Mark's Visit

So here is a quick recap of what I have been up to these past few days-

Thursday- Mark arrived at 10pm!

Friday- Hike up Estribo (the mountain I live on) in the morning and exploring Patzcuaro during the afternoon. Highlights include: giant agave plants, crazy blue bugs, and Spanish colonial adobe buildings.

Saturday- (See picture below at Church and above). Mark, the gang, and I went to the Volcano Paracutin. It is about a two hour drive from here around winding crazy roads but definitely vale la pena (worth the pain). Paracutin is a volcano that erupted in 1943 and is considered one of the world's seven natural wonders. The story goes that one day a farmer was working in his field when he came across a giant crack in the earth that was spewing gas. Two weeks later the volcano Paracutin had grown from the grown. Two towns were completely destroyed by the volcano. The only thing that remains is a Church (The picture below and above). It was really cool to be able to climb around on the lava and explore the Church. It is pretty amazing that lava left so much of the Church intact. The altar was amazingly not harmed by the lava- so many people leave offerings there. We didn't get to go all the way to the volcano because it was 7 hour horseback ride... but exploring the lava was pretty cool.

On the way back we stopped at national park in Uruapan. The park was centered around a river that was full of cool waterfalls. Another cool feature was that the pathways around the river had these amazing water elements- like fountains and water running along the sides. It was very cool.

Sunday- We went on Purepecha Pyramid tour in Tzintzuntzan and Ihuatzio(See Mark pictured above).

Monday- We jumped on a bus and went to the lovely city of Morelia. Since it was a Monday most of the "good" museums were closed... but we did get to see the Museum of Judicial Power AND the Museum of 16th century religious art (aka the crucifix museum). Do I know how to show Mark a good time or what?

Tuesday- We spent the last day doing what most Mexican tourists do- Go to the Island of Janitzio. As expected it was pretty touristy... there was a Mariachi band on the boat ride over that serenaded us and LOTS of store selling stuff. It was a lovely way to end a great trip.

*I am slowly adding all the pictures from Mark's trip to my Flickr account (see link on the right). So be sure to check them out!

** Also, since I have already written about most of these sites before I didn't want to bore everyone again. But if you are curious about a location you can check out my older posts!