The Coatepec Crosses

Today I climbed the hill. I’d actually seen this patch of green in the middle of the town on a map before I came and planned to walk through it from the bus to get to Shayla’s.

After my Balagan in Puebla I ended up getting a taxi. Thankfully! Because this hill is 80m high! Note for next time, use a map with contour lines.

When I left the house I had about an hour and a half. I hadn’t yet decided whether to go to the river or the hill so I just walked. It soon became apparent that the river would be harder to get to, houses and houses in progress lined the hillside between me and her.

So I looked up at the giant leafy mound to my left and pictured the map I had carefully studied last week. None of it applied – I was on the other side and heading to the top rather than Shayla’s house.

A few minutes wandering lead me up a dusty lane of run down houses to a small staircase made of large stones. At the top I followed the path. Of course I didn’t know it was the path at the time, but left went down hill and right headed upwards so it was a good enough presumption.

 

I say path, it was actually a road with two lines of cobbles for tyres and a strip of dirt between to catch peoples litter. The first interesting thing I noticed about this path was the abundance of crosses. Now Mexico is a religious place by any standards, but this was getting extreme. Three crosses later I took a closer look and noticed they were depicting Stations of the Cross, excellent! Now I have some idea of how close to the top I am (presuming number 14 was at the top). I was at number 8.

Some wanderings later, and after feeling very suspicious for trying to catch a glimpse of the school I could hear through the trees, I was presented with a decision. The arrow to the left said something in Spanish, the one to the right something else in Spanish. I thought I’d have my cake and eat it and headed right first. A good choice, a few meters up the road was a viewing point with an almost areal view of the city dissolving into the countryside and eventually fading into misty mountains.

After a few awe filled gazes, and a few more after I put my glasses on, I headed off. The path which continued round was a decline, so I went back to the sign and took the left path, which turned out to be a grass covered shortcut to the top. Score! At the top there’s a viewing point to get a bit higher, but it was closed and a ring of trees surrounding the plain actually makes the view less exciting. That said, while gazing out seeing a monstrously big and snow capped mountain slowly fade out of the mist on the horizon isn’t something you experience every day!

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Rosh Pina and Returning Home!

hey,

I can’t remember what I said last time, but I’m here on a farm in [[Rosh Pina]] – making bread, keeping the garden tidy and being the IT/Electrician guy!

Had the chance to do some paid work cutting weeds last week which was much appreciated by my wallet!

I just got off the phone to the wonderful Dani (Maia’s uncle) who’s managed to have my plane ticket moved so that I won’t be missing Mehaks wedding at the end of June! So I’ll be back on the 25th June (Thursday, late night) instead of the 30th!

I’ve been coming up with a bit of a plan, no grand take over the world ideas – simpler things like where I’ll be in 5 days time!

I’m going to stay in Rosh Pina until Friday – [[Shavuot]] – which means I get to go to school on Tuesday and serve cream cheese (home made from goats milk!) and pita to a whole load of rowdy school children. It’s the year 6 from one school meeting the year 6 from the school in the next town, and they all hate each other – apparently riots and fights break out every year!

That fun aside, we have about a hundred quiche to make and a whole pile of cheese cakes! Wednesday night is a no sleeper! (Well, for them… it’s optional for me!)

Then on Friday, morning or evening – depends how I feel at the time – I’m going to head back towards [[Nahahal]] (where I was before here). Spend another night there, and see if I can meet up with Irit (my teacher from the ulpan) the next day. From there I’ll be heading back to [[Ein Hashofet]] to say bye to a friend (Talya) who’s leaving.

A couple of days there, and I’ll either be heading up north to another [[permaculture]] WWOOF place near-ish to Haifa, or south to [[Tel-Aviv]] to try to meet Illy who may or may not still be volunteering there!

Sami

p.s To the more geeky of you, checkout the new totally awesome badly labelled new search feature on www.youque.net wuuhaaay API yeah!

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