Les Cing Filles, Tepexpan and Easter

(You may have noticed that I have removed the more recent posts about the house. We are in the middle of negotiations about the changes to our house, and I don't want to mess things up with any off-the-cuff statements on the blog. I will have a complete recap when things are settled.)

The week before last Christiane's sisters spent 10 days with us, two in Mexico City and the rest in Querétaro. We managed to get a sunburn in Mexico City with the double decker tour buses, visited the Templo Major, Alameda, and the historic district. They were pretty tired out so we did not see Chapultepec, Coyoacan, San Angel, etc. Maybe next time. However we were serenaded in our hotel restaurant by a Swiss men's yoddling choir in town for a music festival, a rare and unusual experience.

We also managed to visit la peña de Bernal, the cactus nursery at Cadereyta (one of our most interesting and appreciated spots to bring tourists, believe it or not), San Miguel de Allende, and Guanajuato. We also had a going away party in our apartment before they left.

I have posted a few pictures on Flicker. (Please excuse the lack of accents and any sense of French spelling on my part.)

Last week, Niels invited me to accompany him to Tepexpan where there is a museum on Tepexpan Man (the first speciman of early man found in Mexico in 1917). He had been invited to the reopening of the museum after its renovation for the 50th anniversary of the discovery. Why was he invited? Two reasons: one is that his father was the archaeologist who found it; and the second is that he was there the day it was found. His father died in the 1960s, and Niels has all his papers. It appears that the museum does not even have the original final report from 1949. So Niels is loaning them a bunch of stuff for the museum and to make copies of, including a picture of his father and of the site at the time of the excavation (flat, no trees, no town, nothing). We had a great time. Niels was treated like a rock star (everyone wanted a picture with him and to get his autograph) and I was treated as his main groupie. Pretty cool. Here are some pix. No pix on the party afterwards, sorry.

This weekend is Easter, and I have included some photos of this year's doings, or at least some of them, in Queretaro. Check here for the photos. Tonight we will be burning and exploding judas figures in the streets. I will try to remember to bring my camera.