Blogs from Zacatecas, Mexico, North America - page 4

This time last year (I can't believe it was a year ago!), as we drove out of Cambridge with a car full of accumulated rubbish, I really thought my time at univeristy was over; and yet this week I find myself back there, only this time I´m teaching. The really scarey thing is that I´m not teaching anything to do with science - with an engineering degree I´m teaching English! Admittedly it is as a second language, but I never thought I would be teaching univeristy professors anything! The classes have been very different again to the two different schools I was in previously. Firstly, the classes are voluntary which means that all the 'students´(aged 18 to 60) actually do want to learn - this makes a big difference to productivity in classes, and we have ... read more

I was told by several people that, “The scenery was OK”, or “I wasn’t all that impressed” when I asked about their journey on the Copper Canyon Railroad. Even the guide book said that Divisadero was the only place that you could actually see the canyon, so I was a little worried, when I boarded the train in Creel, that the journey wouldn’t meet my expectations. I was riding on the clase económica train with several people I had met in Batopilas. The first hour or so of the trip was through pine forests and, with the exception of Divisadero, there was very little in the way of scenery that I would call spectacular. At Divisadero the train stopped for fifteen minutes to allow us off to see the canyon - Most people stopped at all ... read more

Sunday 26th June - Zacatecas We catch our bus to Leon OK and make the connection with the Zacatecas bus. It is not a long trip and it is a beautiful afternoon. When booking the hostel I had given expected arrival as 6pm. We walked through the doorway of the Hostal Villa Colonial at 6, to be greeted with 'Ah, the English, punctual as ever' from Ernesto the manager. He was very friendly and had an excellent command of English. We settled in and met John, a retired ex-pat who spends quite a lot of his time in Mexico, but also Florida and other places. He showed us the town centre (stone's throw from the hostel) and left us to find somewhere to eat. Maybe because it was Sunday, we found very few places open and ... read more