A Dance with the Devil Dogs/Seeing Silver City

The United States Marine Corps just celebrated its 232nd Birthday and, news to us, that's celebrated wherever there are Marines. There's a bunch of them here in Mexico City guarding the US Embassy and so this past Saturday night Sergio and I got all dolled up and attended our first (and likely not our last) Marine Corps Birthday Ball.

We wear Black on the outside because...

It was a blast. The Ball began with the birthday ceremony. The Marines recited a prayer, sang a hymn, set a table for those MIA, paraded with flags , and then wheeled out a giant cake. The oldest Marine in attendance received a slice of birthday cake and then passed it to the youngest Marine. We kinda hoped they were going to feed each other the cake like a couple of strapping soldier newlyweds but no such luck. In fact, the whole event was very dignified and quite moving.

The ceremony was followed by dinner, mingling with coworkers and foreign officials and plenty of music. There was a whole mess of mariachis, and a bilingual pop/jazz ensemble. It's not often in life that you get to see a Japanese military dignitary and his wife line-dancing to a live version of "Achy-Breaky Heart" -- in Spanish.

Can you see her awesome dress?

But the best part may have been when the lights went down and the dj started with dozen or so Marines crashing onto the dance floor in full dress uniform to dance to that "Crank That" Soulja Boy song . It gave me chills!

It looked a lot like this, except with uniforms.

On Sunday, we headed out to Taxco, a silver mining town of about 100,000 people south of Cuernavaca. It was a pretty 2-hour drive. Taxco was bustling on Sunday, and it took us nearly another hour to find somewhere to leave the car so we could get out and see the city.

On the road into town, we passed a convent featuring this startling scene:


Traffic was a bear in Taxco; the city itself is nestled snugly among half a dozen hills with narrow cobblestone streets twisting up and down the hillside. The streets are so narrow that there's no room for sidewalks, and pedestrians crowd the roads blocking traffic as they poke around shopping and enjoying the scenery.

This bus driver had little patience for us.

Silver mining began here in the 1500s right after the Spanish came upon the town and figured out what was underneath. They stripped pretty much all of the silver out of the ground, yet it continues to be the chief silversmithing city in Mexico, and tons of wholesale jewelry is sold here in addition to the storefront work available to amateur shoppers like us.

As it turns out, Sergio and I aren't particularly interested in silver handiwork (whoops). After two or three stores, we had had our fill (there are over 3oo shops here!) and decided to check out the rest of town and call it a day.

This was the view from the roof where we ate lunch.

Santa Prisca was one of the grandest churches we've seen so far -- pink and elaborate and just stunning on a beautiful day (the photo doesn't give nearly all the details carved into the spires). The architecture was interesting here, lots dated from the 1700s and we saw more tile roofs here than we have seen in other parts of Central Mexico.


The climate here is year-round perfect as the abundant flowers reminded us. We strolled through the zocalo and soaked up some of the wonderful sunshine ourselves before heading back to the big, bad city.

Nope, that's not a parking lot -- it's the town's main thoroughfare. Traffic is just unavoidable in Mexico no matter where you go.