Warning, this blog is LOOOONG !!! However I think it will really give you a feel for the beauty of southern Mexico. So take your time ; )
Ali's Visit
We were so excited to have Ali come down and be able to experience a little bit of what we have been living the last 18 months. So excited to introduce her to the beautiful people we have grown to love here in Oaxaca. She was also able to visit a few of our favorite places. Here are some pictures of our time together.
Her first night here we went to the Noche de Rabanos. This a festival of radishes where they carve scenes out of radishes. These radishes are a bit larger than the ones we purchase in the store.
People stand in line for over and hour to walk the raised platform close to the displays. We chose to look at a few from behind the raised platform. It is an amazing thing to see, however none of us were willing to wait in line to get a close view ; )
Then off to Huatulco where we enjoyed Christmas Eve dinner with our adopted family, the Pinedas. Here in Mexico the big celebration is the dinner on Christmas Eve.
The next few days were visiting our favorite beaches and letting Ali enjoy the opportunity to snorkel, she was even able to see and touch a sea turtle. Here are pictures of Playa Bocana, one of our favorites because of the beautiful rocks there, and Playa Santa Cruz, where the cruise ships dock.
Of course any visit to Huatulco would not be complete without a visit to the Huatulco letters.
Then we ended up back in Oaxaca to celebrate new years and Ali found herself some nice shirts. Looks like the apple didn't fall far from that tree ; )
And of course no trip is complete without a mango on a stick with chili.
Our Temple Closure Vacation
During the time the temple was closed for maintenance we traveled by bus to three states here in southern Mexico and then by plane to another. We were able to visit four Temples and five ruins on our trip. We also visited several pueblos and one of our favorite cities in southern Mexico San Cristobal las casas in the state of Chipias.
Veracruz
We started our trip by visiting the state of Veracruz. Our first stop was a ranch owned by the sister of one of our friends serving with us here in the temple, Elder Zapata. His sister Elvira invited us to stay at the ranch for a couple of days and held a big feast for us. It was incredible. I had the chance to milk a cow, which I hadn't done since I was a teenager. I had forgotten how much strength and endurance it takes to milk a cow. Rosa had the chance to feed a little orphan lamb and then he followed her around like she was his mother. She takes the counsel to "feed my sheep" seriously ; ) It was a great time !!!
The ranch simply beautiful.
Feeding sheep and milking cows.
The beach was about 100 yards away from our hotel. We had a great early morning stroll and found some beautiful sand dollars.
Next we took a double decker bus tour of the city and then went to the temple where we met more wonderful people who are sacrificing their time away from family to serve the Lord and the people of Veracruz.
Next we traveled all night to the city of Villhermosa in the state of Tabasco. Here we visited Parque La Venta where they have many of the "big head" artifacts from the ruins of La Venta. This is where the oldest know civilizations in Mexico exist. The people were the Omlecs, many LDS scholars believe these were the Jaridite people. The park was a beautiful jungle setting with an interesting zoo in the park.
The next day we walked around the city and climbed a high mirador (look out tower) where we were able to see the river and much of the city.
The next day we had the chance to visit the ruins of Palenque and explore the waterfall Mishol Ha. According to Wikipedia " Palenque (Spanish pronunciation: [pa'leŋke]; Yucatec Maya: Bàakʼ /ɓàːkʼ/), also anciently known as Lakamha (literally: "Big Water"), was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that flourished in the 7th century. The Palenque ruins date from ca. 226 BC to ca. AD 799....Palenque is a medium-sized site, much smaller than such huge sites as Tikal, Chichen Itza, or Copán, but it contains some of the finest architecture, sculpture, roof comb and bas-relief carvings that the Mayas produced. Much of the history of Palenque has been reconstructed from reading the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the many monuments; historians now have a long sequence of the ruling dynasty of Palenque in the 5th century and extensive knowledge of the city-state's rivalry with other states such as Calakmul and Toniná. The most famous ruler of Palenque was K'inich Janaab Pakal, or Pacal the Great, whose tomb has been found and excavated in the Temple of the Inscriptions.
By 2005, the discovered area covered up to 2.5 km² (1 sq mi), but it is estimated that less than 10% of the total area of the city is explored, leaving more than a thousand structures still covered by jungle.
If you ever go to Palenque ask for this man, Victor Damas, to serve as your guide. He is incredible and has an amazing perspective on the history of the Mayan people.
Then it was on to the waterfalls.
The next day we went on a gastronomy and cathedral tour of the Villehermosa area, then visited the ruins of Comalcalco. We ate alligator gar empanadas, a wonderful chocolate drink pozol, butifaras sausage and of course did a chocolate tour. We visited several beautiful cathedrals, our guide informed us that none of the cathedrals in the area are older than 70 years. This is because when Mexico had the war between the Catholic Church and the state in order to separate church and state, the governor of Tabasco had all the existing churches either destroyed or re purposed for government buildings. So all the churches are newer and very colorful. We ended the day with dinner at a great restaurant on the water.
Cathedrals
As I walked into this beautiful cathedral I saw a beautiful depiction of the resurrected Jesus, with The Father and The Holy Ghost, appearing to the disciples and Mary.
