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OK, we drove to the state of Michoacan. Once there, we went out to the city of
___, near the volcano Paracutin.
It is the moderately famous volcano that erupted out of a farmer's cornfield in
1943, and continued to grow for about a decade, eventually engulfing the city
of San
Juan.
There is a new city there, from which we rented horses and a guide. |
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The lava flow is a few-mile ride. |
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We arrive at the edge of the lava field (where we find more taco stands, of course). |
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Check out that church! The lava flow is some 30 feet deep, covering the entire old city except for the church. |
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We crawl around. |
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Here is our awesome Mexican guide. His parents were alive when the volcano went off in 1943. He (and most of the rest of the town) speaks Purepecha natively, and only learned Spanish and English later. His parents lost their farm and life when the city was destroyed, although now tourism has brought back some of that. It apparently requires a lot of diferent techniques to farm on the ash-polluted fields now, though agriculture is definitely coming back. (Not on the lava flow itself -- give that another century.) |
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Piper crawls down into the main entryway. The floor lies about 30 feet below the surface of the lava. |
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Descending to (almost) ground level inside the church. |
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The altar is extremely well preserved. The fact that the altar was protected from the lava has great significance, of course, so it is heavily flowered and honored. |
"Ruinas de San Juan Parangaricutiro: Aqui fue el altar del sr. de los Milagros el volcan paricutin no respeto y no pudo destruir. EL HUMANO NO RESPETA. Y so lo esta destruyendo, Por favor no ralles, no tires basura, PIENSA!" | |
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Google Earth view of the same area. Lava flow is obvious, with the two towers (center) and altar (right) poking up. The taco stands are in the flat area at the top left just off the flow. |
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Just off the edge of the flow, we have some comida: tacos, atole (hot chocolate + blue corn meal + water), etc. |
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Riding back. Piper insisted on riding her own horse without having a guide. The horses were excellent. |
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Piper feeds her horse. |
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Pigs are fed. |
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This horse (in Patzcuaro) is a little less exciting. |
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We stayed in Patzcuaro for the night, and then took the boat to Isla Janitzio, which we had strategically avoided for Dia de los Muertos due to its touristic reputations. We were not disapointed in that aspect! |
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Piper has already bought a fishing net in the parking lot. |
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Ever-present mariachis, on the boat. |
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Here's Janitzio in all its glory. Note the hard-to-miss statue of Sr. Morelos, who led the Mexican war of independence before being captured by Spain in 1815. |
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Fishermen act like they are catching fish, but are in fact performing for tips. We did see one tiny little fish the ensemble of them managed to catch. |
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Inside the statue of Morelos. |
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The high-tech safety system in place at the top of the staircase. |
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Over the lake from the top of the fist... |
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Check out that shadow! |
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Back in Mexico city, JMT has showed up, though there are no pictures of her to show it. We go boating in Xochimilco. I pole for a little bit. Also see the earlier photos. |
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A corn boat passes... |
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Mariachis, of course. |
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Climbing the pyramids at Teotihuacan, outside of Mexico
City.
We'd been to Teotihuacan earlier, so check out that link for more photos. |
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Last modified Fri Apr 17 14:01:29 2009