Goodbyes

Tonight is my last night in Mexico. Trying to get everything ready for the move back to the states as well as complete work down here (I spent this last week in the field) has been hectic enough that I've failed to update this blog for a month. Fortunately (or not?), I have a stash of stories yet and will continue to make updates for a while. Who knows -- maybe I'll even change the "Life in Mexico" part of the title and keep writing. We'll see.

This past spring while in Cancun, my friend Jackie asked me what I missed most about the US. My mom was sitting with us and chimed in with "Her dog!" While I miss my puppy wildly (thank you again Mom and Dad for taking care of him!!!), that was not the answer that was springing to my lips. Family and friends, while greatly missed, weren't my top item either. The number one thing I miss the most about the US: flushing toilet paper. It is so nice when it just goes away after you use it instead of letting it collect for a few days and then having to empty the trash. Unfortunately, Mexican plumbing (like that in much of the world) is unprepared to handle flushed paper. I think that flushing some TP might be my first act back in the US, shortly after crossing through Customs and Immigration. I don't care if I don't need to use the facilities; I will simply walk into a stall, rip off a square of toilet paper, and merrily flush it away. It will be good.

In honor of leaving Mexico, I wanted to make a quick list of things I've missed about the US and things that I will miss about my temporary homeland, Mexico. In no particular order:

Missing the US:

1) Flushing TP. Yup... still number one.

2) Friends/family/dog.

3) The freedom of having my own car again.

4) The stars. The light and air pollution here is such that you can't see them in Mexico City.

5) Road berries. My mom gagged when I mentioned this one to her, but it' snot nearly as revolting as it sounds. When I was visiting Michigan in July, I had a wonderful time picking and eating wild raspberries along the side of the road while I walked my dog. There were at least 3 varieties, and they were all delicious.

6) Really good desserts/chocolate. Most of the desserts/chocolate down here are very bland and end up tasting a lot like processed sugar. I have not seen a single fudgy/gooey/caramel-y/decadent dessert down here.

7) Buffalo wings! Watch out Duffs! I'm coming back!

Missing Mexico:

1) Friends down here. They've been great. The people as a whole have made the entire experience worthwhile.

2) Public transportation. It can be scary at times and quirky at others, but it can also be a lot of fun. At the very least, it's pretty empowering knowing that you can competently maneuver around this city on public transit. It's like, "If I can do this, I can handle anything. Bring it!" And then I wave my jazz hands.

3) The food. Oh, tortilla soup, pozole, tacos al pastor, pambazos, elote, esquite, etc, what will I do now that you won't be a food cart away???

4) That amazing sense of (self-indulgent) coolness that comes from living in a foreign country. It's pretty darn cool. This alone is enough to get me past the occasional melt-down day when I just wish everyone down here spoke English. It feels great to do something that feels so different, and to be doing it in a foreign language.

5) My garden. It is scary-easy to grow plants down here, and my lilies, impatiens, ivy, mums, bougainvillea, etc. are absolutely thriving under my diligent neglect. I actually feel like an accomplished gardener!

6) The complete surreality that exists down here. I can round a corner and find myself facing a 6 foot tall bush molded into the form of a duck. Or my bus might stop in the middle of a 5 lane road and all of the passengers have to do a Chinese fire drill and board the bus behind us. Or accidentally finding a tarantula in the wild. Every single day has some hidden gem down here.

7) Looking up on clear days and being surrounded by majestic volcanoes.

While I'm moving back to the US for a new job, I will always have a part of me in Mexico. I've got a conference down here in November, continuing field work in March, and every intention to continue to work with Mexican volcanoes in the future. They certainly haven't seen the last of me here! For now, though, I'm tired and ready to see Keating again. He's been in the US for the last couple of weeks sorting out our new apartment, job hunting, etc. This time tomorrow, I'll be asleep in our new place, catching a few hours rest between my midnight arrival and my 8 am job start. Nothing like cutting it down to the wire, huh? That said, I'm off now to catch a couple of hours of sleep before my early flight.

Hasta pronto.

