Volcanic Ash everywhere

While we were celebrating on roof top yesterday night, our eyes started itching and soon the floor, sofas, tables… everything was covered in volcanic ash. Volcano Popocatepetl erupted with tremendous amount of ash.This was quite a unique incident for all of us.

Photo taken at the dawn (Not by CSC team)

Photo by Volker on the hotel roof top

I realized seeing pics in the morning that the eruption was actually very huge. Here is the news coverage translated in English and the pic taken at the dawn yesterday

Popocatépetl volcanic alert remains yellow Phase II

May 8, 2013 - 9:53

The National Center for Disaster Prevention (Cenapred) reported that after eruptive episode recorded yesterday in the Popocatepetl volcano, volcanic alert remains at Phase II yellow, although it is likely they present moderate exhalations, some with emissions ash.

In its latest report, the agency of the Ministry of the Interior (Interior Ministry) also reported sporadic explosions could present low level has moderate probability of emission of incandescent fragments short distance and faint crater glow at the crater of the volcano observable overnight.

Around eruptive episode that began at 19:28 am on Tuesday, said that stayed with equal intensity until 1:58 on Wednesday and then diminished to 03:30, when the volcano returned to its levels previous activity.

The Cenapred explained that this episode had a total duration of eight hours and that there have been reports of ashfall Tianguismanalco San Juan, San Pedro Benito Juarez, Atlixco Puebla , plus it is probably also submitted in most populations in the southeast sector of the volcano.

He called on the authorities to continue the safety radius of 12 kilometers to avoid the presence of people in place and maintain controlled traffic between Santiago and San Pedro Nexapa Xalitzintla via Paso de Cortés.

A Civil Protection authorities, called for maintaining the preventive procedures, according to their operational plans, and people, being attentive to official information that is disseminated.

He recalled that Popocatepetl volcano monitoring is performed continuously 24 hours and that any changes in the activity will be reported in a timely manner.

Reference Link: http://eleconomista.com.mx/sociedad/2013/05/08/popocatepetl-mantiene-alerta-volcanica-amarillo-fase-ii

Cinco de mayo parade

Cinco de Mayo (May 5th) is celebrated in Puebla in memory of the victory of the Mexican army of Native Indians over French army in 1862. The Indians fought and defeated the outnumbered French army with mere swords.

The parade of Cinco de Mayo starts from the fort of Puebla and passes through the downtown. People all over the country rush to enjoy the parade, fair and several other cultural programs arranged in the city.

Crowd on the both side of the roads for the parade

Thanks to Paula, we got to go to the roof top of the hotel and have a perfect view of the parade. Otherwise only Louis, Peter and Flavio could have seen it.

Trying to find place until Paula arranged for the roof top :)

Mexican soldiers

Military Nurses

Drone for television coverage

Native Indian

Spanish conquers taking over Aztec pyramids and
trying to find treasure in tunnels beneath the pyramid

Portraying cinco de mayo war between Indians and French

Float portraying the canon blast during the war

066 emergency services vehicle
(We are working with 066 department here)

Crowd dispersing after the parade

Taste of India

We had a Indian Food potluck two days back .. Sridevi got two south Indian style chatni. Krishna had some MTR ready to eat. We asked hotel staff to cook rice. I took bakarwadi (Indian style spring rolls from Pune), dates and rajgira ladoo
  
We invited everyone for the dinner and most of them loved it. Specially, one of sridevi's chatni, black beans curry and bakarwadi.

 Photos: Courtesy: Morgana
 

Magic town of Cholula

Cholula - a native Indian town of Aztecs is situated around 30 min from Puebla. Said to have established after the farming of Teotihuacan started to be less productive, Cholula developed as next Aztec colony in the area.

The biggest pyramid of Cholula contains a maze of tunnels under the pyramid. The caves were blocked for several years but were cleaned and restored in 1931. You can walk udner the pyramid for about 1km. There are several forks and branches to the tunnels that lead up, down or perpendicular and create a scary maze. they have blocked the entrances to those forks with grills to ensure that nobody is lost inside.

