My first weekend adventure

My past weekend was simply a dream. We took two buses and a taxi deep into the heart of Huasteca, a region in the mountains with a very jungle like climate. We arrived, six foreigners (two from the States, one from Canada, another from Turkey, and lastly, Germany) at los Tipis Friday afternoon and immediately felt relaxed and right at home.

 I woke up that morning and took a bath and read my book on the roof of the main yellow building and enjoyed views of green, dense jungle that covered the mountain side. Later that afternoon we walked up the hill to the surreal statue gardens of Edward James, a man from England who escaped the everyday world to create his own dream land. His property had waterfalls with swimming pools, massive buildings of detailed staircases and floral accents. He created his own world.

Later that evening we hired a tour guide to take us to El Sotano de guayguay's, a huge cave/ sinkhole and a good hike into the jungle. Every night 100,000's of sparrows return home. The first circle above in a group, then by some force of nature, dive into the cave at great speeds. They sounded like whips shooting into the cave. Green parrots crowded the trees around the caves and squawked at the show. Apparently it is good luck if you get pooped on, and all of us were lucky that day. We ate enchiladas huastecas from the local natives that take care of the land. Most of the tiny towns in the mountains are indigenous (I learned in class that Mexico has 69 different spoken languages thanks to the native population, and sadly indigenous languages world wide are rapidly going extinct and unspoken). Our bus ride home the next day transported many going to and from the big Sunday markets to feed their families or sell their products. I feel like we got to experience a whole different culture in Mexico. It was beautiful. It was a small insight on the different social situations in Mexico and the big difference between urban, city living and life on the outside.