Camino Real Torreon

Accommodation <br><br>Hotel La Siesta, Acuna No. 9, Tel: (01 842) 422-0374. Their current rates were 300 + 400 peso for 1 or 2 persons. The small, en-suite rooms come with cable TV but are a little overpriced for what's on offer.

... But today, a beautiful downpour. After supper (chicken, tortillas,refried bean, guacamole, theusaul), I showed the boys how to make paper boats and we raced them down the street. ¨S.S Sarita¨ didnt win, but gave a valient effort ;) Salvador, Jon, Raquel Salvador, and myself leave tomorrow morning on the bus for Meoqui in the state of Chichiwawa (sp?).

... for the night. They have three boys and have just presented me with a gift from mexico. Friday has been quite free. Spent a couple hours "touring". Tortilla factories; men renovating houses. Early supper we went to Sra. Moreno's for supper. Her husband does not profess, but she stays faithful. A few of us drove to the park and played soccer till it was dark.

... been given a room for one night and there were no rooms available for this evening. After a quick consult with Charlie, we decided to get on the road before traffic got heavy and just move on. We grabbed breakfast at Burger King (where the eggs are scrambled with peppers and the sandwiches are topped with beans- $86) and headed North. We saw two huge snow-capped mountains on the outskirts of town ...

... called "Callejoneadas". This is an interesting way to tour the city! Around 8pm on weekends, a group of musicians, dressed in old Spanish costumes, gather in a square, and start to play. A crowd starts to form around the musicians. The organisers hand out small cups made out of clay, and which have a long ribbon attached to the handle. You hang these cups around your neck, and somebody fills them up with tequila. When the crowd is large enough, the musicians ...

... to church to be blessed or something like that. They were always carried so delicately that sometimes it would not be until we got closer that we realized it was not a real baby. We saw a young girl walking down our street with a baby Jesus, she held her hand up and shielded his face from the wind and dust flying around as she walked past us. We saw men carrying them all over the place too. New Years was a lot of fun. We had planned to go out to one of the restaurant/bars to ...

... interesting city with lot´s to offer, but being a country girl at heart it´s hard living in a city with all the noise especially. At the end of the week we will be heading to Morelia and then to the monarch butterfly sanctuario.And we will visit the playa (beach) before heading back stateside. I´ll try to write more later, It´s been a long day and I have salsa (dance) lessons tonight!

... afternoon in Spanish classes. I am making progress though at times it seems pretty slow.I finally have room to get out my paints, but not a lot of time to use them. In our first day´s here we met Pedro, who cooks at a restuarant.He has lived in the states some and done lot´s of things. His woman friend Morgan came the next week. She has lived in Portland for many years and in Seattle the last 5 and is going to move ...

So, the train chugged it´s way pretty slowly, firstly through some flat farm land - pretty barren and dusty, then we started to climb into the Sierra Madre hills and pine forests, rivers and more dramatic drops. For all the ´pine forest´ scenery, it was still very hot and sort of deserty in feel - Wendy - it was very much like Arizona. The time passed pretty quickly - 12 hours - mostly spent hanging out of the big door windows ...

... eventually managed to give up the sanctuary of our bed the next morning, about an hour after Dan had put the fire on to warm up the room to a reasonable temperature. Then once we'd bought a few snacks for the journey, we were back on board another bus - this time en route to Zacatecas. Unfortunately we both finished our books on this trip and are fast running out of English reading material! So we had to settle for watching 'The Runaway Bride ...