Horseback riding fail, but still lots to do and see

A map of the state of Puebla, showing Izucar de Matamoros, Chiautla, and Atlixco.

Downtown Atlixco - note the man on horseback at the corner.

The building to the right is owned by Julio, and we stopped for a moment while driving out of town for him to talk to his tenants.

Gas is still pumped by attendants, at least in Atlixco.

Typical building with rebar poking out, just in case the owners decide to add a second story later.

The U.F.O.

The story behind this was told in Spanish, so I'm not sure what its purpose is.

Beside una cascada on our drive up to ride horses near Popocateptl.

A hard-working Mexican ant.

Returning to the truck with the active volcano, Popocateptl, in the background.

Fields of "Baby's Breath". There were also rose and marigold and other flower fields throughout the area.

Traffic congestion in rural Mexico.

Watering hole and laudromat all in one place.

Julio and I at the second waterfall.

Fresh coconut juice from a stand near the waterfall. After you finish drinking the juice, they cut the meat out and spice it with chili for you.

After giving up on horses, we decided to stop and check out the rainbow trout farm, San Baltazar Atlimeyaya, that is fed from natural springs rising from around the volcano.

The water was alive with fish, all trying to swim as far upcurrent as the mesh grates would let them.

Sorting the trout for size.

Before our spinning class in Armando's gym.

(Note: Armando's nickname is Cuco. Between the 8 kids there is Memo, Cuco, Beto, Bulma, Cris, Mano, Rica, and Julio)

Either a wave or a snake. We are still deciding.

Today was Thanksgiving, and the original plan was to spend it horseback riding around the National Park that encompasses the Popocateptl and Iztaccihuatl volcanoes. The legend is that the warrior Popocateptl was in love with the Aztec princess Iztaccihuatl and went to battle with a great rival to win her hand. Wrongly believing him dead, Iztaccihuatl died of a broken heart. In his grief, Popocatepl turned them both into these adjacent mountains. Iztaccihuatl is supposed to look like the outline of a reclining woman, but I can't see it. I saw information on the internet before I left about horseback tours of the surrounding areas, and I can't resist horseback rides in foreign countries. First of all, it is a great way to see an area with a 360 degree panoramic view. And secondly, most foreign places pay no mind to pesky liability insurance or prior background with riding. You just hop on and the next thing you know you are at a canter along the beach in Morocco, or galloping through apricot orchards in Turkey.

When we mentioned horseback riding to Julio yesterday, he immediately said that he could help us out. He knew a place that had horses and would drive us there and back if we wanted. Well, yeah! This is how, on our vacation, we ended up setting our alarm for 6:45 am, and were on a bus to Atlixco by 8. We had been told we needed to be up in the mountains to get the horses by 10, and it was going to be an hour to Atlixco and an hour from Atlixco after Julio picked us up to the horses. I am going to make this story very short. If I had known that Julio did not actually call anyone, or actually know whether the horses were available mid-week, perhaps I would have had a better day. Perhaps if I had made it a little clearer to both Memo and Julio what I was expecting, I would not have spent the day getting tenser and angrier as time passed and we were nowhere near horses. It turns out that we did not leave Atlixco at 9. Rather, we went to Julio's house and waited while he did laundry. I had some soup, and Memo used the wireless internet at his house. Around 11:15 we finally left the house, and first stopped at one of Julio's rental properties, which ended up being 25 minutes waiting in the truck. From then on, it was constant stopping of the car to look at this lookout, that view of Popocateptl, a graffitied "UFO", one waterfall, another waterfall, and then 45 minutes of meandering up a hill near waterfall #2. At this point, I was twitchy with grumpiness. We wanted to get back to Matamoros before dark, and things weren't looking good with the timing.

The horseback place was really a group of hotels around a trout farm up in the mountains, and when we arrived the place was deserted. Someone came out and we asked about horses, but it would take 30 minutes to get them ready and brought to us, and then the ride would only last 30 minutes. We said no thank you, but decided on a whim to buy the $3 entry tickets to the trout farm. All the water, which is kept moving from one end of the tanks to the other, comes from natural springs from the national park, and there were thousands upon thousands of fish in dozens of pristine concrete pools throughout the area. Finally having left behind the idea that we were going to go horseback riding, I relaxed and enjoyed feeding the fish. I need to look up on Google why they want to stick their noses on the mesh where the fresh water enters the tank.

The kids were back from school when we came back to Atlixco, and we had a "Thanksgiving" meal together. They ate fried trout and chicken and I ate some sort of fried outmeal fritter. We got Giovanni to sing "Las Mananitas" (a Mexican version of "Happy Birthday" in Nahautl and set Julio and I up as friends on Facebook so that he could look at our wedding photos. I have to interject here and explain that Nahautl is one of a group of related languages that were spoken by the Atzecs before the arrival of the Spaniards, and lives on in the smaller villages among the elderly. Over the weekend, we hope to go to a place called Tepotzlan where Nahautl is being taught in the schools to the younger generation. Nahautl is everywhere over here in the names of cities and villages. It is an "agglutinative" language, meaning that many words are formed by just adding shorter words together. Thus, you get cities like Atlacahualoya and Magdalene Tlatlauquitapec. I discovered that we have Nahautl words in English that came to us via the Spaniards: tomato (from Nahuatl tomatl, coyote (from Nahuatl coyotl), avocado (from Nahuatl ahuacatl), chile or chili (from Nahuatl chilli), and ocelot (from ocelotl).

We were back in Matamoros at about 6, which gave us time to hydrate and hang-out before going to his brother's spinning class at 7:15 pm. It was set up last week that I was going to teach a demonstration bellydance class at the gym on Friday at 8, so I wanted to go check out the gym. I brought hipscarves, music, cables, etc. with me for the occasion, and was planning on spending some time on Friday getting myself prepared to explain bellydance in Spanish. The spinning class was really good. We didn't get to go running in the morning because of the early hour we left for Atlixco, and it felt great to sweat. However, talking to Armando afterwards about the class wasn't so fun. He claimed that he was waiting for confirmation from us before announcing, and then he said something to Memo about his clients getting angry with him for getting them interested in a class and then not being able to follow-though. When we left, it was re-established that I was going to teach a demo class, but the more I thought about it I didn't want the stress and it was clear that he wasn't super excited about the class. We called and left him a voice mail, but haven't heard from him since. I hope it wasn't a problem to cancel the class that never really existed in the first place. I just wish that I hadn't brought the scarves...I would have a lot more room in my suitcase for gifts and treasures!

Tomorrow is Cuatla with Sixta to visit her sister. Good night to all of those reading this post. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends or family.