Back in the kitchen

Last night I decided to have some fun in the kitchen. I've learned the trick to sweet-talking my violently combustible oven and I refuse to use the grill after Keating's exploits, so it was a low-key event. I made up some stone-fruit pie 'cause I'm a geologist and that's the sort of thing I do. The pie was filled with an amazing combo of fresh nectarines and red plums, seasoned with brandy, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and featured my first attempt at a homemade crust. For dinner, I decided that I was too lazy to follow my normal obsession of stuffing food inside of food and decided to turn my pear, sweet onion, and edam cheese stuffed chicken breasts into a layered casserole served over seared portobello mushrooms with fresh green beans on the side. Very Mexican, I know. Despite it not having a single chili pepper in sight, the dinner came out AMAZING. As in, it was so good that Keating and I immediately divvied up the rest into jealously guarded Tupperware for today's lunches.

Now, as proud as I am of last night's dinner, I realize that it makes for terminally boring blogging. I am writing it mostly in an attempt to convince my parents that I really CAN COOK. You see, the kitchen gods hate me when it comes to cooking for my parents. In recent years, I have repeatedly set off the smoke detector (which was really awesome since I was cooking so that my mom could lie down with a migraine), overcooked chicken into shoe leather, nearly ruined my mom's pans, and accidentally got drunk while cooking the dinner at which Keating and I were introducing our parents. On this last trip home, I managed to put all that to shame.

I was trying to recreate a recipe I had made up down here and had completely wowed Keating with. I coated chicken breasts with breadcrumbs, fresh ginger, raw oats, and a dash of nutmeg and then baked them. These were then served with a homemade mango-chipotle salsa. The whole effect was sweet-and-tangy with a mildly nutty flavor. It was great. What I made for my parents was not. I shaved the ginger wrong (lengthwise) and over-baked the chicken, resulting in what looked like dusty turds covered in hair. That was nothing, however, compared to the salsa: I'm pretty sure it qualified as a chemical weapon. I don't know whether the problem came from using a different brand of canned chipotle peppers or if I somehow absentmindedly quadrupled the number of peppers I used, but it was hot enough to literally take my breath away despite having been eating Mexican-grade spicy since December. As soon as I could breath again, I gasped a warning to my dad before he could take a bite. Sadly for him, I think he assumed I was joking and took a nice, large forkful. I will never know quite how he managed to keep from spewing it back out, but he managed to not only swallow it but try to smile as though it wasn't actually as bad as it was, all while huge tears welled up in his eyes. It was at this moment that my mom walked into the dining room, having just finished a phone call with my brother. Fortunately for her, Dad and I were able to convince her to scrape all of the sauce off of her chicken without even trying it. Perhaps we were more convincing because we were both still choking and crying a little bit. Keating was spared the entire event as he was still in Mexico at that time and didn't arrive until I had already been informally barred (yet again) from being "helpful" in the kitchen.

Given my track record, I think I need to stop trying to cook for my parents while I'm ahead. They may never be convinced that I really do make some great food, but they will also never be able to blame me for a nasty case of salmonella (I think I gave Dad chemical burns, though). From now on, I think I'll just have to rock the pizza delivery option when offering to take care of a meal while I'm visiting.

P.S. - I swear that this is not the reason why Keating has lost ~40 lbs since we moved here. That's all exercise and fresh fruit/veg. I swear. Back me up on this, Keating???? Please????

Keating visits the dentist

While we were in Michigan, Keating and I both went in to the dentist to get our teeth cleaned. This was significantly scarier for Keating than it was for me because of who our dentist was: my father. (That's right savvy readers: my dad, the die-hard hockey player, is also a specialty dentist. He also has been known to stash chocolate covered caramels in his underwear drawer. Never fear, he still has all of his teeth.)

I can imagine that there are few things more unnerving than sitting down in the dentist's chair and looking up into your new father-in-law's face, except maybe if it is your girlfriend's dad instead of your FIL, but I haven't subjected a boyfriend to that since college (sorry Andy!). Dad was very kind to Keating and didn't even take advantage of his opportunity to mess with his head. Instead, they decided to mess with mine.

I was in the front of the office hanging out with my mom and a couple of the staff when Jeanie, who was assisting Dad, popped in to ask me to come back to the operatory room where Keating was. As I stepped into the room, I saw Dad using gauze to stop some bleeding in Keating's mouth and a bloody scalpel on the tray. WTF??!? Fortunately there hadn't been nearly enough screaming to make me think something bad had actually gone down, like some fraternity hazing taken too far.

It turns out that Dad, whose specialty is gum surgery, had cut away some excess tissue on one of Keating's front teeth. The tooth in question is slightly recessed anyway, and the extra gum tissue made it look far more recessed than it actually was. With one quick flick of the wrist, Dad had done wonders to Keating's smile, making it look as though his front teeth had been straightened overnight. Keating's smile looks even more fantastic than before, and he can now brag that he survived losing a knife fight to his father-in-law. Boys have the strangest ways of bonding.

