Mexico Week #3/4: Nathaniel's POV 🇲🇽

Quick note!: On a request from my cousin Maelle (who is one of the blogs biggest supporters) I will be adding more than the regular amount of pictures, if any one else wants something posted, don't even hesitate to ask!

Anyways, these last weeks of Mexico have been very fun and educational ( I know, who woulda thunk it right!?)! Lately, we have been exploring plenty of cities, going on a bit too many walking tours and getting crammed with delicious food! So far I have been pleasantly surprised at how many basketball courts we have seen and visited along the way! And, they are all very nice as well! I am getting as much ball in as I can because Guatemala is not at all known for basketball and I can't just play soccer the whole time right!?

From where I left you all off we drove to San Miguel and had a nice scare parking the camper into a teeny tiny parking lot. Everything was redeemed though because in the evening we went to an extremely nice basketball court and I played a big pickup 3 on 3 tournament with some of the local guys.

The very next day we went on a walking tour around San Miguel and visited cathedrals, coffee shops, steep alleyways, Jesus statues and even more Jesus statues (a lot of them where disturbingly gruesome and bloody)! All the cities that we visited to this point were majorly Catholic and had Jesus coin makers, church merch and lots of tourist stuff. We finished the day in front of a big cathedral and hired a Mariachi band to sing to my Opa for his 70th birthday and downing an enormous Coke Zero as a family.

After San Miguel our next stop was a 9 hour drive to Mexico City where we were going to sleep in a sketchy parking lot but the local pastor invited us to sleep and eat at his house instead! We were slightly taken aback by his gracious offer but gladly accepted and had some of the best sleeps of the trip along with some of the best food on the trip.

The next day we visited the famous ruins of Teotihuacan where you can see some crazy temples like the temple of the sun, moon and snakes . Elias bought a very... interesting... souvenir from one of the 120 people sitting on the walk selling the exact same thing (a strange glass prism that has a plastic version of one of the temples in it). It was a super educational and fun stop but it was not as fun as the next day... Mexico City.

In short, Mexico City was two things: tiring and a great experience (or a sensory overload take your pick). We saw more cathedrals, some super cool shops and markets (me and Jonah bought some matching drip)! It was awesome eating more amazing Mexican food (if you think I am going to stop talking about the food here you are oh so wrong:) and just checking out one of the biggest cities in the world. We were all practically dead by the time we got back to our camper so the day of driving that came next was much needed.

When we arrived in Oaxaca we were pleasantly surprised by the color, the culture and everything in between! To complete a three-peat of walking tours we faithfully tramped after our parents through the city and viewed what Oaxaca had to offer. The next day was the highlight of the week. We went to a place called Jacobo and Maria Angeles art studio and learnt about how the people working there create their jaw-dropping art and then got led to a table where we were given our supplies and picked our animals. I picked a cobra (shoutout to Split Second Basketball!), Jonah picked a gecko, Elias picked a lion, my mom picked an elephant and my dad picked an owl. Then, the real magic happened, we painted for around 2 hours non-stop and had a great time. Painting those paintings was extremely therapeutic for all of us (minus some tears shed because of miss strokes and blotches) because we got time to sit down as a family for a long time and just talk about things other than what was around us and going on with us.

After painting the next thing on the bucket list was Hierve Del Agua: petrified waterfalls and thermal, mountainside pools. When we got there we were in awe at the beauty of the "frozen falls" as I like to think of them and how turquoise the thermal/calcium water was. We swam and took plenty of pictures for about two hours before leaving for an awesome streetball court.

After Hievre we went on the most twisty road you have ever seen, for around 8 hours. We were all so done by the time we arrived to Huatulco: a beautiful beachside town with awesome snorkeling and one of the best beaches in the world a 15 min boat ride away (totally no foreshadowing there...). The next day was a blast. An utter blast, we boated over to the India beach and did some snorkeling and coconut cracking and then boated home for some more beach time and great memories. The beach there was so relaxing and definitely helped get ready for a long and stressful border crossing.

And with that we left for the Guatemalan border with memories of Mexico that would never fade. Just remember, there is way more to Mexico underneath the resorts and cartel to...you just have to dig deeper.

-Nathaniel Fast