On Friday we arrived at the "youngest volcano in the world", the Paricutín volcano near the village of Angahuán (Just northwest of Uruapan). Here´s what I read about Paricutín in my 4th grade Junior Scholastic magazine - maybe you remember the article too: "In 1943 Juan _____ was working in his cornfield when he saw a crack open in the earth. Lava eventually buried his field and grew into the word´s youngest volcano, Paricutín."

We took a horseback ride to the ruins of the nearby village and its 16th century church, which wrere completely buried. Just the church towers emerge from the lava flow. It makes you wonder what it was like to find the village buried in lava.

The village of Angahuán was possibly even more interesting than the ruins. It was by far the most indigenous place we´ve been -- most of the people are Purépecha and many speak exclusively Purépecha, no Spanish. It looked like a village in rural Guatemala or Peru, with women carrying their babies in their shawls and hauling firewood on their heads.