Hotel Villa Florida Puebla

... of Coca-Cola nearby, just in case.

Carman, Coca-Cola is everywhere here! It's a city meant for you! :)

Then I had mole con arroz. Mole is a typical Mexican sauce (somewhat like gravy). It's like a sweetened gravy and, according to my host mom, has chocolate and bananas in it too! I had mole with Spanish rice rolled into a tortilla.

And another bottle of Coca-Cola.

And for dessert, strawberry meringue! Wonderful :)

We headed back to ...

... outlined by our education coordinators, Hans and Dave, was to teach the children how to become better citizens.

20 minutes to teach young children that concept? There are some adults that don't even know that concept! :) It would be quite a challenge. We were on the bus for about an hour and had some time to determine what activity we would do. We decided to play a game called "Take a Stand". We ask questions and the children have to choose one side of ...

... some great Mexican snacks. It seems that all typical Mexican food has some sort of meat in it.

I've definitely been getting my protein!

Then we went to a nearby high school and met our host families! My roommate, Ronja, is from Germany and is one of the most funny people I have ever met. She also has curly red hair - like me! - and wanted to tell our host family that we were cousins.

We probably could be!

My host host dad, Edgardo, is a lawyer and ...

... him to get some spanish donuts: churros. These things are genius if you get chocolate dipping sauce. They have them back home at the Vic Market, but we have probably eaten about 40 each since we have been here. Brendan wanted to look for guitar, so after watching him try to tune it for about 10 minutes, we left him and went and had a look at a nearby market. The people in the shop were pretty good sports and thought it was pretty amusing that a hairly large gringo ...

... Lonely Planet describes, but it's a shame there prices are 100 peso out. The current rates are 350 + 450 peso for 1 or 2 persons and not the 260 + 350 that Lonely Planet states. A room with 2 beds you're looking at 570 peso for 2 persons. At the end of the day, the rooms are simple and well overpriced especially when you see what else is around.

At the top end Puebla offers some fine boutique accommodation.

My ...

Puebla est la capitale de l'Etat du même nom, située à 110 km de Mexico, encerclée par les volcans Popocatepetl, Iztaccihuatl et Malinche. C'est la quatrième plus grande ville du Mexique, où se situe l'usine Volkswagen qui produisait les célèbres ...

We decided to leave Oaxaca on Sunday to avoid all the traffic through the city during week days. On our last day in this beautiful city we made a trip to the nearby village of Tule and see the "Tule Tree". Being from the west coast of Canada, we have seen big trees but this Cypress was far larger, particularly in diameter. Over 2,000 years in age it towers over the village church and all other ...

... her father and friend Liliana. I was confused going in because Lili made it sound like it was not a graduation ceremony but rather an event to honor the completion of degrees, but i think it was a graduation. It was similar in many ways but also different in some, I liked the things that were different and kindof wish we could adopt some of them. The set up was similar: a gym and stage with flowers and teachers in robes and colors seated upon it. There ...

... house of the serdan siblings (or la casa de los harnanios serdan): This is a house that has been converted into a very museum, it is a very important place in mexico. Lili's brother had told me about it earlier so i was excited when i found out what it was. ***insert more information here*** (person hiding in floor) -Balafoxiana: A very beautiful library of very old books, one person started it with a huge donation of books. It was a public library until they decided to ...

Today we went to the first (of many) ruins of the tour - Teothihuacan, just outside of Mexico City. They were several pyramids and a long walkway, the Avenue of the Dead. In Moon Plaza our guide, Gorilla, clapped his hands and the echo sounded like a bird's call which was really impressive. We then eagerly climbed our first pyramid (little did we know then how many more there would be!), the Pyramid of the ...