Zacatecas Day 2

The next day we ate breakfast at a beautiful restaurant with wonderful food-chilaquiles, pan dulce, café americano, huevos-a-la-mexicano, fruta con yogur y granola---ahhh!--- and waitresses in really cute uniforms! (L to R: Nicole, Sarah-one of the 5 Sarahs in our program-, Kellee, Hans, Amy, and Jessica)


Then we traveled about an hour to “La Quemada,” literally, “the burned,”—the location of several pyramid ruins, which apparently the inhabitants intentionally burned when the migrated to another area. They are different in style from those we saw in Teotihuacan; they didn’t have the plumbing technology, and they had more alters and huge basin-like places of sacrificing (yes, humans, too) and offering. The origins and purpose behind some of the structures, like some huge groups of columns, are still not understood. And ironically, when some of the students in my group started to read some of the plaques on site that explained some of the structures, our tour guide explained that the plaques, as well as other tour guides, have different explanations for many of the history there. This made me wonder how much was really true and what do people know, if much at all, about this place! The pictures show the bones from leftover sacrifices (located in a nearby museum), a view from the pyramid, and a window from the top of the pyramid.

That afternoon we when to the Museum “Virreinal de Guadalupe,” a former (and one of the first in Latin America) convent, now full of artwork of various saints, martyrs, friars, and portrayals of the life of Christ. I spent much of this day chatting with my sweet professor, Rocío, and besides thoroughly enjoying our conversation, I was grateful for the opportunity to practice more Spanish conversation. Usually when we spend a lot of time traveling with the group, we hear a lot of Spanish (from the guides), but we mostly speak English to one another. Back at the hotel, I slept for a while-because I was feeling a little sick from our lunch -before going out to a café with my girlfriends, and later catching up on some homework. Ashley and I went window shopping that night. Here's a hat I found...watch out!