UFC: Michigan

My parents are probably two of the toughest people I will ever know. My dad, for instance, in pushing the big 6-0 and still plays ice hockey year round. Right now, he has a double header scheduled for every Monday night, and a couple of weeks ago ended up playing in a triple header when one of the teams scheduled to play after his last game asked if anyone could substitute for them. All this was while still getting over being sick and having to be at work early the next morning.

Dad's crazy dedication to hockey pales before my mom's latest test of will, however. On 4th of July weekend, she took a spill on the boat thanks to an unfortunate wave and bashed up her left knee. The next morning, with her knee now the size of her head and unable to bend more than 5 degrees, she decided to stop by the ER to have it looked at. Her knee was too swollen to get a good look at it yet with an X-ray, so she was sent home with an ace bandage and the recommendation to call the local knee specialist to make an appointment for later in the week. When she was the specialist a couple of days later, he couldn't find anything in her X-ray and asked her to keep limping around on it until she could bend it to 90 degrees for an MRI but told her that he thought it was most likely a deep bone bruise. I had already arrived in Michigan by this point, and Mom refused to let something as minor as a swollen peg leg get in the way of spending time with me; my first day in town she insisted on taking me shopping for a new pair of jeans since mine were miserably ratty (Thanks Mom!!!), not to mention about 6 other errands. She continued to go to work each day, walk the dog in the morning before I woke up, etc.

The day before I left to return to Mexico, we got a call from her knee specialist: he had just gotten back the results on the MRI and wanted her in there ASAP since it turned out that she had broken her leg in her fall roughly 2 weeks before. The angle and location of the break prevented it from showing up in the X-ray, but it stood out brilliantly in the MRI. My mom had just spent the last couple of weeks wandering around on a broken leg, and I'm not even sure if she bothered to take more than 2 Advil the entire time. She will now spend the next 6 weeks in a leg brace and using a cane (it was already clear to everyone that she wasn't going to hold still long enough to bother with the crutches. Plus, she was too short for the adult sized crutches they had available.).

My dad likes to claim that the only two things in the world scare him: flying monkeys and my mother. Given just how scary-tough she is, I think I might have to add Mom to my list, too!

(For even more background on just how tough she is, my mom refused to let the doctor tell her she had broken her foot until after my wedding last fall so that she wouldn't have to wear a cast to the wedding. About 8 weeks ago during a minor surgery trying to sort everything out on that same foot, the doctors realized that she had been wandering around with a nearly completely torn ligament in her ankle. She had been taking the dog on 2 mile walks. Daily.)

Get well soon, Mom!

Back to Buffalo

Keating and I are busy excitedly packing tonight. Very early tomorrow morning we leave for our first trip back to the States since we moved to Mexico in December. We're headed back to Buffalo for our friends' wedding. Robin, the bride, was responsible for introducing me to Keating... and she even loaned me the perfect shoes for our first date! Keating asked me out at my birthday party, which is incidentally the same party where Rob met my fellow grad student "Manthew". Manthew (named such for early confusion over his name) is the groom this weekend. Keating and I are so excited to be able to celebrate their wedding with them this weekend!

As I pack, I'm giddily reviewing the delights to come: friends, family, Duff's wings (!!!!), American pizza, being able to flush toilet paper, driving, etc. Yay!!!!

And because everything somehow comes back to work, I will also be picking up a depth sounder for use in my field work down here. It should totally beat that rock tied to laundry line that I was using to measure lake depths last time. I'm headed back to the field shortly after I get back from Buffalo with my improved equipment. With me luck that neither trip, Buffalo or the field, includes more run-ins with tadpoles or free-range crocodiles.

I'm back!

It's official: I can truly call myself a blogger. How do I know that I have officially joined the dubious ranks? Complaints! See the following email, copied in its entirety, from my brother:

Hey, you need to keep up with your blog better. Some of us want to hear about what is going on down there in little people land.

That said, let me quickly review what was going on during my absence. (You know, happening to me. Not like a recap of real news or anything!)

