Israel!

We`re going to New York today to meet our Birthright group in Israel tomorrow! We are really excited. Sorry about the lack of updates. We`re both doing really well and enjoying our trip. Bria finishes her grad apps today! Yay!

Gringos

Two of Dave`s good friends, Wil and Erin (who you can see in the moustache pictures below) came down to travel with us for a week and we had an awesome time. We met them in Mexico City and spent a day at the Museum of Anthropology which has an extensive collection of artifacts from different pre-Hispanic civilizations of Mexico. We also got to see some Voladores, which are a group of 5 men who climb a pole and then, after attaching their feet to ropes, slowly descend twirling around the pole hanging upside down.

The next day, we took a bus to visit the ruins of El Tajin. El Tajin was a large city in the jungle of the state of Veracruz. You literally walk through the jungle to get there and it`s amazing to see it open up into these giant pyramids. Luckily, there were very other few tourists so it really had an ancient quiet sense. We left there and went to a small beach town called Tecolutla. It`s a resort town for Mexican families but it was pretty empty when we were there. We made friends with an old man who rode his bike around and took us to a restaurant and a boat tour of the river. In the river we saw crocodiles, crabs, and lots of birds. The guy who gave us the boat tour actually had a pet crocodile that we got to pet.

Then we went to Xalapa where we had a crazy night out that ended at a Cuban bar ordering cocktails we`d never heard of and a bowl of chocolate fondue. We walked around the city the next day and it was interesting seeing the convergence of natural, rural, and urban elements. It`s very interesting to see Mexico in it`s development as you have pretty much all of the modern amenities of the US mixed with people who live in houses without showers, stoves, or drinkable water. We went to Veracruz the next day and explored the city and the old naval base. It was hot, sticky, and smelly but we had a great seafood meal where Will finally got to have his "Camarones a la Diabla"

Then we headed back to Mexico City and went to the ruins of Teotihuacan. There were tons of tourists and vendors trying to sell you stuff and we were kind of wiped so I don`t think it was quite as powerful. The Temple of the Sun is really impressive though and it was pretty cool to climb it. Will left the next day so the 3 of us took a city bus tour where you can get on and off the buses to explore neighborhoods that interest you. There are a lot of really beautiful parts of Mexico City and we felt very safe. We moved every night while we were travelling so it was nice to be able to sit and have the scenery change around you. Erin left the next day after a really good week. Erin and Will had never been out of the country before and so it was really fun to be able to introduce them to Mexico. We had a great time with them and were ready to chill out for awhile after they left which was nice because we were able to go to our next farm, Yolitia.