Hotel El Carmen Morelia

... They even took me to the station to buy my bus ticket, and then delivered me to the station on my day of departure, which was also my birthday.
During the bus ride to Morelia, the desert-like landscape of SMA and Guanajuato state gradually disappeared as the countryside became greener. The state of Michoacan has quite a few lakes, lots of farmland and some beautiful forests, both evergreen and deciduous. Morelia is much bigger than SMA, but is similar in that it has a large ...

The Day of the Dead is a traditional Mexican festival based on precolumbian religious rituals. Death was just another part of life for indigenous civilizations like the Aztecs, for whom human sacrifice was a common practise. The spilling of blood was essential in order maintain the balance of life and ensure that the sun would continue to rise each day. Thus it was only natural for them to celebrate death; and each year on the 2nd November many Mexicans still give offerings in honour ...

... film festival was underway, but only later did I find out that Quentin Tarantino, one of my favourite directors, was also there that night to unveil his WWII epic "Inglourious Basterds". We stayed to watch an impressive firework display before returning to the bus to commence the festivities.

By the time we had driven up into the mountains and started drinking it was about midnight, but after a few drinks the tiredness ebbed and we began to get into the party spirit ...

... my Conversation Club on Tuesday I was paired with a couple of young men, and I encouraged them to come to salsa. They did, and Thursday they brought friends, so for the first time we had as many hombres as mujeres, which made it much more fun for the mujeres!

Got to hear some choirs in a concert on Monday night, including the famous (around here at least) Nińos Cantores de Morelia (singing children of Morelia). They were pretty good, but they sang one ...

... picturesque town square. The achitecture is similar to New Mexico because NM was inhabited by people from this area and they took their achitectural style with them.

Tzintzuntzán - In the days before the conquistadors Tz. was the place where the priests (sacerdotes) of the P'urépecha Empire lived. Outside of the town they built pyramids for use in sacred ceremonies. The P'urépechas were monotheistic unlike the Aztecs. They did perform human ...

... 2 separate Rotary clubs in Morelia (there are 8 total). The Camelinas club was helping on the elementary school and the work we did on Tuesday and Wednesday at the orphanage was with the "El Club Rotario Morelia Industrial" We had a fabulous meal and then set off to the elementary school a little after 10am. The drive to the elementary school (Aracurio School) is well over an hour. The school is located in a small village in a very tranquil setting ...

... to follow...............

Accommodation

Patzcuaro offers an excellent range of places to stay with the best deals to be found in the centre of town. Your other option is to stay three kilometre's out of town on the road that leads down to Lago de Patzcuaro, from where the boats depart for Isla Janitzio. Where ever you decide to stay make sure to ask for a bit of discount as all the places that I looked at would drop their rates ...

... anything Ive ever seen before. You seriously felt like you were in the rainforest. There were coffee trees, banana trees, parrots, fish, water everywhere, awesome stone formations and waterfalls and flowers. It was shady and good weather and I took an assload of pictures. Oh, it was great. Not so great was the city of Patzcuaro. Sorry to everyone who doesnt want to hear me swear but that place was a ****-hole! We were like ... "this is where we are supposed to eat??" the guide told ...

... visit to Guanajuato, I arranged to meet them for drinks later. In the dormitory I took the wheels of my bike before secreting it beneath my bunk. That key would definitely turn up, I told myself. There'd been six of us in the end. Asides from the girls, there were two Californian guys who were part of a language exchange in Guadalajara. And an Icelander, the first I'd met, bearded and taciturn. We found a cantina and got the cervezas in - uno, dos, tres... I'd wanted to ...

... up the central historic district and obtained lots of funding to restore and provide improvements in the main zocala area. We just wandered around without much direction for the afternoon, but did come across the ubiquitous street dancers in the main square. With wooden outer soles on their shoes to clack and with canes and masks they did a sort of crack the whip dance that was colorful. The next day we got an explanation--the indigenous ...