Over the Rainbow.......

Well, this isn't really the Land of Oz, but it sure is a wonderful place to spend the winter!   I get to see beautiful place like this waterfall south of Tacambaro - which I'll tell you about below.

My friend Georgia is "madrina" (honorary mother) for a local family with 3 children, and she invited me to the wedding of the parents at the church here in Arocutin on Jan. 10th.  Georgia and I were the only gringos present.  Here are the bride and groom being serenaded before the ceremony by the Mariachi band, which Georgia sponsored:

I took a few short videos of the Mariachi band playing & singing both before and during the service, and of the Banda, which played their very different style of music after the service as they led the wedding party through the streets of Arocutin and then played for the dancing.  I've tried uploading a short video of the Mariachi band - we'll see if this works!.

The next day I took a bus trip with friends Tom, Kim and Rocky to Tacambaro, a Pueblo Magico dubbed "The Balcony of the Hot Lands", perched about 1300 feet lower than Patzcuaro and looking down on the hotter lowlands. It's warmer there than here - lots of banana, mango and avocado trees grow at this lower elevation, as well as huge fields of blackberries, most of which are exported to the U.S.

View toward the lowlands from Tacambaro

We wandered through town and bought natural fruit drinks at the market, then took a taxi (nice to be able to split the fare!)  down to a nearby small crater lake.

Great tangled roots of a huge yellow tree by the parking area.

Several locals were fishing there - and cooking their catches on the spot over wood fires.  We chatted a bit with the families and this sweet little boy offered us a dead bat his family had found in the water:

We politely declined!

We checked out a couple of  short trails along the shore.  One took us to an isolated spot where Tom went for a skinny-dip (the water looked a bit too dirty for my comfort), and the other took us to this view of a large oak tree leaning out over the water:

A mirador on a hill overlooking the lake gave us a view of the surrounding countryside:

And a friendly Mexican tourist used Rocky's cell phone to take a pic of the four of us above the lagoon:

Rocky, Me, Kim & Tom

We walked back out to the main road and caught another taxi down to a road that led in to a beautiful waterfall.  Along the road were more yellow trees with tangled roots clinging to the cliffs:

And the waterfall was no disappointment:

The waterfall was next to a swimming pool and a little restaurant.  There we met a couple of local gay guys who were eating lunch and drinking cocktails and who invited us to sit and talk:

Alfredo and Miguel

Alfredo only spoke Spanish and was pretty quiet, but Miguel had spent some time in the States and spoke some English, and we chatted in a mixture of Spanish and English.  They told us about a local dish that was available at a little restaurant in their nearby village - and then called and ordered it for us.  About 20 minutes later a guy arrived on a motorcycle with our bola - a filling of cooked dried beef, beans, cheese and spices wrapped up in many little tortillas so that it looked like a flower bud:

The bola, partially unwrapped.

It was delicious, washed down with a Mexican beer.  We ate it at a table overllooking the swimming pool, palm trees and the waterfall:

The pool looked very inviting - but I hadn't thought to bring a swimsuit.

Back in Tacambaro, we wandered through the interesting little town some more:

Fountain on the Plaza

A newer church had lovely stained glass, a gorgeous view out its doors - and great acoustics.  I sang a bit of Gregorian chant, which reverberated off the walls.

Looking up into the dome of the older church on the plaza.

Every once in a while there's a great free concert here in Patzcuaro.  Often there isn't much publicity about them, so I'm very grateful to David Haun, who runs a Yahoo group dedicated to the arts in the area called Michoacan_Net.  Through the group I learned of a lovely concert on the 16th:  A soprano and a mezzo-soprano, accompanied on piano,  singing works by Mozart, Vivaldi. Bizet and many others.  What a treat!

On the 17th I finally took a boat ride out to the steep-sided island of Janitzio,  which I can see from my bed.  It's topped by the 162-ft. statue of Jose Morelos, a hero of the Mexican revolution.

Notice the fishermen in their canoes with their butterfly nets.  Many men used to make their living harvesting fish from this huge lake - before the water level declined and the pollution level rose.  Now they mostly pose for the tourist boats and then paddle up alongside to pass the hat.

 I purposely went on a weekend day to get the full tourist experience with the many Mexican visitors (I didn't see any other gringos). Walked up through the town that clings to the side of the hill, past many tacky souvenir shops and restaurants (in one of which I had lunch & a beer for about $3.75) to the huge, hollow stone statue at the top. Paid my $.70 and nervously climbed the winding, mural-lined stairway that clings to the inside wall:

Looking up inside the statue, with the stairway winding up along the walls

The stairs go up through the body of the statue and then a small spiral staircase goes up through the  upraised arm to the observation deck just below the statue's wrist. Great views!

I made my way back down the hill via a paved road that circles down from the back of the  statue.  A couple views fromm the roadway:

Back at the base of the hill I followed a road that circled the island, enjoying the sights of the village (I passed a wedding banquet in someone's yard) and the lake:

Fishing canoe, nets and snowy egret.

Little Egret showing off his plumage

On the 19th I took another trip I'd been meaning to make for a while.  I took a couple combis to get to the nearby village of Tsintsuntsan (love the name, pronounced tseen-tsoon'-tsan). It was once the capital of the Tarascan (aka Purepecha) empire, which included the present Michoacan state as well as parts of several neighboring states, and flourished for 600 years, up until the time of the conquistadors. Visited the ruins of the Tarascan city - where, in contrast to my trip to Janitzio, I was the only visitor for most of my stay. Most of the city, which once held 30,000 to 40,000 people, was destroyed by the Spanish. What remains are 5 partially-restored rounded-rectangle stone platforms, called yacatas, which probably were topped by temples, plus the bases of a few other buildings.
 

Approaching the rectangular end of a yacata (temple platform) through the trees.

The rounded end of a yacata

Ate lunch in the village and had my first "gordita" - a little stuffed tortilla, much like the pupusas of El Salvador. These were the first I had seen made with blue corn and mine had a potato, cheese and spice filling. Delicious!


In town I explored the old convent of Santa Ana, with it's huge courtyard and a couple of churches.

Temple of Our Lady of Solitude

Mural in a little open-ended chapel

This is one of the olive trees planted in the courtyard of the convent by Vasco de Quiroga in the mid-16th century and still alive!  It's probably 20 feet in diameter.

Instead of heading back to Patzcuaro by the same route, I took a long walk on a little-used paved road that was carved into the hillsides above Lake Patzcuaro until I reached a combi waiting area near a dock and caught a ride back to Patzcuaro.

View from the road.  The dome is apparently on a private chapel

String of Islands on Lake Patzcuaro

And just 2 days ago I walked to my friend Charle's place in Eronga, then up to the ruins of the Eronga train station - which are quite a ways from the village. The tracks are still used for through freight trains, but there's no passenger service anymore.

Ruins of the old Eronga train station

This round building next to the station has a large rectangular stone chimney-like structure from floor to ceiling inside.  Not sure what it was used for.  There's a door at ground level, so it wasn't a water tank - but maybe there was a wooden water tank on its flat roof.

Had a nice chicken mole lunch in town afterwards for $2.45 - then had coffee and chocolate cake at Dona Mary's before shopping at the market.

So that brings us pretty much up to date.  I'm about half-way through this stay in the Patzcuaro, Mexico area - but I'm already thinking ahead to my next stint in Latin America - so I've used the last of my United Airlines frequent-flyer miles to purchase a ticket to Ecuador!  Planning to spend the summer in Cotacachi, high in the Andes.

Happy trails to all of you!

My favorite of all the pics I've taken here of a cowboy taking his cows to pasture.