Hola!

Did you wonder if I was still alive? Well, after a VERY long bus ride around many, many, many curves up, over and through the mountains - we made it to the coast. Ammann and I stumbled off the bus holding our stomachs and barely holding in our food!

It took us a week of 4 hours a day travel to go from our last place to this one. We are currently in Bucerias (north of Puerto Vallarta) and will be going to Yelapa next week. There is a more direct route here, but I wanted to see some other parts of Mexico that were different from where we had been living. Also, I wanted to head to the Monarch Butterfly reserve.

We made many stops getting here. Our first was Guanajuato and the next was Morelia. It was here that we learn about helado de pasta! - muy interesante! You probably think we eat a lot of ice cream - we do! It's an afternoon treat a few times a week. I use it as a bribe for my kids so I can drag them to one more museum or cultural event! Morelia is a city of 600.000 and full of history and modern emenities. I think I may have seen the largest fireworks display of my life! It was all done for the weekly lighting of the church. Yes, every Saturday, a massive firework's
display occurs to light up the two 70 meter steeples of the church in the plaza. Apparantly fireworks are really cheap here and used for every occasion. In fact I tend to hear fireworks on a daily basis - they are used as a celebratory item for birthdays, weddings, fiestas, etc.

Aside from the amazing fireworks, we also made a 7 hour car journey and 1 hour hike to see the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary. It is here that 200 million Monarch Butterflies return each year from their epic 4500 mile journey from the Great Lakes region of the U.S! The quick story is this. The butterflies come here in November. They hang out (literally "hang out" in groups of thousands on limbs of the pine trees - sometimes there are so many butterflies on the branches that the branches snap right off the trees!) So they hang out until the middle or end of March when they mate. Now here's the interesting part. This mating ritual and event all takes place in the air. The male carries the female and gives her all his nutrients and energy. Then he immediately dies. She, feeling rejuvenated and lively flies north to Texas and lays her eggs in the milkweed plants. When these eggs mature to butterflies they then fly to the Great Lakes and lay more eggs. So, at this point it takes 3 generations to get to the northern US from the middle of Mexico. Now, guess what these 4th generation butterflies do? Yep, they fly direct (a few stops I am sure) from the Great Lakes all the way down to central Mexico. How do they know where to go? It's still an mystery. Scientists still don't know how 4 generations later, the butterflies know to return to the same spot. It was magical to be walking around and having thousands of butterflies flying around you. photos don't do it justice - but check them out.

From Morelia we journeyed to Guadalajara. This was supposed to just be a quick stop over on our way to the coast, but it turned out to be so much more. It is a city of 3 million and full of culture, beautiful plazas, really expensive shopping (it's where all the local rich people come to get home decorations) and sadly, some pretty significant poverty. People here were quite kind considering we were in a big city. As in Morelia, there were almost no Americans, so it was a great place to practice our Spanish. In fact there was a payaso (clown) in the plaza doing games in front of about 300 people and he asked for volunteers. Ammann, my son, jumped right up and kept up with the games even though his Spanish isn't perfect - he went for it! More courage than I would have had at 8 years old!

I also got to watch the Danza de los Viejitos (a very traditional dance I'll try to demonstrate when I come back if you all don't laugh at me too much!!), some "tranquilo" native Purechupe Indian dancing and lively, colorful dancing from the coastal area.
Here, each region in each different state has it's own culture and customs within the larger culture of Mexico.
It makes me realize how much we lost in the US by creating reservations, instead of honoring the cultural traditions of the Native Americans. Here the traditions of the Indian culture are honored and presented with pride throughout the country and throughout the year. Not just at Pow=Wows.

Here's my interesting custom to share with you this week. It's about bakerys! When you go to a bakery here - small or very large, you grab a large silver/tin tray and a pair of tongs as you enter. You then walk around and, using the tongs, place what breads you want on your tray. When you've got what you want, you take your tray up to a counter where women individually wrap your goods, price them and then give them to you in several bags. From there, you go to another place in the store to pay for them! Donuts are not common. The bakerys have things
like sweet breads, chile & pollos stuffed tortas, large sprinkle cookies, bolillos and jello desserts.

Another quick thing here. I am staying with a family who is bi-cultural. The husband is from Spain and the wife from China. They taught me today about the time zone here. In Bucerias, we are on the same time as you. However, just 10 minutes from here in Puerto Vallarta - they are in Central time. So each day,we gain and lose an hour when we go to town!

One other thing they told me today of the school here. In the middle of January, the teachers decided it was too cold to start school at 9:30 in the morning, so they just told all the parents and students that starting the next day school would start an hour later so that the school could be warmer for the kids when they got there. (remember there is no heating in schools and all the walls are concrete) However, guess how cold it was? A freezing 65 degrees!!! Bet you wish it were that easy to change the school schedule in CFalls?!! Didn't I hear too that you have been having a really cold week?! Here's the other funny part. You'd think if you started an hour later you'd go an hour longer - nope! They only have to go until 1:30 just like always! Sounds good to you all I bet!


Words of the week:
Que esta padre! - That's so cool!
Que childo! - Cool (used by younger kids like yourself - considered not a very educated way of expressing yourself - but used a ton here anyway!)
panchado - flat (as in the tire of the car we rented for one day!!)

Thinking of you all and sending warm weather your way! I have much more to tell you, but it's late at night and I must sleep!
hasta luego..
Sra. Koch

p.s. I have lots more pictures to post. but need to download them!