Valle de Bravo

The jacuzzi

Valle de Bravo town

Breakfast

The view from our room

Outside lounge

Buenas! Cómo están?

Last weekend I went to Valle de Bravo. In the beginning of the semester I met 2 mexican guys from ITAM, David and Fernando, and we became friends, also with some other exchange girls, and they invited us to come to Valle de Bravo for a weekend. It's a small village, located about 2hours from Mexico City with a huge lake, its a place where the "rich" of Mexico City own villas to spent the weekend and holidays. Sounded good to us, so yes, we went. The meeting point was at ITAM and we went with 2 cars, 4 mexican boys and 6 foreign girlies. We were gonna stay at a "rancho", sounded great. in fact, when we arrived, it appeared to be a 1500 hectare land with mountains, forests, lakes, but nicest were the 200 beautiful horses. It is a rancho owned by a big rich family from Mexico City. One of the members of this family, is "el Gordo", a friend of our friends, who we met there. We stayed at one of the villas on the land. It was the most beautiful house I've ever seen. A not too big (four bedrooms) typical rustic mexican "hacienda". It is orange, with a very cool style, a lot of wood and natural rocks, beautiful indoor garden, outdoor lounge with fireplace, jacuzzi, pool, stunning view and 3 permanent housewives who made us food whenever we wanted! Wow, I was in heaven!! The first night we had a delicious typical mexican dinner and drank some beers in the jacuzzi. The next morning unfortunately it was raining and I did not bring any appropriate clothes, so could not go horse riding... but we had a great breakfast (picture) and went to check out the cute village and enormous lake and went for a ride with the jeeps over the land, its endless and soooo beautiful with a very diverse nature.

I had a great weekend, and learned that there is in fact a (too) big difference between rich and poor here in Mexico. the middle class is relatively small and if you are rich, you are veeeeeery rich. Another incredible thing is that due to the macho culture here, gils, many times, cannot pay. And so, I we were not alowed to pay anything for this unforgettable weekend!

Now I gotta go, because at 23h Im going, bu bus, to Puerto Escondido, a surfer's paradise (a dream becoming true) at the south west coast of Mexico. It will be a 12hour drive, but we can sleep. I'm going with a group of about 20 exchange students and 2 organizing mexicans.

I'll be gone untill sunday night, but mnday I'll let ya guys know how it was!

Hasta luego!