marzo: Parents and Angie visit Mexico

We did a long list of things in a short amount of time - I'm a pretty active tour guide with full days of activities. To give a quick list:

CUERNAVACA and surrounding area:
- Met Marce and the host family, ate several meals with Marce
- Tepoztlan: a nearby village where we climbed a mountain to see a pyramid, had lunch, shopped in an artisan market, and ate local ice cream
- Cathedral
- Palacio de Cortes: an old fortress and palace for the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes which is now a museum in Cuernavaca
- Jardin Borda: an old garden-oasis in the downtown of Cuernavaca, an escape from the noise and pollution of the city
- My work sites: In "La Estacion" we painted the community-center chairs and bagged groceries for the sponsored families of La Estacion; afterwards we visited one of the local families at their home. We worked in the morning with the CCIDD group which serves as our volunteer-retreat center and connection in Cuernavaca. In the afternoon we did a typical day at Casa Tatic from picking up the kids at their home, through the 2 hours of "school" at Tatic, to taking the kids back home.
- Artisan market
- Food market
- A couple great restaurants
- Salsa dancing (Angie and me only)




MEXICO CITY:
- Walking tour of downtown
- Palacio de Bellas Artes: like an opera house or performing arts center
- Parque Alameda: a small park in the downtown area
- Basilica Metropolitana: the main basilica downtown
- Palacio Nacional: the government building with famous Diego Rivera murals
- Templo Mayor: a glimpse at the ruins of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztecs, that is buried under Mexico City and part is excavated and open to public in the downtown
- Basilica de Guadalupe: the 2nd most-visited church in the world, a church devoted to the Virgen de Guadalupe (Latin America's image/miracle of the Virgin Mary)
- Teotihuacan: archeological ruins outside of Mexico City. Built by an unknown civilization, abandoned, and later inhabited by Aztecs.
- Museo Mural de Diego Rivera: a museum that houses one of Diego's famous murals "A Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park"
- Guadalajara de Noche: a restauarant with a floor show of (not necessarily accurate, but still entertaining) performances by traditional dancers, mariachi bands, a lasso-guy, and a ballet group that performed a version of an Aztec fire dance.
- Anthropological Museum: old and recent artifacts. As old as Mexico's prehispanic civilizations up to clothes/foods/arts/rituals/customs of the recent/current indigenous peoples
- Parque Chapultepec: a huge park in Mexico City (like New York's Central Park)
- the Metro: I made them take a few rides in the subway
- more good restaurants

Whew, it was a whirlwind trip and it seems even more so now that I wrote that list! Photos are posted online for your viewing pleasure of the visit.