Trip to Toluca Part II

In my last post, I left you with an image of Iglesia del Carmen. Here are a few more.

A shot of some of the homes up in the hills.

Catedral de San José de Toluca

While walking around in this plaza, there was a group of people starting to gather around the flagpole. They started chanting, "Mexico es amor, regala abrazos" Some sort of protest that we never quite got why or who they were.

They started giving hugs to people. They were saying, "Mexico is love, give hugs"

Here's Ariana getting one of many hugs.

I received my fair share too. Here's some guys running towards me to give me hugs.

I saw these guards/police people walking towards the group of huggers and thought, uh oh, are they going to break this up? I didn't see why since it was so peaceful and loving.

Nope! They're getting hugs too! But what are they doing?

We'll find out in a minute. More huggers came our way.

Oh, they were taking the flag down. That's pretty cool to capture.

Okay, I've had my fill of hugging people I don't know. We ventured over to the cathedral. We were there on a sunday, they were having mass. One of the sessions had just ended and a ton people were leaving. It was kind of difficult to go inside so we wandered around outside. We saw these older ladies folding up banners. Ariana went and talked with them. In my last post, I said they were about to embark on a pilgrimage but I got that wrong. They were on a pilgrimage to the church, which makes more sense, from their home of San Cristóbal Huichochitlan. I asked if I could take their picture and they were more then delighted to oblige.

Here's a colorful church. The Templo de la Santa Veracruz.

Ariana got some corn.

There was a man feeding the birds. Ariana went over and talked to him for a little while. He feeds the birds because they are malnourished. Some people do not like him feeding them because of the buildings ( ya know, all the bird poop)

The kids like to chase after the birds to get them to fly around.

Downtown Toluca

Overall, I really enjoyed our daytrip to Toluca. There were some nice unexpected surprises. I will end with this photo of some wonderful texture. There is so much of what I call "texture" and "street art" all over Mexico. By the end of my stay I could make a book out of just that alone.



Next blog: Museo Nacional de la Acuarela and Fonoteca Nacional