Xilitla and Narcobloques

Well as I said last time I went on a trip to Xilitla in San Luis Potosi this last weekend. It's a really interesting place with some very unique things to see. The bus ride down was slated to last 8 hours but somehow turned into 12, but that's Mexico for you. We stayed at a hacienda which offered little more than mats on which to place our sleeping bags, which was nice. We made a fire all three nights. Proof:
The first day we went to see some surreal gardens. They were funded by Edward James who was apparently best buds with a bunch of pretty big surrealist painters and wanted to give them a place where they could blow their minds (even further). At least that's what I imagine as the reasoning, not sure on that. Anyway, the place made no sense but was really massive. There were tons of seemingly unplanned concrete structures with staircases leading nowhere or to precarious vistas of the surrounding jungle.


It really was quite cool, although a tad confusing. We also took a side trip to a pretty large waterfall which we could stand under and try our best to get hypothermia. After this the trip took a turn towards (or I suppose kept turning towards) the bizarre as we were mysteriously invited to the house of the mayor of Xilitla (I think). Luckily it turned out to actually be a very cool house with a great view of the surrounding mountains. There was also horseback riding and 4-wheelers for those interested. Personally I just enjoyed the view and took a hike up a small hill to get the complete panorama.
Click for bigger as usual.
After that we returned to the hacienda for a night of bonfires and various beverages and fun all around. The next morning we begrudgingly awoke only to be thrown in the pack of pickups for an excursion.

On the agenda that day was a boat tour in an extremely blue river. For some reason we weren't allowed to swim in it until the very end and so it was a kind of annoying ride. We eventually arrived at this waterfall and promptly turned around without swimming much to the chagrin of my boatmates.
Luckily on the return leg we stopped for a swim in a cave off to the side of the river which really salvaged the trip for me. There was a nicely positioned rock wall for a ~25ft. dive into the water which was a lot of fun.
After the boat ride was complete we crammed back into the trucks for a two hour journey down some very unfinished roads, severely damaging our spines in the process. Luckily we soon arrived at 'the bird show' which made me a little anxious at first but turned out to be much cooler than I anticipated. It turns out that there's a sinkhole several hundred feet deep which houses a ton of birds. They all come back at night and circle around above the entrance. When the air currents are right, they dive in. It was really impressive. One could also pay 10 pesos to look over the edge (with a security rope around the waist which probably wouldn't do a thing but whateve). It was really impressively deep, and the birds dive-bombing overhead were really spectacular.

Here's a video for all you video fans out there!

Anyway, after another awesome truck bed ride we arrived at the hacienda for another evening (over which I did not end up sleeping at all). The next day we started off with the longest 'three hour' bus ride of my life (about 5 hours, incidentally) and arrived at an eco-hostel for the final leg of the trip. We were supposed to do some canoneering but we were running out of time so we ended up just swimming under a waterfall and in a pretty awesome canyon. Unfortunately for some reason they told us not to take our cameras so you'll have to take my word for it. We also walked across a rope bridge and had a lovely dinner. After that we piled on the bus and promptly fell asleep, only to wake up at 4 AM to see we had arrived at Tec. Luckily this time my first class was at 4 PM that afternoon so I could get some serious sleep in. Unfortunately somewhere along the way I got a brief but intense cold.

In other news this last week, Friday brought two bouts of bad news. Apparently two Tec students were killed by gunfire between the army and a few organized criminals just outside of campus in the very early morning. It was the first such incident involving Tec and has a lot of students quite worried. Personally I see it as an isolated incident and don't have a problem with staying in Mexico unless things keep going south. Also Monterrey was the target of a few 'Narcobloques' which are targeted attempts to cut off Army patrols but blocking major highways. This directly inconvenienced me as I was trying to make it down to Hill Rom's factory for a tour and got stuck in a traffic standstill for 45 minutes. Again though, it was more inconvenience than danger. In other news David Guetta, a pretty big electronic music guy came to town and I was able to go. It was a very nice evening although my ears still hurt a bit. Next week I'll be traveling further south for my longest trip of the semester, I hope to have an update out around the 4th of April, we'll see!

Guadalajara and 737s

The major excitement in the last two weeks was undoubtedly my trip to Guadalajara. It was a very pretty town with some nice buildings, cool art and good food. We arrived later than we were supposed to and crashed at the hotel at about 11. Around 3 we went to a Mariachi restaurant because, as they told us several times, Guadalajara is pretty much where that whole genre started (for better or for worse). The meal was very good (which was nice as we ate at 3 or so without an earlier meal that day), and the Mariachis were interesting to say the least. That night we took a double decker bus tour of Guadalajara which was really cool, albeit very cold. Here's the town's church:
Here's a roundabout road sign. "You can go around the outside and take any of these exits or, if you like, you can go right across the middle. Whichever's fine with us."
The next day was to be spent in Tequila. I will grant you two guesses as to which fine Mexican product is made in Tequila and no, it is not tortillas. We rode a train down to the town sampling a variety of unique cultural beverages then toured the factory where this unique cultural beverage was made. Needless to say there were samples available.
The ride back was very similar to the ride out, but with more dancing for some reason. I'm sure it was a celebration of the unique cultural beverage and it's positive impact on the local economy. Also some Mariachi showed up. Towards the second half of the train ride one side of our car, note here it was not the side occupied by somewhat inebriated college students, began ambushing anyone daring to walk by with dancing. Also note the other side of the car was occupied by very lively middle-aged couples. A one-dimensional conga line appeared. It was a very special train ride.
The night of the Tequila train extravaganza we headed out on a 45 minute bus ride to a club in town. For some reason the organizers felt we wouldn't get in but by that time the bus had grown restless and so we waited elbow to elbow for a while and eventually got into the place. It turned out to be a pretty sweet club (and from a nerd perspective the lighting was really cool too) and fun was had by all. The next day we went to Tlaquepaque, which was a very cool town filled with art. For instance, here's some art:

We had a very nice meal at a restaurant in town. Here are my (blury) enchiladas poblanas which were very tasty:
Aside from the art and a whole bunch of art vendors there isn't too much else to comment on in the Guadalajara trip (expect perhaps the 30 extra minutes we spent driving around town looking for lost students). We arrived back at Tec at 7:45, giving me just enough time to brush my teeth and show up for class. Yay college! More recently, it was flag day in Mexico and they had a nice but brief ceremony. Mexico's going through some tough times right now and so the speakers were all quite optimistic which was nice. They even had a shoutout to us international students and how important we are to the country etc.
Aside from that I attended a birthday party, saw Avatar in 3-D Imax twice (by no fault of my own), went fruitlessly shopping in the worst mall ever and spent a long time studying engine removal on Boeing 737s for my augmented reality project which is looking more impossible by the day. I'm going to be spending a lot of time staring at CAD models pretty soon so please send your last respects to my sanity whenever you have time. Next weekend I'm off to Xilitla which is supposed to be really pretty and really different, I'll be sure to inform you all in a month or so. Until then!