We spent a week or 10 days in Zacatecas - arriving from multiple weeks of rural Mexico it was quite a wakeup call. This is a classy city - beautiful, like you'd just arrived in an old European city - Nancy likens it to Florence, Italy, and I think that's probably reasonable. We talk about the cultural events we got to see, including concerts, folk music, folk dance, and about the beautiful city of Zacatecas itself, including its history and appearance.

17:20 minutes (5.96 MB)

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There we were sitting in the Zocalo (the main plaza) in the seaside town of Juchitan, Oaxaca, and we thought - we could record some of this for you. So we describe here what we saw and heard that night. We talk about the marimbas playing and how the "food court" works, and the rental-electric cars for the kids. It was a nice evening in the plaza.

10:12 minutes (9.34 MB)

Here's the story of our visit to the Chiapas village of San Juan Chamula, where the church hasn't had a mass in 40 years, and it's used exclusively for the village's purposes. The main figure in the church is Saint John the Baptist, not Jesus, and the business inside is about indigenous healers, not about church services. The priests are allowed inside rarely, and only for baptisms.



We also bring you up to date on where we are and why we're not in Guatemala yet (We've been studying Spanish in the lovely city of San Cristóbal de las Casas, probably our last major stop in Mexico.)

17:19 minutes (15.86 MB)

We were recently interviewed on the Bike Tourist Podcast and Gabriel said we could post the file here. Enjoy!

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76:25 minutes (52.54 MB)

We thought we'd explain to you what we're doing in Guatemala and tell you some of the stories of the women we've interviewed for Friendship Bridge and Kiva.org. We spend most of our time going out to little villages and meeting wonderful women who have started their own little "microbusinesses" using Friendship Bridge loans. The picture is of Clara Ajsoc, the wonderful woman we mention who raised her cow and started a milk and cheese business.


22:05 minutes (8 MB)

We remember so very many women and have so many stories to tell from our time in Guatemala - we thought we'd just tell a few stories. Read on for lots of pictures and a slideshow of the women.

Maria Brito

To get to Maria Brito's house, we rode our bikes just up into the skirts of the valley where Nebaj is. As you leave the city (or town, really) you end up right away in green cornfields with people's houses scattered among them. Before long, you get to the end of the electricity lines, and well beyond the paved road, and end up on a muddy track headed up the hill. That's where Maria's house is. When we first met her, we thought "Oh, she's pretty poor" because she lived in a shack that she herself would not consider a house, with no electricity and with the water spigot across the road (at least she had one). But like many of the women we met, her dignity and friendliness transformed her right before our eyes from someone to be pitied into a woman to be honored, repected, and treasured.

42:58 minutes (8 MB)