We did not get to far today but we saw a lot. First we visited the hugest tree I ever saw “El Arbol del Tule” 54 meters circumference and 45 meters high.

Second stop was the village of renowned weavings, Teotitlan. We stop by several shops and did get a couple of impressive demonstrations I saw a rug being woven for a doctor in Oaxaca which was huge, 9 feet by 20 feet and will take a month to weave at "Casa Santigago". I stopped by another old master weaver, Irene Jimenez Lazo and her family. Wonderful smaller rugs for around $70 dollars. If you get there her house and workshop is behind the main church. The church was built on an Aztec pyramid and some of the walls use the curved blocks from the old temple. We visited the artesian market next to the church. It is frustrating to see such wonderful craftsmanship and not be able to buy a thing. Both for me and the poor weaver. You can read about the weavers here. I bought a woven change purse for a dollar.

We were just visiting museums today, and were near the beautiful Santo Domingo church here in Oaxaca, Mexico, and we saw a lot of preparations... for something. It turned out that a wedding was concluding and the procession was getting ready. And we got to see (and follow) the most wonderful wedding procession, complete with dancers and "marmotas" (the huge dancing dolls you'll see in the video.)

One of the things we really like about Mexico is how celebrations are shared with the public. At home, a wedding is just for the people invited to it, but here, they make a way for everybody to partake of at least some of it. Even we got to follow the dancers through the streets of Oaxaca.

We've recently found out about Kiva.org, a website that arranges microloans (very small business loans) directly between first-world lenders and third-world borrowers. We've made our first loan (to farmer Samuel Amilla in Ecuador) and are pursuing an application to become "Kiva Fellows," essentially field communication volunteers for the organization. We're tremendously excited about the possibility and are filling out the application. We hope you'll take a look at their site and make your first loan too!

One part of the "Kiva Fellow" application calls for us to interview an small-business entrepreneur concerning their business and write a journal entry regarding it. Here's our interview with Gloria Hernandez Torres, who we met selling "molotes" at the door to the market in Cholula, Puebla, Mexico.

Well, Nancy had the audacity to leave me for a week last week and fly to Las Vegas for a reunion with her dad, brother, and her son Kamm. She had a blast. (She didn't do a lot of bicycling in Las Vegas... But she did purchase some things we were hoping to get.)

So I had to ride for the week on my own. Since our plan was to miss the Veracruz coast, I decided to make a trip to Xalapa, Veracruz, and Tlacotalpan, all on the Gulf Coast, all beautiful places.

Ya estamos en Cholula, Puebla, Mexico, muy cerca de la ciudad de Puebla. Cholula es la ciudad de donde el conquistador Hernán Cortés empezó el final de su asalto contra los Azteca en Tenochtitlán (la Ciudad de México de hoy). El pasó por el mismo paso que subimos nosotros, que ya es conocido como el Paso de Cortés.

En la semana pasada Nancy hizo un vuelo a Las Vegas, Nevada, Estados Unidos para una reunión con su familia, y se hace muy felíz verlos. Durante la semana Randy hizo un recorrido de Cholula a Xalapa, Veracruz, Veracruz, y a Tlacotalpan, una ciudad muy pequeña pero bonita en el sur del estado de Veracruz.

Mañana pensamos empezar el camino a Oaxaca, que debe durar mas or menos una semana.

Hay muchas fotos nuevas en la página de fotos o puedes verlos diréctamente en Flickr:

So there we were walking down the street in Cholula after visiting the 2000-year-old pyramid. They're completely redoing all their streets so everything is completely torn up. But we noticed a different kind of pit in the middle of the street, with a woman working in it, which seemed strange. It turns out that all this street work is supervised by archaeologists, and they had discovered a whole house and a burial site underneath it. They invited us to come down into the pit and see their find - a grave with ceramic offerings from about 500 A.D., the "Classic" period of Mesoamerican cultures. So we got educated about real-life archeology right in the middle of the torn-up streets of Cholula!

(Cholula was founded about 620 B.C. and was a major center from about 100 A.D. clear up until the Conquest in the 16th century.)

We're in Cholula, Puebla, very close to the city of Puebla. Cholula is the city from which Cortes the Conquistador used as a launching point for his attack on the Aztecs at Tenochtitlan (today's Mexico City). He went over the very pass we did, now known as the Paso de Cortes.

There are many new photos on the Photos page or you can view them directly on Flickr:

• South from Zacatecas
• Mexico City and around

Knowing that bicycle touring as a couple is full of compromises, I finally decided to compromise and do the big climb that Randy wanted to do.

Popo (actually Popocatepetl) and Ixta (Iztaccíhuatl) are two of the three highest mountains in Mexico, at over 17,800 feet (5,400) meters, and the saddle between them is called the Paso de Cortes, and it's at 12,000 feet (3650 meters). Cortes came over this pass from Cholula (where we are tonight) to attack the Aztecs at Tenochtitlan (today's Mexico City). It's a direct route over the rim of the Valley of Mexico, but the 4,000 foot climb around a smoking volcano was a little threatening to us!