This weekend, we went to Uruapan. It was by far the coolest excursion yet.
We went to another old church, but this church was covered in volcanic rock. Years ago (I don't remember when), the volcano Paricutin erupted and destroyed the town, all except the church. Now, the towers and altar of the church still stand.
To get to the ruins, we rode on horses up through the mountains. The horses knew how to get there, so we didn't really have to do anything but sit there. Due to my many vacation experiences in the Smokey Mountains, I am an expert at riding horses on a mountain path. I knew all about leaning forward going up a hill and backward going down. Plus, we had little guides. There were about five 10-year-old boys who walked with the horses to keep them in line. The boys were funny and cute and knew what they were doing. We talked to them as we went. Since their first language was Purépecha, not Spanish, they were easy to understand.
When we got up into the hardened lava, most of the ground was black, but vegetation has started to grow again, so it was black with bright green popping up. It looked cool, but I was on a horse, so I didn't take a picture.
I think it's pretty amazing how everything else was destroyed but the church still stands. I mean, yeah, it probably was the tallest and best-built building in the town, but the rock just stops in front of the altar, like there was some sort of shield around it. Something super-natural.
Oh, and note my sweet new headband.
Sweet new headband noted.
ReplyDeleteCool 'altar' observed.
Smokey Mountain horseback trail riding remembered.
... bee sting horseback riding remembered?...
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Are the little boys just easier to understand because they speak more deliberately (Spanish not being their native tongue) or is it just an easier accent? It's my experience that kids are often difficult to understand due to the rapidismo of their hablar.
I tried to look up Parepache, though and nothing turned up until I stumbled across "P'urhépecha" - a language spoken in the highlands of Michigan, err... "Michoacán" by only a small group of people (only about 120,000). That's pretty cool because it's so specific to that single population. It's like some kind of signifier of their specific culture and there's only one place in the world you can hear that language spoken... so cool.
I was wondering how to spell that. I got all of those vowels wrong. Oh no, one "e". I think they speak with menos rapidisimo because it's not their first language. They learn it in school.
ReplyDeleteFactoid: the "michi" in "Michigan" means water in a native language that is not connected with the languages known to have been spoken by the tribes that lived in the area at the time of America's "discovery", which therefore leads some historians/linguists to believe that the word actually comes from a tribal language that migrated south(perhaps P'urhépecha). Thus the connection of "Michigan" and "Michoacán".
AND Monarch butterflies migrate from Michigan to Michoacán as well. woah. cosmic connection.