The local guide told us a legend that Spanish Aztec war lead Spanish conquerors search these tunnels under the pyramid for wealth. Before they could find the hidden chambers beneath the pyramid, Aztec managed to take the treasure out to some other place. When Spanish did not find the treasure, they ensured to take some revenge.

The town boasted having 365 pyramid temples in the past. Each Pyramid is converted to a church now. That seems kind of rude behavior of Spanish conqueror to destroy the local culture of Aztec civilization. However some churches that we visited are very glorious with golden paint on the walls and detailed carvings.

We also visted local fruit and vegetable market. Looked quite a lot like Mandai markets in Mumbai or Pune. People also did some shopping of souvenirs, jewelry etc.

Saturday Night

Party for Steve’s birthday started on Saturday around 7.30pm with a few beers and wine and went on till 3am, until eventually when people not able to realize what they were doing and ended up in their respective beds.

The party started with a nice 3 course dinner. Paula arranged some pasta for main course for vegetarians. The hotel staff did quite an arrangement by setting up candles, wine glasses, cooling all the drinks we had purchased, arranging the projector for our slideshows and the sofas on the terrace for drinking.

I was wearing the slippers from the room and Morgana and Sabine found it amusing. Coincidentally Mario also wore the same kind of slippers but changed to shoes when they made fun of him.

Volker created a nice slide show and projected on the wall with solo pics of every one and some tourist spots in Mexico we visited in last two weeks. Steve played the guitar with Tracy singing with him. When everyone was drunk a lot, we played songs from different countries. Volker’s effort of compiling this album with 3 songs from each language of the participants was quite a hit. Louis liked the “Nagada Nagada” and “Morya Morya” and tried to dance bhangda and Marathi Ganapati festival style dance with us.

The deal was not to post pictures of anything that happened after 10pm. But actually we took quite a less amount of photos (I don’t think anyone was in right mind to do that!) and most of them were alright. Nothing to be censored!

14 of us finished about 3 tequila bottles, several boxes of beers, red and white wine. We had much more with us…I am sure people are gonna have one more bash soon to finish them… vodka and more beers. Sophia volunteered to make a few cocktails which turned out to be popular. Sridevi tasted some tequila to everyone’s surprise.

 Michelada - beer with spicy Mexican sauce

Tequila

People slowly started deserting the party land when they were drunk than they expected and could not take it further. I went to the room around 2pm. I heard later that people went to warm water pool later.

The hang over next day is something you don’t want but can’t avoid. I woke up at 9.45 and went to have some breakfast only because it closes at 10. After having some food and coffee, I felt a little better and sleeping till noon again, made me fresh back again. People spent their Sunday in shopping which has been pending for last two weeks now.

Yoga session under the sky

We had been discussing of having Yoga sessions for a week now, but because of moving to other hotel for a few days and people being busy with the field trips, it was not happening.

Finally we had a nice long Yoga session today. Sophie came on the terrace to do yoga on her own, where I was running on the mill. And we also found Sharon. Three of us ended up doing several different asana (postures) for about an hour. I led my routine with instructions. It felt good to have this done after quite a few days. Sophie seemed to be quite regular at it and had the most flexible body.She also knew the Sanskrit names of the asana.

Volker was watching us from the gym, doing several different postures ... a few difficult ones like Ardha Machhindrasan and Garudasan (Eagle Posture). It felt food to stretch your arms and legs under the sky watching shapes of the clouds and sound of the wind.

We may end up doing different routines of each other in the next few days.

Birthday bash

It was steve's birthday today...  but everyone including me is so wasted that we afre not able to talk straight right now. so more details tomorrow (mostly afternoon).. sorryt for the spelling mistakes .. cant help it.. :)

Two weeks Check-point Meeting

Two weeks Check-point Meeting: We had out two weeks check point meeting today for all the three subteams. Health and Security teams worked from IBM office today. Alfa...

The pre-party

We are planning to celebrate Steve's birthday tomorrow. A few of us went to wallmart in the evening to get the party stuff. But the mood for the party had already begun. We ended up having a long preparty today... 

