Mexico with Señor Oswald: Mexico City and Teotihuacán

From Guadalajara to Mexico City the road started rather steep as we climbed out of the mountains surrounding Guadalajara and headed to Mexico City.  On of the first activities in Mexico City was to attend a bull fight.  Doug (Tigre) Barker was very impressed with the bull fight as a bull at one point got of the inner ring and someone was gored in the process of getting the bull back into the ring.

The last day in Mexico we visited Teotihuacán, ancient Aztecan ruins.  Here they have the Pyramid of the Sun and the Moon.  I climbed to the top of the Moon, and have always regretted not going up the Pyramid of the Sun, which was taller.  I did take a picture of the Sun from the top of the Moon.

The last legs of our trip was a train rid from Mexico City to the border.  We slept on this train, and it had a dining car.  After arriving at El Paso, we took a bus from there home.  The entire visit was two weeks.

Mexico with Señor Oswald: Guadalajara

Guadalajara was fun, but not a first day.  We arrived at the institute where they put us all in taxis to host families.  The taxi couldn't find our family, so he drove us back to the institute and dumped us off.  We would have spent the night on the grass, but a family of missionaries picked us up and kept us that night.  We had free time every day.  I roomed with a kid from Brigham City named Gordon.  Our family took us for a riding tour of the city.  One night we visited the baseball stadium to watch the Jalisco Jays play.  They were semi-professional level.  They had a very large Black man playing first base who was very good.  We drove past the soccer stadium, which of course was much larger than the baseball stadium.  Gordon and I attending a dance at the Mormon church for young mens while we were there.  It was really fun, except for the drink the served.  I don't know what it was other than nasty.  There were many girls to dance with.  Gordon and I also found ourselves at a playground with outdoor basketball.  We took on a couple of locals, and lost to our shame.  With the group of travelers we visited a glass industry and watched people blow glass.  I purchased glasses but we were warned not to actually use them for the lead in the glass.  One night there was a big party at a host's home.  They paid for mariachi and it was a big deal.  It was fun with great food.
We ate mostly with our host family, cornflakes with bananas for breakfast, and then traditional dinner.  This often included tortillas.  Left over tortillas were used for making soup, and a pasta like dish.  I remember a big cockroach in the bathroom.  I didn't know what to do with it so I killed it with my shoe and left it there.  We also ate out often.  There was an ice cream shop close to the institute.  the institute was also close to a cathedral. 

The institute where we arrived the first day, and where we returned every day for class

The cathedral.  There were two old and new

glass blowing

views of Guadalajara

This guy taught us songs at the institute including Ay Jalisco

Church by where we stayed

One of the host families sponsored a party for us with mariachi

and dancing

Traveling through Matzatlan with Señor Oswald.

Boarding the bus in Logan

Between my Junior and Senior years of high school, (summer of 1974) I traveled with a group of Spanish students from Sky View to Mexico for a week.  Señor Oswald organized the trip.  Our destination was an institute in Guadalajara.  I can only remember that Terry Caldwell was with us, and perhaps Claudia Houston.  Our first significant stop was Mazatlan.  We crossed the border at Nogales, having gone through Phoenix and Tucson, and continued south to Hermosillo.  In Hermosillo, one of our group paid a couple of kids to have a race so he could see how fast they could run.  We made it to Mazatlan for the night, and were there a couple days.  One day we spent on the beach, and one of our party learned about jelly fish the hard way.  We ate at a restaurant there, and walked back to our hotel from the restaurant.  There was a very large beech area, shaped like a crescent moon.  I remember the cockroaches along the route were quite large.  We did see someone do a cliff dive which was really cool.  (Similar to the dive in this blog.)  He had to wait until the waves were just right before he dived.  A few of us were even able to attend church there, so we were there on a Sunday.