Right after my last posts, Keating and I ran away to Cancun for a belated Holy Week holiday with my parents and their friends Darrel and Jackie. Despite my fears that Keating would be "accidentally" fed to sharks by Dad and Darrel while the boys were scuba diving (boys!), he came home each time with happy tails of undersea life. That's not to say that there wasn't any good natured hazing: turns out that Keating is now affectionately known in some circles as "Chumly" since he vomited just about every time he set foot on the scuba boat. Since I really dislike fish, I enjoyed lots of time poolside with the girls. On the day that we all went to Xel-ha (an incredible natural aquarium. If you get the chance, visit it!), Keating and I worked out a brilliant strategy by which I lounged on top of an inner tube and held on to the (unfastened) between-leg strap from Keating's required lifejacket as he snorkeled -- it was like getting my very own custom lazy-river tour! Keating would occasionally point out interesting fish or rays, while I would point out the cool birds, lizards, etc, to him... and all without me having to actually get too close to the icky fishies. The six of us also enjoyed a trip to see the pyramids and Chichen Itza. In all, we had a wonderful trip. Unfortunately, Keating and I are both camera-impaired and the only photo from the entire trip the features people has us all so small that we're not really recognizable. At least the pyramid looks good! (We're the couple on the right, Mom and Dad are in the middle, and Darrel and Jackie are on the left.)

After Cancun, Keating and I had a little under a week to prepare for our next excitement: Keating's parents came to visit us for a long weekend. They were our first official house guests (Sorry Mom and Dad, but you stayed in a hotel!). My FIL's knee was acting up, so we opted to not do a repeat performance of the borderline elder abuse we committed against my parents by dragging them everywhere on crowded public transportation and taking them on the occasional mini death march dodging traffic frogger-style. Instead, we enjoyed a relaxing weekend in which we took a boat tour of the famous gardens of Xochimilco and took in a performance of Carmina Burana. Unfortunately, I had to disappear on occasion for work and even left town the day before my in-laws; I was scheduled to return to the field. (Note: if you are reading my mind properly, the words "I was scheduled to return to the field" should have been read melodramatically, with building dread, and underscored by an ominous soundtrack. If you didn't get that the first time, please try again.)

My previous field trip was not successful. At all. So I had alternately astronomical and mediocre expectation for this field work. Mostly, I just desperately wanted to get data points this time and not be crippled by a horse. Fortunately, both of these goals were met. Since actual research data is fairly boring, and outside the theme of this blog, let me just share with you some of the highlights from the trip:

1. The field vehicle we ended up with this time did not have AC or a radio. It turns out that that wasn't too bad, despite it being 95 F and 98% humidity. It meant that we could all roll down the windows and plug into our respective ipods for the long car rides, thus saving me from Barry Manilow.
2. Technologically speaking, I have fallen so very, very far. During my PhD, I was writing programs for Beowulf clusters (supercomputers). For this project, I was rowing to the center of ponds in an inflatable raft (labelled a children's toy, for use only in pools and under adult supervision) and dropping a rock tied to a rope overboard to measure water depth (the sonar depth-finder was broken).
3. I got to see a gigantic iguana chillin' in the wild under a mango tree.
4. I got a tadpole stuck between the two smallest toes on my left foot. Think about my love for fish, and then imagine the screaming and foot-shaking that ensued. Honestly, I still shudder thinking about it. Not cool.
5. My boss would argue that this one is worse that the tadpole, but I'm unconvinced. We had just walked down a steep trail to get to another of the ponds and had shouted out to the man net fishing from a "skiff" (really just a few logs tied together Robinson Crusoe-style) if it would be okay if we dragged our inflatable down the hill and took some measurements in the pond. He replied that we were welcome to it and would not disturb us at all. Almost as an afterthought, he added that we should watch out for the crocodiles. At those words, we notice a 4 foot croc slither off the bank 25 feet to our right and skulk away through the murky water. The man on the raft assured us that that one was just a baby and that many of the crocs in that particular pond were closer to 9 feet long. Shuddering, my boss paid the man on the raft to collect our measurements for us.
6. Ticks and other biting bugs. Apparently, this is the season. On the final day in the field, I removed 9-10 ticks from my clothes and 3 from where they were busy biting me. On the plus side, I have been assured that the ticks in that area are merely gross and not dangerous like our wonderful lyme disease carriers in the US. On the minus side, I came back from the field looking suspiciously like I had chicken pox. Fortunately, Keating believed me that they were bug bites and still gave me a welcome home kiss.
7. Ugh!!!! Seriously! A F-ing tadpole between my toes!!!!!!!!
8. We also managed to get the truck stuck, bottomed out on a broken concrete pipe sticking up through a dirt road. I hereby curse you, Nissan, for building a pickup truck with the power of a VW Beetle (original style) and the clearance of a Chrylser PT Cruiser. What the hell were you thinking???!?
9. Accommodations in San Martín Tuxtla were lovely, as before. Unfortunately, they didn't have any availability for some of our nights. Do not stay in Lerdo de Tejada. The hotel was... yeah. There were dead bugs already squashed into the shower walls, greasy head prints on the mirrored headboards, and the bathroom windows all opened into the "lobby."
10. Did I remember to mention that I actually got some data points???? And I wasn't even crippled by a horse! Nor did I vomit even once! Therefore, despite tadpoles, crocodiles, ticks, and car trouble, this field trip was definitely an improvement over the previous one!

