Holy water and Zika

I thought parots only exsisted in the zoo or in the jungle. But there are about 20 in the trees above me right now making lots of loud noises. I guess I am closer to the jungle than I thought. 

Monday we took a long mountainy bus ride to Cuernavava. Its really pretty here. All the houses are colorful and the streets are really steep and go up and down everywhere. It kind of reminds me of san francisco. There are a lot of trees here and they are all full of these huge colorful flowers. Its all very green and lush. Its kind of a magical place. 

The people here are a lot nicer too and everything is just calmer. Sadly we only stay here until Friday and then we are heading out to the ranchos to start working. 

I think I got a tad bit of food poisoning so I have been much more careful about what I eat. 

I have seen a few billboards about Trump (obviously not in support of him). One nice old man was talking to me about dancing on the street and asked me what I thought about Trump. I told him I didnt like him and he told me that Trump was really mean disrespectful to mexicans. And then I kind of realized how much we would seperate ourselves from Mexico if Trump wins. And that would be a huge loss for us. Our country has always been about accepting immigrants and accepting others. Mexicans and other latinos are extremely hard workers and very kind. It would be damaging to our country if we lost them. 

We are all missing vegetables. I feel like they dont exsist here. If I do see a vegetable I get nervous about eating it because of all the water problems.

Anyways, I am excited about getting to the ranchos! The touring has been fun but its time to do something with a little more purpose.

 I really love my group. I feel like I have known them all forever. 

Yesterday was a terribly long day. We awoke very early to go see some anciant cathedral. There were some mummies in it and lots of fun looking confession booths. There was also a giant tub full of holy water. People come in all day long to fill a cup with the holy water and then have it bless their home for the week. I rubbed some holy water all over my face hoping that it would help my stomach. We also saw a giant marble box thing where they put everyone's ashes. Of course we also went to see some more art that I tried really hard to appreciate. 

Then we drove an hour away from Cuernavava to a mountain with a city of ruins on it. I liked it a lot more than the other ruined city we looked at. There were some trees but it was extremely hot. We walked along the ruins through these hills until we came across this cave. We stepped in and walked through these dark tunnels for longer than I would have liked. I was pretty proud of myself for staying calm in this place of my three greatest fears (spiders, the dark and small enclosed places). It was a really narrow tunnel until we came to this opening. There was a pinhole of a opening in the ceiling that the sun shone through. We were there to watch the sun's cycle or something. We sat in a circle around this tiny drop of light and watched as it grew bigger and bigger and then started shaking a bit. And then (an hour later) the cycle was done and it disappeared.  We just sat in the cave in silence watching the circle of light. It was pretty cool. 

Then we walked around the pyramids and ruins. We saw all the different places they did human sacrifices.  We were up in this mountain for 5 hours without any water. It was around 110 degrees and humid walking up and done these stone stairs. A couple times I thought I was going to die but we made it back down the mountain and someone was selling cold coke and the end. It was a wonderful moment to have liquid again. 

After we went to a nice restaurant for dinner and then we all jumped in the hotel's pool. Our professor is really funny and played marco polo in the pool with us for a long time. It was our last day all together so that was sad.

This morning we woke up to travel 2 hours back to mexico city and then took another bus 5 hours to Irapuato. We are staying in a hostel type place here. Lets just say its not the cleanest place. We will be here tomorrow getting trained and then saturday we are splitting up into our little ranchos! 

Landes, our wonderful security guy, left us this morning. He is headed back to the states. I was really sad to see him leave. I also feel a lot less safe with him gone. Our professor is leaving on saturday and then its just going to be the 6 of us..seperated from each other..in this place that seems like it truly is in the middle if no where.

Today is cinco de mayo and Mexico has made it quite clear that they do not celebrate it. Most people here don't even know what it is and there is no sign of any celebration going on anywhere. I thought that was funny. 

Anyways, I think the next week will be pretty tough but it should be good! 

PS. I'm testing out the whole zika virus thing. So far I have about 10 mosquito bites but I'm still feeling good! I will keep you updated ;)