A Few Additions to the Last Update

I just realized I forgot to mention going to the Great Pyramid of Cholula (Tlachihualtepetl) in my last update! Last weekend Liz, Stephanie and I finally went! It's the biggest pyramid in the world by volume. When we first got inside, it was a long narrow tunnel with wings leading to nowhere, or to huge staircases but were blocked off. Towards the end (which I didn't know was the end at the time), the walls kept getting closer and closer together, and the celing kept getting lower and lower. We were kind of starting to get claustrophobic, but then we turned a corner and saw light. It was interesting, but kind of creepy because we were only in a little tiny tunnel for a little ways in a huge pyramid. When we got out we turned the corner and headed up the giant set of stairs leading to the church on the top. It took us forever to get up because there were so many stairs and it was wearing us out because they were all so steep. When we got to the top, we went the the entrance of the church, but there was a service. Now, I don't know who would venture all the way up to the top of a 250 feet tall mountain every sunday to go to church, but it was packed all the way out the door. While on top, we kept hearing a booming sound, like fireworks or something, but we didn't know what it was. The ruins at the bottom were all really confusing, because I'm pretty sure there were several civilizations that used the same site. There were stairs on top of stairs, stairs leading to nowhere, walls over walls, all different brick, etc. Near the stairs that have been excavated and restored (the rest of the pyramid has not yet been excavated and just looks like a huge hill covered in grass with a church on top), there was a reenactment of a ceremony of somesort. There were two men dressed in the biggest headdress I have ever seen, decorated with feathers as tall as they were, a hat made of a leopard's head, bone necklaces, shells around their calves, and other types of jewelry. After the pyramid, we walked near the Zocalo to get something to eat, and while eating we heard another "BOOM" but this time it sounded like it was right outside. We walked closer to the Zocalo and saw a bunch of people crowded around. They were watching a bunch of men dressed as Turks, or Russians, or something shooting what looked like a huge bonfire, without the fire. We were a little puzzled as to why people were dressed up, why they were shooting fake guns at a pile of sticks, and why so many people were watching them. A few minutes later a parade came by, they were headed for the Zocalo to join the others. We were beyond ready to leave because it was so loud and there were so many people, but we couldn't find a taxi that would take us back to campus (we eventually did, but much later). I asked one of my profesors who lives in Cholula what it was all about, and she said that it was Cholula's version of Carnival. It was called the dance of the Huehues.

Another addition: today there was "community day" on campus, and they had all kinds of food (not free, Ibero doesn't know how to attract college students), a bungee jump trampoline contraption, inflated American Gladiator type arena, and so on. When I walked past the cheerleaders (or dance team maybe?) were dancing to Britney Spears, and on our way to dance class tonight, we walked past again and they were doing lucha libre (ever seen the movie, Nacho Libre? yeah, like that) which is Mexico's version of professional wrestling where huge men put on tight pants and masks and "wrestle". It was more like watching sausages in glittery casings pretend to fight and pretend to get hurt and flip around. It made me embarassed for human kind. Maybe I'm not being a culturally sensitive as I should be, but professional wresting anywhere is pretty bogus. That's all for now that I can remember!