Now I'm back in Mexico City and back at my office desk. Keating and I celebrated Cinco de Mayo yesterday with a splash of tequila in our iced tea (aside from school children and union employees, it isn't a celebrated holiday here. They kind of equate it with Columbus Day.).

(I'll try to add more photos later. I forgot to bring my camera in so that I could download my photos.)

Vacation!

Mexico City pretty much closes down for Holy Week as people flee the city for the beaches/mountains/non-urban anything. Keating and decided, however, to bank that time off and use it this coming week when my parents will be in Cancun. Like the completely grateful moochers that we are, we will be happily crashing in my parents' suite with them for a week of sunshine and beaches. (And we've begged them to bring us more Swiss Miss. Fortunately, they still love us!)

Have a wonderful week and enjoy a couple of photos my mom sent me from their visit last month:

Us with our new friend the Aztec death god. He is pretty seriously creepy looking and could use a sandwich or something. Just look at those ribs! This creepy fellow lives at the National Anthropology Museum.

Built in the 16th century, thus church in Coyoacan's main plaza features incredible art. The plaza itself turns into a sort of gathering place and street fair every weekend.

And finally, a totally gratuitous shot of my baby (Asher). He has been living with my parents, and I miss him terribly. We would bring him down here, but something in his previous life as a stray has left him absolutely terrified of being crated, making it very difficult to safely move him here.

Rent!

Keating and I had our very first house guests recently. My parents flew down from Michigan to spend a long weekend visiting us in Mexico City. They were absolute troopers: Keating and I dragged them all over town (on public transportation) for three days, and they're still speaking to us!

Since they insisted on staying in a hotel (we only had a fold-out love seat to offer them), they

might not technically have been house guests. Regardless, they have helped us to define the "rent" we will charge to future visitors who stay with us (never fear, we now have a spare bedroom with a double bed in it). Want to enjoy a fun, cheap vacation in Mexico City, complete with manic guides? Simply peruse the suggested packages below:

A) Long weekend, comple

te with trip down to the famous floating gardens of Xochimilco, all the Mexican pastry you can endure, exploration of the Chapultepec war memorials, and one terrifying night-time taxi ride with a cabby who speaks no English and is horribly lost. Optional case of food poisoning, no additional cost. Price: two tins of Swiss Miss cocoa mix (with the little marshmallows... we like to pick them out of the cocoa powder and eat them), a box of tea (not chamomile or mint, for goodness sakes. That's almost all I can find here.), and a bottle of horseradish mustard.

B) Everything from Package A, plus three more days spent dodging insistent Mexican craft sellers, a climb up a pyramid, a long visit to the world-class Anthropology Museum (I guarantee that you still won't see half of it!), a performance of Mexican "fliers" swinging upside-down from a rotating metal pole while playing some sort of pan flute (Yes, it's strange and inexplicable. I don't get it, either.), and, as an added bonus, we will at some point promise to lose you in a crowded metro station and expect you to find your own way home (It's totally like and urban version of Survivor! Think how proud you'll feel when you make your way home!). If you're lucky, Keating will treat you to his now-famous fresh squeezed orange juice. Cost: a tea kettle, English-language cookbook, books you've finished reading, and Milky Way 100% caramel candy bars (at least 2).

