Desafortunadamente, the group's flight from Texas was delayed an hour, but finally they walked through the gate. A little explanation on the group: these were friends of Whitney's from a Christian organization she had been a part of during her undergrad at Chapel Hill. There were six visitors in total, a married couple Rob and Jenn, and four students, Shania, Katherine, Christy, and Matt. They also had two large presents for me in the form of two duffel bags packed to the gills with things from home. Among the goodies: Reese's (which doesn't exist in Mexico), dark chocolate (which is hard to find in Mexico), my soccer cleats, P90X, and a special surprise of strawberry cake mix and icing for my birthday cake. It was like a late Christmas and an early birthday all in one!
Anyway, back to Saturday. Introductions were exchanged and we loaded up the van. On our way out of Mexico City we stopped for tacos for dinner, the group's first taste of authentic Mexican food. It went over pretty well. We also drove through my first storm here; it started as we were leaving the city and followed us most of the way back to Cuernavaca. We made it to the Internet in time for the last six minutes of the Duke game (this was the real reason why their delay was so desafortunadamente), but couldn't find the actual game online so instead we lived through the suspense via updated scores. And we won! By a lot! Take that Duke! So UNC is the official ACC champion. Yippee! I stayed for the end of the game, hung out a bit, and then headed back to volunteer central in time to join for more tacos (I just joined, I didn't eat).
Sunday was tour day. Whitney took the lead on this as I hadn't seen too much of touristy Cuernavaca. We started at a cute little restaurant for breakfast, headed to the Borda Gardens after that, the Robert Brady Museum, the Cuernavaca Cathedral, and Cortes' Palace. All were places I had never been before (except for the cathedral) and I enjoyed playing the part of tourist as much as our guests.
One of the views from Cortes' Palace with Matt in the foreground. The Palace overlooks the Zocolo, or the central plaza of Cuernavaca.
The Palace has been turned into a museum of the region. Here is the hall of Diego Rivera's mural. He was commissioned to paint the history of the state of Morelos.
We ate after the Palace and the group did a little shopping in the local market. The rest then decided to head back to the house for a bit of a break before heading back into the city later. I had to get back to Miacatlan that night so I went separately. I made it back to the volunteer house in Cuerna just in time to catch Dan and Andrew and the three of us left together. We had a dinner of tacos (again :-P) back in Miacatlan and I unpacked all of my beautiful things before calling it a night.
