some staycation and vacation

We’ve been having a great time on “vacation” with Django. On Sunday, we showed him our regular weekend bus routes and hangouts. We went to Pastitos park, where we encountered some folks practicing archery, which was a nice twist.

lucas and zeiva watching some archers at the park

note the guy standing RIGHT NEXT TO the target, holding
the balloon tied onto the end of an arrow. zeiva and i were
elsewhere, but lucas and django did report to us later that someone
was finally shot in the arm.

zeiva headed off for her regular cardio exercise routine

this was a new little corner of the park that we discovered.
note the death-trap slide - super tall vertical ladder and no sides
whatsoever to the slide itself...

this is the swing-set frame. no swings left, so zeiva turned it
into a giant monkey bar

The kids showed Papá their favorite bikes at Jardín del Cantador and did some riding, and afterwards did some more goofing around.

We also watched most of a soccer game at the field nearby. Almost every evening we’ve had intense rain, thunder and lightning storms, which has been great. The kids love them – at this point, they strip down to varying degrees and go running outside to get soaked.

Monday we went the Valenciana mine, which is several kilometers up the mountain range outside of town. There are huge silver veins in this region – supposedly in the 1500s and 1700s the dozen or so mines within a few kilometers of Guanajuato produced 60-75% of the world’s silver. Three shafts are deep enough to still be functioning, and we went and visited an area of one of those three that’s open to the public. We descended about 70 meters into the old “shaft”, which was built of stone stairs from the first couple hundred years when all tools and all stones were brought up and down on the backs of the indigenous slaves working the mines.

descending into the valenciana mine

the entryway to the mine and the surrounding view

many of the churches in the area were built by the silver barons, who promised god that they would build something in his honor if their mine was productive. this is the valenciana church, and in the foreground you can see the ruin walls of the area where they kept the indigenous slaves captive to work in the mines.

inside the valenciana church - the mines also produce some gold
(though little compared to silver) and this is all gold leaf

one of the valenciana church domes

We also took Lucas to his first real soccer class. He had a great time and hopefully we’ll be able to go twice a week until we leave. GO BALLARD FREE KICKERS! ;)

django and zeiva also worked on their soccer moves during
class. this is zeiva's signature double-blast!

i know i'm biased, but they sure are cute!

Tuesday and Wednesday we took an overnight trip to San Miguel de Allende (SMA), a nearby town that is known for its art, culture, cuisine, endless churches, wealth and huge American and Canadian ex-pat community. Our bus ride took about an hour and 15 minutes. Once we got rolling, we were actually kind of relieved to see a kids’ animation come on, though it appeared to be well underway (perhaps they started up where they’d left off from the previous voyage).

we got there at 9:03 am and the schedule said there was a 9:00 am bus. we asked if it was still at the station, and the guy left briefly, came back, said, yes, it's still there, and sold us tickets for it. we ran out in the very general direction he indicated, found a bus under the SMA sign with no driver, asked around, and were greeted with shrugs. apparently the other bus drivers don't have a clue beyond their own bus. we ran back into the ticket counter, asked again, and the guy came out with us and said, oh, sorry, the bus is gone. it was way over there, under a different SMA sign. argh! we had to wait an hour and pay more because the 10 am bus was first class plus instead of just first class. oh well, zeiva made herself comfortable for the wait.

the first 30 minutes of the ride was easy....zombie children in front of the screen.

However, after “Despicable Me” ended, a move called “Legion” appeared. I had never heard of it, but Wikipedia describes it as an “apocalyptic supernatural thriller film – rated R for strong, bloody violence” and within minutes there were half-naked men hacking off each other’s wings and killing policemen in dark settings. YIKES! The kids have never seen a live action move, much less an R-rated film. You can see where the kids were seating relative to the screen! I tried to close it, but it is remotely operated and it would just open back up again. We made the kids move seats and told them they HAD to look out the window, but Lucas’ eyes especially kept wandering back to the screen. We finally wrapped one of the window curtains around it so it was completely covered. And don’t worry, there were screens every couple of rows and the women behind us (who didn’t have their headphones on) said they didn’t mind at all. From then on, we just enjoyed the scenery.

that's corn, as far as the eye can see...

