We left about 9:30 in the morning today for the girls’ orphanage. It was a bit different than the boys’. The girls were horribly shy overall – very understandable – and they did not dive into the toys and grab things like the boys. I had a hard time getting a few girls to make sock puppets with me. Alejandra and Mareli both 8 yrs. old -were very cute and shy. They did not want to play with my camera, but we did make a few cute sock puppets and I helped Alejandra – who was a bit more talkative – make a second little project. We were there about 2 ½ hours – it went by fairly quickly – and the girls sang and sang and sang for us before we left.
After we back, Sandy and Sue and I had a quick lunch at a little dive in the wall called Flore de Loto. It was a quick lunch – and cheap – the glasses and silverware were dirty, but the food was awesome. Then we had to move from Hotel Canastica to the Casa de las Flores because the GOOD hotel had been overbooked. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it created a lot of extra work and stress for us. It seems as though better planning through the travel agency or hotel could have helped avoid this. The hotel looked nice, but there were only two beds, and it wasn’t nearly as user friendly or comfortable as our first hotel. No pool or bar or courtyard either. I’m glad it was just for one night and I hope our hotel in Puebla is better.
Sue and I had just enough time to get to our most amazing experience ever – a Tezmacal massage. Here’s how it went: Wearing bathing suits, we crawled into a ‘womb’. It looked like a little round brick oven that would fit about five people on little stone benches. There was a stone sauna stove, candles, and we were to drink hibiscus tea while beating bundles of rosemary, basil, and rude on ourselves and dumping cool water on our heads. We were in there about 40 min., then when we crawled out of the womb, we were reborn!! After, we received a wonderful massage for an hour to finish up. It was 600 pesos – 700 with tip. It was worth every centime (yes, that’s French, but I don’t know the right Spanish word). I must say, I did feel one with the earth when I was done.
By the time we got back to the hotel it was almost six. We went out to dinner about 7:30. My hair, after sweating, having massage oil rubbed into it, and air drying, was so cutie – it was all curly! We went to dinner at Il Panciere (yes, another Italian place). I had a really bad mojito (I don’t really think it was a mojito at all) a bad glass of wine (just don’t get the house wine down here – ever) some yummy minestrone soup and some queso y jamon fundido (cheese and ham fondue). Nummers – and about 250 pesos, including tip. After dinner, Sue and I met up with Tim and Sonny and had tons of fun at an empty dance bar that had a live band playing covers. They sang both Mexican songs and some US – No doubt and REM. We were all just goofy – didn’t worry about what anyone else was doing. We got back about 1 am. Fun night! Tomorrow we leave for Puebla.