It was full of a lot more events than expected

• Lot of laughs and discussions
• Playing music from German, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Chinese languages
• Very less drinks (as compared to tomorrow’s plan)
• Discussion with Steve about English Grammar (Drunk/Drunken) and Cricket (Mostly British team surprisingly winning a few matches :-) )
• Tracy losing her cell phone (probably in the cab)
• Three sincere people working downstairs and Sanket and Sabine ensuring to capture them in photos

• Getting next amount of Per diem … some of us were eagerly waiting for that :-)
• Every one, separately,  asking Paula about what time we were leaving tomorrow and Louis’ suggestion to record the audio of “10.00am” or “Taxis are waiting”
• And the most entertaining was every one trying a Yoga Aasana

It started with the plan to have Yoga session on Sunday and Sophia, Krishna showed Padmasana (Posture of Lotus). It involved two steps. First step was very easy, but the second one – not so much unless you have a habit of it. There were several laughs when a few of us could not do it well. And a few of us could not do even the first step. Volker managed to do the second step finally and was very expressive about it. (A couple of beers you know!). Sabine did it very easily and gave a pose like a Hindu Monk for a snap.:-) Sharon and Steve tried and surrendered (with cheers :-))

Volker finally managing to do it

Sabine looking like a Hindu monk - happy and realized

Steve and Sharone

Cheers!

Paula - Not so difficult!

Luda

The party finally ended at 12.00 midnight when all the beer and wine was finished and with the agenda to pack again to move back to La Purificadora.

If you need to ask, you don't need to know!

Solving puzzles at Pizzeria

We went to Pizzeria to have dinner today. The lady told us that pizza is going to be about 12 inches. So Sabine and I decided to share.

It took us quite long to decide on the pizza. I wanted a pizza which does not have ham or any kind of beef. Sabine wanted to pizza not having eggplant or garlic or egg. Sabine wanted to have one with the ham but wasn't very hungry to finish the whole one. Morgana ordered ham but she was hungry and wanted to finish the whole.

With all these permutations and combinations, we finally ended up ordering a simple margarita pizza. It was good. And I heard that it turned out to be better than the ham. Finally it worked for us.

Shopping...

People are now growing more and more impatient for shopping. Two weeks already passed. Half of the stay is over. Most of us have not even started looking into what needs to bought. So some of us are growing anxious and planning to go out in the downtown markets to buy some stuff in the evenings.

Shridevi and Tracy are ahead of every one so far, enjoying their shopping. Sabine went out this evening to buy some bracelets etc. I have bought a few t-shirts and some key chains in my visit to the pyramids and haven't really done any shopping so far in the city. Probably it's time to hang out in streets in the evening!!

Grande

Mexican can eat really spicy food. The food is generally 7/8 out of 10 in spicy scale and some of the sauces are even 10. They are even spicy for an Indian tongue like me.

Many of the food items have same ingredients but different bread. or just change one ingredient but may have whole different name. Semitas and Toratas for exmaple only one or two ingredients different.

Mexicans like to eat a lot of cheese and fried food. Frying tortillas (Mexican rotis)  and frying chicken are very common. The wahaka cheese which is a special kind of Mexican cheese is used with generous hand.

People are very nice and friendly. They would go out of the way to fulfil your requests and with smiling face. That is something very new to a person from Pune. For example the lady where we generally have lunch did not have spoons, but when bought chankallas (sorry for the spelling), we asked for the spoon because it was not dry. She could have said she does not have it, but in stead she went out and bought a few plastic spoons for us quickly.

Found the right spelling... its' chanclas

Food is very colorful here with red, green sauce, white cheese, yellow mexican rice and black beans. Brings a different presentation to your plate. (It depends on what you manage to order with your Spanish and the recipient's English). It could get really messy sometimes. I once ordered a sandwich and fries on the side. I got a big sandwich and a huge plate full of french fries worth 45 pesos. Entire team ate fries of that plate. Considering that our daily lunch is about 40 pesos; the dish was huge.

Luda ordered some juice at a taco place (Grande - large size). It happened to be so large that she could not finish 30% of it.