Guadalupe, carne asada, and horses

So last Sunday (23rd of August) was the last day in a local event called Oaxaca in Guadalupe. Guadalupe is a suburb of Monterrey, so we joined up with the other Volunteer nearby to see what the event was like. It was being held in the central plaza of Guadalupe (every town in México has one). The main church (also standard in all towns) is pictured here. The event itself hadn´t picked up yet as of noon, so we just browsed the stalls for a bit then took off.



Last night I went to my first carne asada in México, which is equivalent to a barbeque in the US. It was hosted by work to welcome all of the new people that we have been hiring. I think since I started 3 months ago, we´ve gone from 27 employees to...35, plus 5 interns? Food on the grill!



Today, a couple of us went to Cola de Caballo, a waterfall south of Monterrey. It hasn't rained much here, so the water level was probably down, but it was still a fun trip. Up in the mountains it was noticeably cooler than in the city, which was great!

5th International Film Festival

My triumph of the week actually happened early in the week, when I finally got Internet at home. This adventure (which deserves its own rant) took a little over 3 weeks to accomplish, but I won't get into the gory details. Suffice it to say that I am now locked into a contract for Internet until I leave México...

Friday started the 5th International Film Festival in Monterrey, so I decided to volunteer to check it out. I was assigned to the press area. I had the chance to watch a documentary called Big River Man about the Slovakian swimming, Martin Strel, who has swum the entire lengths of the Danube, Mississippi, Yangtze, and most recently, the Amazon. I also sat in on a panel discussion with Bruce Beresford, the director of Driving Miss Daisy. His next movie is a story about a Chinese ballet dancer, Mao´s Last Dancer, and comes out next year. It sounded interesting, so I hope I can watch it. Here is a picture of Bruce at the panel (guy in the white t-shirt).

Matacanes pictures and cooking

Ok, so I finally got some pictures from Matacanes. The bare bones numbers are on my last post, but this is the one group jump that we did. Pretty short, maybe 3-4 m? I'm wearing the red lifevest on the left.



Last Sunday morning I also hit up some of the city museums in downtown Monterrey. The Museo de Historia Mexicana and the Museo del Noreste. They were both pretty interesting, but the Mexican history was very high level. The exhibits started from pre-hispanic cultures and continued to present day. They had some interesting colonial stuff, including arts and culture in México. No pictures allowed in either museum, but they had these giant statues outside (I think they are the museum mascots...).

Matacanes and PC Plumbing

So Matacanes was really fun, but very intense. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures yet, since I didn´t take my personal camera (and I´m glad I didn´t!), but hopefully the guide will send us our pictures soon. In a nutshell:

• Got up at 3:15 AM to catch a ride
• Got back home after midnight
• In between, did 27 cliff jumps of various heights. Highest was 12 m (~40 ft), with a couple of 8 m ones mixed in
• 2 rappels, highest was 36 m
• Ton of rock slides (which I loved!)
• 12 hours of walking, climbing, jumping, swimming, rappelling, etc.
• 1 soaked and destroyed cell phone (hence why I´m glad I didn´t also have my camera)

For some reason, I also ate a ton more during the hike than everyone else in my group. I had 8 Snicker´s bars, 8 granola bars, and drank about 2 L of water. Right afterwards, I also wolfed down half a roast chicken, rice, and beans. Guess I still have that high metabolism...

An interesting note on the 12 m cliff jump. On the way down, I was watching the water, and I actually had enough time to think to myself, Hm, I haven´t hit the water yet... That´s how long it takes to fall 12 m...

On the plumbing note, I had bought a washer for my house, to save on laundromat costs. There was a perfect space to hook it up in the back patio, but when I went to connect everything, I couldn´t find a cold water hookup available. So, over the course of a week, I basically had to rig together this T-pipe plus washer faucet plus hose contraption to keep water flowing to the house while also providing cold water to the washer. Very professional!