C) For longer trips, we will likely eventually run out of local ideas and will ultimately pack you off to something a little farther out. We're looking for volunteers to help us explore the beaches of Acapulco and the markets of Taxco (the silver capital of the world). We have more pyramids within a couple-hour drive than you can shake a stick at. Looking for something truly unique to do on your vacation? Shazta is always looking for sherpas (uh, I mean "assistants") for field work in Veracruz (just don't read that other post too carefully, huh?). We might even let you eat some of the fruit from our uber-cool kumquat tree that we've got growing in our garden*. Cost: More Swiss Miss, more candy bars (That don't contain chili powder. We've already got that covered, trust me.), Frank's Red Hot (!!!!!), and maybe some beef on weck and sponge candy. If you can figure out how to smuggle us some Duff's wings, we will probably just let you move in for as long as you like.

Unfortunately for my parents, we managed to fit a terrifying amount of those activities into their three days here. One high point came when we brought them back to our apartment for a home cooked dinner. My poor dad looked fairly perturbed by our ghetto-like neighborhood. Dad was a bit perturbed by the raucous party going on across the alley, which we could see and hear fairly well through the gaping holes in the neighbor's corrugated metal roof (we were on the fourth floor). The only thing capable of briefly overpowering the noise from the party was the occasional engine misfire or downshifting from the major road out front. Fortunately, the neighbors on the 2nd floor decided to not pick that evening to flood the building with heavy incense (the kind that no one has ever used for anything other than to cover the smell of pot). Dad definitely looked relieved to know that we would be moving the next weekend to the safest borough in Mexico City (we were on the fringe of the worst borough). Mom, for her part, was too ill to care much. It was after this charming and intimate dinner party that I placed them in a taxi with a cabbie who only pretended to know where their hotel was when I told him and tried to leave them at a hotel with a similar name in a different part of the city.

On the plus side, not only are my parents still speaking to us, they've offered to let us crash with them in a couple of weeks when they will be staying in Cancun. I suspect that they will be happy to enjoy some enforced relaxation with us instead of being pulled all over town by a couple of loving, though incompetent, tour guides (that's us!). In preparation, Keating and I have started stockpiling the rent that we will be paying them for the crash space: Trix, Honey Nut Cheerios, various pastries, etc. We might not be able to get some things we want (Swiss Miss!!!!! Why is there no normal cocoa mix here???!), but at least we have the inside track on basic groceries that are hard to find in resort towns.

P.S. -- We really do welcome friends to visit, and we really are out of the ghetto now and in a lovely apartment with a spare bedroom. It even has a bed. And sheets. We promise that we have learned our lesson and will not subject anyone to the "All of Mexico City in 3 days tour" again. Unless they specifically ask for it by name: "Packages A-C in 1-2-3."

* As a general note, do NOT try to catch a taxi while holding a kumquat tree you just bought from a nursery. Cabbies will actually FLEE from you the instant they see that tree. This makes it very difficult to get your lovely new plant home.

Running behind

I've been back form the field for 5 days now, and I have not yet posted about it. This is not because there was nothing to post about. In fact, there are enough stories to tell that I don't have time to do it now, either. This week has been busy for me. Keating and I are making arrangements to move closer to school (a 20 minute tour turned into 2 hours of surreality plus a little bit o' getting lost at night in the city), we've been trying to prepare for our first houseguests here in Mexico (my parents arrive tomorrow evening. Yay!! They're staying in a hotel, though, so I guess they're not really houseguests. Who wants to be the first real houseguest??? Our new place will actually feature a second bedroom with a full size bed as opposed to the miniature sofa-sleeper in our current living room.), and my brother has been very ill (and yes, it is both frustrating and unnerving to receive a trickle of limited information when I'm so far away that I can't even just pick up the phone and call).

That said, I hope that you are all doing great up there (or down, as applies to Craig in Australia). To tide you over, enjoy a couple of pictures form the field:

Don Tomás, the man who kicked my a$$ up a volcano last week. He is due for knee surgery

soon, and was only really slowed down by needing to use his machete to clear the path for us through the jungle. On the plus side, I was the only member of the team who managed to almost keep up with him.

A spectacular view of the volcano. I swear, San Martín Tuxtla is back there somewhere. This is as much as I saw of it, or just about anything else, last week.

And, since I feel bad without giving you a real volcano, enjoy Pico de Orizaba. This volcano is not in my field area, but we drove past it on our way there from Mexico City. That's kind of like saying I get to play a volcanologist on TV. This photo was taken from the shoulder of the interstate, 'cause geologists are way too cool to actually try to avoid being hit by passing cars.

Credit: These photos were all taken by Lourdes, my fabulous colleague and landlady. I'll see about posting mine when I find new batteries for my camera.