We went mostly for the nearby hot springs, of which there are many. We didn’t go to the rustic, peaceful kind that you probably think of when you hear the term (despite how nice that would have been for Django and me). Instead, we decided to give the kids a day that was just for them.

the one we went to is called Xote - see it in the topiary? - and it is all hot spring-fed pools, each a different
temperature, but as you can see below, it's an incredible water park!

our own little personal palapa

some of the larger slides

lucas shooting out one of the big slides. neither lucas or zeiva could get enough of these slides, they spent literally a couple of hours over the course of the day just running up, sliding down, running up, sliding down.

ok, this is the same red slide as above, but it's to show part of the monster blue-and-white slide above. lucas and django raced down it and i have it on video, but i keep getting told that there's an error processing the file when i try to insert it. needless to say, they were going REALLY fast and it was very exciting for both of them.
p.s. lucas won, but he left about 5 seconds before django.

aside from the water areas, this facility had gorgeous grounds as well as picnic areas with bbq pits, a sand volleyball court, a soccer field...it was endless.

at about 5 pm some major thunderclouds rolled in and we all hit the changing rooms. when we came back out, this is what it looked like. we were the last ones in the park!

On Wednesday, after getting even more swimming in at the hotel, we did do a little wandering around SMA proper. 

the pool at the hotel. when we first checked in, lucas did NOT want to go to Xote, he just wanted to stay here. fortunately, he later agreed that Xote had been worth it. however, they were equally excited to go for a swim at the hotel the next day.

our hotel room. lucas only fell onto the hard tile
floor once in the middle of the night (in the morning he insisted
he hadn't because he didn't remember it happening).

the terrace right outside our room. unfortunately, the curtain was a light,
semi-sheer white and they didn't turn the lights out until 11 pm. there was also a little sign under our TV that said, "avoid problems - keep the volume turned low". meanwhile, they had a soccer game going in the lobby, about 20 feet from the door of our room, going at full blast until late into the night. the kids were fine after an exhausting day at the water park, but django and i did not sleep well....

templo de nuestra señora de la salud

inside templo de nuestra señora de la salud

plaza de la soledad

templo de san francisco de asis

inside templo de san francisco de asis

the most famous of SMA's churches - parroquia de san miguel arcangel

lucas and zeiva getting right in there with the locals as they worship

inside parroquia de san miguel arcangel

according to the lonely planet, this much-revered image
of christ of the conquest was made of cornstalks and
orchid bulbs in the 16th century. 

We only had the stamina for a handful of churches, and then with just an hour before our bus departure, we did a speed-trek to a glassware factory. You know, the typical clear glasses with the cobalt ring around the top. They make them just outside of SMA. So we raced into the factory shop (we’d heard you could buy items cheap there) and found 9 glasses that are roughly the same size and shape (for about $8 total!). We didn’t really find another obvious way into the factory, so even though we’d hoped that the kids could see some glass-blowing, we made a run back to the bus station for our trip back to Guanajuato. We made it just in time, and the kids dozed off just as another R-rated movie came on!

  

The only other tidbits to share are that Lucas has been amazing about trying food, and has discovered that he really likes the (somewhat spicy) green mole that we bought in town and that Django cooked up deliciously with pork. He also tried a garbanzo, tomato and nopale gordita filling from a street vendor in SMA and really liked it. We’d hoped to come back to her for lunch but ran out of time. The last worthy mention is that Lucas was Skyping with his best buddy Jacob, and a cousin of Jacob’s was briefly in the video picture. Lucas asked who it was and then because he wanted to see him again, he said, “Puedo ver?” It was so awesome! Both kids are talking up a storm in Spanish – something kicked in and there is no holding them back now…hurray!

i had to put this photo in because i have many "memories" that are probably reconstructions from photos just like this of my brother and i traveling in latin american countries with my parents. we were never really allowed sodas at home, but of course because of the water issues, we often got to drink them when in Mexico, Argentina, etc. it's such a strong association, and part of that connection is because they taste completely different because they are different recipes. i'm sure we were completely ungrateful and pains in the you-know-what at the time, but i am so grateful now to Nani and Belo for traveling so much with us when we were kids and for speaking spanish to us at home so it would be so easy to speak it later. gracias!