The ruins of Comalcalco. These ruins are built entirely of clay tiles because there were no large stones available to the people of this area. One other amazing feature of these ruins is that you stand about 20 yards in front of the main pyramid and if you clap your hands it echos off the pyramid and can be heard throughout the entire main area, which you will see in the pictures is massive. No need for a microphone.
We spent two evenings in the temple and had a wonderful experience. One of the counselors in the temple presidency, President Price, is from the San Luis Valley in Colorado. This is the area that was settled by my relatives who were part of a group sent there by Brigham Young. Turns out his wife is a cousin of mine. It is a small, small world.
Yucatan
After another all night bus ride we arrived in the city of Merida in the state of Yucatan. The temple president in Merida was a former member of our temple presidency in Oaxaca. We were excited to spend time with them and they were excited to show us around their beautiful city and state. We started this leg of the trip with visiting the temple and then after dinner they took us on a tour of the city. Merida has some HUGE mansions from a time in their history when this was the place to be in Mexico. Most of them are now hotels or businesses. The next day we attended a stake conference with the Pena's then drove around Merida. On Monday we visited the ruins of Uxmal and then had a horse and carriage ride around the city and then attended a fantastic music and dance concert. A wonderful time spent with wonderful people.
Downtown
These are the traditional outdoor chairs in Merida, they allow you to hold a conversation and focus on each other, not the other stuff in front of you. Very cool !!!
The Pena's
The ruins of Uxmal, From wikipedia, Uxmal (Yucatec Maya: Óoxmáal [óˑʃmáˑl]) is an ancient Maya city of the classical period in present-day Mexico. It is considered one of the most important archaeological sites of Maya culture, along with Palenque, Chichén, and Calakmul in Mexico, Caracol and Xunantunich in Belize, and Tikal in Guatemala. It is located in the Puuc region and is considered one of the Maya cities most representative of the region's dominant architectural style. It has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in recognition of its significance.
I literally could do an entire blog just from pictures we took at this ruin, actually several of the ruins we visited. However I will try to keep it short. Maybe post mission I will do a separate blog post for each of the ruins we visited while living here in Mexico.
Chiapas
Last but definitely not least is Chiapas, we spent time in two cities here. Tuxtla Gutierrez the largest city in Chiapas of around two million people and San Cristobal de Las Casas a small city in the mountains, which may be our favorite city in southern Mexico. We visited the temple in Tuxtla as well as Sumidero Canyon which is close to Tuxtla. We then spent four days in the beautiful little city of San Cristobal de Las Casas where we stayed in a hacienda that was over 200 years old. We visited several pueblos around San Cristobal and also the ruins of Tonina. If you are only going to visit one city and one ruin in southern Mexico these two are it.
The temple, once again amazing people who were so kind and gracious to us.
Sumidero Canyon per wikipedia, Sumidero Canyon (Spanish: Cañón del Sumidero) is a narrow and deep canyon surrounded by a national park located just north of the city of Chiapa de Corzo in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The canyon’s creation began around the same time as the Grand Canyon in the U.S. state of Arizona, by a crack in the area’s crust and erosion by the Grijalva River, which still runs through it. The canyon has vertical walls which reach as high as 1000 meters, with the river turning up to ninety degrees during the thirteen kilometers that the narrow passage runs.
Elder and Hermana Moffit spent time with us on Wednesday morning and they took us to the top of Sumidero Canyon so we could get a glimpse of what we would see in our boat tour, The pictures are from the top first and then from the boat.
From here we went to Chiapa de Corzo where we walked around the little town and then caught our boat tour of the canyon. The canyon has a wide variety of wildlife including many birds and crocodiles.
After the canyon we caught a bus to San Cristobal and checked into our beautiful hotel. It was actually chilly and we needed a room with a fireplace for the nights. The city is beautiful and very picturesque.
There are many native people selling their wares on the street and some of them are quite aggressive. This little lady would not take no for an answer and ended up dressing Rosa in the traditional skirt and shawl of the local people. We didn't purchase anything from her but it was great getting to know her.
And how do you turn down a face like this? You can't and we didn't.
To finish up here is our visit to the ruin of Tonina. Per Wikipedia, Tonina (or Toniná in Spanish orthography) is a pre-Columbian archaeological site and ruined city of the Maya civilization located in what is now the Mexican state of Chiapas, some 13 km (8.1 mi) east of the town of Ocosingo.
The site is medium to large, with groups of temple-pyramids set on terraces rising some 71 metres (233 ft) above a plaza,[1] a large court for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame, and over 100 carved monuments, most dating from the 6th century through the 9th centuries AD, during the Classic period. Toniná is distinguished by its well preserved stucco sculptures and particularly by its in-the-round carved monuments, produced to an extent not seen in Mesoamerica since the end of the much earlier Olmec civilization.[
I highly recommend this ruin, it is one of the few large ruins left that you can go inside the pyramid. We had an incredible guide, If you go ask for Manuel Guion.
As you can see it has been an incredible month and a half since Ali came. As our mission winds to a close we are so grateful for the things we have experienced here and especially the people we have met all over southern Mexico.
See ya'll in a MONTH !!!
