Taxco - the silver capital of Mexico!

Visited Taxco this weekend which is a beautiful colonial town about 130 km south of the city, set on the mountain side. The area is well known for it's silver mines and with over 300 quaint silver shops, you can imagine how I passed the time!! The weather was superb and the rooftop restaurants are excellent for watching the stars at night. Stayed in a converted monastry called Los Arcos which is a beautiful building with an amaing tree growing up the central courtyard. If you are coming to Mexcico at any time then you must visit Taxco.....defintely my favourite place so far.
The English teaching is going really well at the language school and I now know all the correct grammatical terms and how to explain how we use the 13 different tenses in English. I even managed to squeeze a few Spanish lessons in last week so have also brushed up on my Spanish grammal. The temperatures are set to drop to zero degrees at night here this week in the city so time to get out the wooly jumpers!!!

Views during the journey to Taxco which had the most amazing blue flowers along the way

Typical cobbled streets

The dome (above) of the main church (below)

One of the lovely quaint houses in amongst the silver shops

Typical handcrafted pottery for sale

One of the many silver shops...couldnt' work

out what the connection with Ely was though

The converted monastry with the tree growing up the central courtyard

Robbie, Robbie, Robbie

The concert was absolutely fabulous and one of the highlights of my year. Even though he may be a bit crazy in the head, Robbie Williams is a great showman. I have wanted to see him in concert for years now so am very happy that I have finally achieved another dream of mine. Unfortunately, my massive Welsh flag didn't make it onto TV but at least it got a lot of interest from the Mexicans!! (Thanks Mum for sending it out to me).
I will try and write more when I have the time, but I have lessons to plan and English grammar to figure out!!! Hope those of you on half term are having a well deserved break.

1 day to go!!!

Only 2 days to go until I see Robbie in concert. And, of course, the final grand prix on Sunday. I've had a fantastic week at the language school and have been inspired to get back in the classroom as soon as possible when I return to the UK. Then, to top the week off, when I got back to the apartment tonight I found the Ospreys rugby match on the sports channel and saw them beat Sale Sharks 17 - 16.
Will update again once I've recovered from seeing Robbie live!

Weekend at the Pacific Coast

The beach at Pie de la Cuesta...the only reason it's so empty is because it's raining........

............ but at least I was still able to laugh about it!

Pie de la Cuesta is on the Pacific Coast, 10 km west of Acapulco. A beautiful looking stretch of beach and a fantastic place to stay but unfortunately the sun did not make an appearance all weekend. However, the pool at the Hotel Nirvana was used regularly as the temperature was still in the 30's. Hopefully I will get to return here before I leave Mexico and at least I got to read some more of Wild Swans (I have been looking at this book on my bookshelf for about 10 years now and am finally reading it).

Just so that you don't think that I'm only here visiting places in Mexico, I am currently completing an internship at a local (well 2 hour commute) language school here in the city. It's great to meet new people and get more training in teaching English as a second language. Will I ever return to Science teaching?? Hoping to do some more high altitude hiking Saturday and then, of course, see the God (RW) on Sunday (the tickets arrived today so I am very excited).

Marilyn and Roger sent me these pics of their sunnier experience of Pie de la Cuesta........worth returning for.

Templo Mayor

The view across the Templo Mayor site to a magnificent colonial building nearby. Many buildings were pulled down when excavation started in the 1970's.



Tenochtitlan, the Aztec site rediscovered in 1978, was demolished by the Spaniards in 1520s. It lies right in the heart of the city next to the cathedral and the restoration continues today (last week a large important artefact was found here). Again, as it was a Sunday, entrance was free but with that brings hords of mexicans of all ages with their notebooks copying down every piece of information from the boards that they can. It's great to see that they are studying their own history and sharing this knowledge with their children who are with them. The museum has an excellent collection including full size terracotta eagle warriers and a great wheel like stone of the goddess, Coyolxauhqui.

Wall of carved skulls

Stone wariiers above and a terracotta warrier below

The symbolic Aztec eagle

4690m high crater

Mexico City is surrounded by big volcanoes, some of which you can reach quite easily and climb to the top of. One of these is Volcan Nevado de Toluca, which I climbed into the crater of on Saturday. Mexico City is as 2200m and the highest point of the volcano is 4690m...a big difference in altitude so I got noticably out of breath during the two hours or so hiking up there. The views would be great on a clear day, but unfortunately the sun disaapeared behind the clouds and left a more atmospheric misty view than looking across the plains to Toluca. It was still beautifully peaceful up there, if very cold!
Hoping to climb a few more in the vicinity before I leave.

At the start of the hike whilst the sun was still just about out!
One of the four beuatiful crater lakes

Looking across the crater

At the top of the ridge - very cold and misty which explains all the layers of clothing making me feel like a Michelin man!

Puebla and Cholula

Hooray...got a new computer to work on and most picture files have been retrieved!!! Music is another matter though and unfortunately only managed to rescue 30 out of my 1400 tracks!!!

So, last weekend I navigated the way to Puebla, a colonial city 125 km east of the city. Yet again, it took forever to actually leave the city (2 hours!) before even getting onto the road to Puebla. Reached Cholula 4 hours after setting off and was welcomed by a pretty sunny Zocolo (main square) and a cold Mexican beer, followed by a quick visit to the second largest pyramid in the world at Cholula. The tunnels were free as it was a Sunday and so walked right through the pyramid...quite impressive labyrinth of pathways in there (pictured above..a little scary being in a small space for a long time though).

The pleasant Zocolo at Cholula

Puebla was a pleasant contrast and has over a thousand colonial buildings and 70 churches. There was a chilli festival going on in a little courtyard near the Palacio Municipal so wandered around there wondering what all the culinary delights were. It was a long day out, but worth it to see the landscape and experience the feel of a typical Spanish town.

Chilli festival in Puebla.

Above: Typical tiles on lots of the colonial buildings in Puebla.

Below: Palacio National, Puebla.

Computer problems and lost files

I may be a bit delayed in updating the blog this week as the computer I have been using has pretty much died and some of the picture files are corrupt and have therefore been lost. On top of this, my Creative Zen MP3 player has crashed on me numerous times and now it looks like I've lost my music too. Then today I travelled into the city to meet up with Angharad, a friend from Wales I made on the TEFL weekend, who was arriving in the city yesterday but she didn't show. Her plane was delayed which meant she lost her connection in Toronto and got stuck there, arriving this evening instead! But I'm still smiling as usual and making the most of being in Mexico. Hopefully Robbie won't cancel on me!!!
Let me know your news,
Hannah
x

!! CONGRATULATIONS BRO !!

Congratulations to my brother Matt and his girlfriend Amanda who got engaged whilst on holiday in America! So pleased that there will be a wedding in the family to look forward to, even if we may have to wait a while. I promise to be in the country for this family gathering!