Weekend Adventures

I have been BUSY the past week or two. I had a 13 page exam in my grammar class on Thursday (huacala!) But luckily now I have a two week vacation... mañana I leave for the beach - a place called Barra de Navidad, it's about a 9 hour busride. Apparently the buses are "very nice" but we shall see how "very nice" they are...

Also, Dia de Las Flores/Dia de la Virgen de Dolores was this past Thursday and Friday. The tradition is to stay up all night on Thursday, and then go to the main plaza on Friday and eat breakfast. And then boys are supposed to give pretty girls flowers in the plaza, and there are virgins everywhere. I mean, Altars to the Virgin of Dolores. Yep, and I did it! I stayed up all night and then had tamales for breakfast with Amanda P. And I also got flowers from two people! Well... one of the was my host brother.... but still! Then I went home and slept until 5PM.

Anyways, the past few weekends, I have had a few other adventures traveling to other small towns or "pueblos," mainly with my host brother Carlos who is a photographer:
La Luz: A small mining town with ruins of Spanish "haciendas" on the outskirts. Probably from the 17th century. Haciendas are huge houses that belonged to the rich owners of the mines. They were also sometimes used to process the minerals from the mines. La Luz also has a beautiful small church, a town square, and tons of adorable farm animals.

Santa Ana: Again, a small mining town with ruins of haciendas... The town used to be huge... back 300 years ago. Now it is just a small farming community. I think the mine closed down. Anyways, the ruins are so beautiful because they are in a lakebed which is underwater half the year, during the rainy season. Since this is the dry season, we could go down and walk around the ruins. We also walked all the way to the dam which creates the lake. It was quite a muddy journey at some points.

La Presa: Me and a bunch of friends (including my Norweigian roommates) went to the house of some rich friends. They have a weekend house on a lake which is created by a dam. The dam caused an entire town to be flooded, and now it is at the bottom of the lake. The only thing that remains is the town church which sticks up in the middle of the lake. The lake is surrounded by a few really huge, rich houses... and many poor farmers whose cattle graze around the lake.