Family day in Tepoz

Nobody moved too fast Saturday morning, since we were all up very late Friday. After showers, etc. some of us slowly made our way upstairs to the terrace, where it was truly a beautiful morning. The pattern seemed to be gorgeous mornings, rainy nights.

This was our second morning in Tepoztlán, but for everyone else who arrived after dark the night before, it was their first time really checking out the views.

People started taking a bunch of family pictures with the mountains as a backdrop- each couple, then immediate families, the whole group, etc.

Here’s a couple:

Eventually we were all present and we headed out for brunch (it was late morning by this time).

*Little disclaimer- I am not the best at traveling with large groups. I’m mildly anal when it comes to how I want to travel, what I want to see/do, etc. Not saying this is the best way to be, but it’s just kind of how I am.

However, obviously, traveling with 17 people is going to require some flexibility.

The good thing here is that we took my neurosis into account and planned to arrive that extra day early. 🙂

I basically felt like I had already had some time to do what “I” wanted to do (the hike) and had already enjoyed a couple nice, quiet, beautiful meals with my immediate family, in the types of restaurants that I wanted to eat at.

We had also covered most of the ground by this point in Tepoztlán on our own. (It’s not that big of a town!)

So, I felt very relaxed and had no real expectations going into the rest of Saturday and Sunday. When people asked what I wanted to do, I cheerfully, and honestly, was able to answer, “Whatever is fine!”

Someone selected a roomy Oaxacan style restaurant for lunch near our hotel.

It was nice! We all agreed the food was good but not outstanding.

The atmosphere was very “Mexican”, and they had an acoustic guitarist playing and singing which was a nice touch.

On the agenda after that was really just to head out explore the town (again, for us) with everyone else. It was most people’s first time in Tepoztlán.

The zócalo had a lot of activity going on, so that was the first stop. More live music, and also some sort of “indigenous people” cultural celebration as well.

After the music, some indigenous women began offering “limpiezas”, or “cleansings”. People lined up and one by one, the women waved some particular incense on them, chanted some phrases and apparently left their body and spirit newly “cleaned”.

We decided that, well, we can all use a fresh start, so why not? We joined the line and also received an indigenous limpieza.

It was interesting and it’s always cool to partake in local customs when you can. 🙂

From there, we really just milled around the market, shops, etc for the next several hours. There was a lot of cool stuff for sale and it was fun to just wander around and browse. The atmosphere was WAY more electric on Saturday versus Thursday when we arrived!

It’s definitely a tourist vibe on the weekends, and they sell mojitos and micheladas on the street (and allow people to walk around drinking).

I’ll gloss over some of the less interesting details of the rest of the afternoon. We essentially kept walking around, I bought a few cool shirts and a dress, we got snacks like churros and just had a nice time!

We walked a LOT, and by early evening ended up back at the hotel. We had some downtime, hung out on the hotel lawn and relaxed.

They decided instead of going back out to dinner, that the guys would go to the food market and bring back a bunch of food to eat on the terrace.

Unfortunately…. Guess what happened (again)? It stormed- and big time. The guys were stuck waiting it out at the market (under tents) and we just sat in the room. (I wrote a blog post!)

Finally, the storm blew over some (it was a pretty nasty thunderstorm) but it continued to rain. We dried off the tables upstairs the best we could, but many of us ended up huddling in the covered kitchen area!

Okay, this was not ideal!! But again, it worked. It was warmer and dry there and better than all cramming into a hotel room. Oh well. As I think Elisabeth said recently in a comment, when it comes to weather, “you win some, you lose some.” At least it was dry all day.

The boys didn’t last as long on night #2 of family party, so I headed down a little after 11 this time with Asher. (He was ready for bed- after all the hiking and walking, and the damp rain, we were tired.)

Pretty sure my Energizer Bunny husband was up there until 1 am again though, haha.