probably cost 10 times as much in America. And oh baby! The coldest AC you have ever felt, and thank goodness for that because Hualtuco is probably the most humid hot place I've ever been, and I'm from Texas!
At this point I kind of feel like I'm writing a novel, but that's because I am. I find that this is much easier than writing a journal, so I'm trying to record as many details as possible. If you just come here to look at the pictures and skip all this boring writing, that's fine with me. But you might miss out on some really cool stories!
We went to bed (sooooo much better than sleeping on the bus!) at 2 AM, and relaxed on the beach the rest of the time we were there.
But first, we stopped at a lookout point to get an idea of where we were.
I am slightly embarrassed to show just how WHITE I was. Do you love our matching sun hats? We purchased them at the base of the ruins for 30 pesos each! That's like $3!
Typical pose of me with a fruity drink. Totes virgin pina colada. I may get crazy in Mexico, but not that crazy! Sheesh! Are you being blinded by the shiny paleness of my upper body? Because I sure am! It's darker now, I pinky swear!
Our colorful cabana hang out spot. We told a few more life stories here. Let the bonding begin!
Did you know that the guy (Leo is his name) who hooked us up with the rad condo also took us snorkeling for only 50 pesos/$5??! Well, he did. Ultimate tour guide! Too bad I didn't snap a pic of us in our snorkel gear.
On the second day there, we went to a different beach with way less people and way bigger rocks and waves. She looks perfect and I look bad, on account of she brought 3 swimsuits to Hualtuco and I only brought one. Next vacation I'll choose my wardrobe more carefully to add better variety to my photos. But at least my hair is down!
I forgot to mention that the condos we stayed at also had a pool! We lounged around there for a good part of the time as well. Paradise? Most definitely! Hanita, it sounds like you probably got really sunburned. No, dear mother/blogstalker! I only burned the top of my thighs and now my legs are perfectly bronzed! I understand the importance and methods of reapplying sunscreen to ensure optimal brown skin!
Our condo was also close to fun shops and the local movie theater. One night we were all craving an American movie. Our choices were Rio in Spanish or Little Red Riding Hood in English. But when I say craving, I mean some of us desperately wanted to hear English again. Desperate times call for desperate measures. So, 7 of us opted for LRRH and the other 5 picked Rio. Let's just say, Rio in Spanish would have been a trillion times better. Actually, any movie would have been a trillion times better. LRRH was probably the worst movie I have ever seen and that has ever been made. I cannot believe they continue to let Catherine Hardwicke direct movies. Wasted 2 hours of my life I will never get back!
And to save some money while there (not like everything else wasn't already extremely cheap!), we bought sandwich fixings to eat for lunch everyday. Thank goodness we chose wisely with Nutella and peanut butter. But on our last night there, we kinda wanted to splurge and experience a fine meal at a local restaurant. Wrong. We picked the worst place that tried way too hard to cater to American tourists. The Mexican burritos were worse than American ones in every way possible. The only solution was to get ice cream on the way home. Emily talks about mango ice cream/mango everything probably every day here, but thats because it really is heaven on a spoon.
That's about it, amigos. We drove the 6 hours home, but this time with double dosages of Dramamine and plenty of ice cold water. I paid not once, but 3 times to use the bano on the way back. Totally worth it.
My only souvenirs were an ancient looking pen from the ruins (10 pesos), a cutie frog/seashell keychain from Hualtuco (10 pesos), and that classy sun hat (30 pesos)- all things I will certainly use for the rest of forever. Speaking of, what do YOU want me to bring you back, amigos? Seriously, let me know and I will see what I can do.
Overall, it was a much needed vacation and I can't wait for the next one on June 17th! If there is anything that I learned about myself from this trip, it is that I prefer comfort over pretty much anything.
Stay tuned for more posts about these wonderful Mexican children, ridiculous thunderstorms and flooded streets, and American pizza parties.
Buenas noches!
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