Ruins, Love, and Magical Towns

Another pyramid and wedding-filled weekend! Bruno and I went to Teotenango to see the pyramids on Saturday. They are only about 30 minutes from Toluca. They were some of the coolest-looking pyramids. There were many different levels which made the view of the pyramids awesome. We didn’t have much time though because we had to get back to Toluca for the wedding of friends of Bruno. The mass was at 5PM. We casually strolled into the church at 5:50PM, just in time to watch the newlywed couple exit. At least they thought we were there the whole time. We hadn’t eaten since before the pyramids and we knew it would be a while until dinner time so we had some pizza to tide us over at a pizzeria next to the church.

We got to the reception a little before 8. It was a beautiful wedding and reception that was Valentine’s Day themed. All of the bridesmaids were dressed in red. There were about 250 people at the reception in a place that looked out over the city of Toluca. We ate at around 9 and the music started at 11PM. We danced cumbia for a while and then the Banda arrived. Wouldn’t be a Mexican wedding without Banda! While the Banda was playing, the bride and bridesmaids walked around with a wooden box to ask for money from the women for the newlyweds. This is a Mexican tradition to help financially support the honeymoon. The groom was having men sign his dress shirt with permanent marker which is another tradition.

On Sunday we picked up Faby from her hometown and went to the magic town of El Oro. It used to be a mining town. We went on a guided tour of some of the most prominent places, such as the theater, municipal building, train station, and old mine. The theater was beautiful and was mostly for the wealthy back in the day when they built it. The mining brought business to the town so they constructed the theater. The mine was super interesting, too. We were able to walk over glass that you could look down to see how far it went. There was also an observation deck to get a good view of the town. Then we walked through an artisan center where we bought jams and ate (thick, jello-like bar). We had lunch in an old railroad car. It was so cute! Then we dropped of Faby and headed back to Toluca.