At The volcano.

When Mrs A. and I first got married we took three weeks for our honeymoon, and went to Morelia, Mexico and stayed with my Uncle Ben and Aunt Pat. It was a wonderful time. Uncle Ben is a Professor of History at the College of Michoacan in Morelia. Since both my wife and I are History buffs, it was a magical time, as we had our own bilingual driver and tour guide. When we got there there was an international conference of Humboldt scholars at the college. We were invited to the closing ceremonies, and got invited along on a trip the next day.

Wilhelm Humboldt is the guy that the Humboldt current is named after as well as the Humboldt Valley in California. He was an internationally known explorer and diarist. 200 years previously, he had come through Mexico with the intent of visiting an active volcano. After the conference, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his explorations, the people from the conference were going to take a trip and climb that same volcano.

We took the air conditioned Department of Agriculture bus as far as the town of La Huacana, where we stopped for lunch and changed vehicles. That's Uncle Ben in front of the bus. The bus was a trip. As Mrs A. put it, "All we need is a chicken and a pig, and it would be the bus from "Romancing the Stone" . We took off out into the jungle and went to the end of the road, where we left the bus. Some of us hires horses from the locals for the trip. That again is uncle Ben on the horse.


The University had payed the local villagers to feed us dinner, so we set up right in the middle of the road and they brought out a big old tin washtub full of the best Chicken Mole' I have ever eaten.

I was wandering around eating baked corn meal wrapped in banana leaves when I heard a noise coming out of the jungle. Now we were at the end of the formal road, but I heard a vehicle coming. A truck came out of the jungle, and it was loaded with people in black fatigues and carrying AK47s. I had visions of the headline back at home "LOCAL MAN SLAIN BY BANDITOS IN MEXICO"

I tried to fade back into the crowd, but when you are approaching 6", and the crowd is 5' 6", fading is difficult. The truck came roaring up and the armed men jumped out. They seem agitated that we were blocking the road. There was a very heated discussion, but I finally figured out that they had been invited to join us for dinner.

They put their guns in the back of the truck, and pulled up chairs and chowed down.

It turns out that they were Federales who had been patrolling for Banditos out in the jungle and were on their way home. So we ate Chicken Mole' and drank a little Mescal and had a good time.