A week in Mexico

Midknightc3Midknightc3 Registered Users Posts: 86 Big grins
edited December 8, 2012 in Journeys
I'm a little behind on getting this up, but a few weeks ago I went to San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato Mexico. I was tagging along with my girl friend and her belly dance troupe, Salamat, from here in Prescott. We were headed down for Belibeya, which is an international belly dance festival thrown by an ex-troupe member in honor of Troupe Salamat and it's founder/leader, Terry. It started about 14yrs ago (no one really remembers exactly when the first was) when a troupe member moved to San Miguel and wanted them to come down to help teach their style of dance. It has grown into quite the event, with many girls coming from all over Latin America and the US to take classes from Salamat and other teachers. The whole event was a bit different style of travel than I am used to...no motorcycles or 4x4's, no tents, and no hostels. Instead we had an amazing Villa in a neighborhood down the street from where President and Laura Bush stay when on vacation. With out a doubt though, it was no less fun than the last time I was down there! I'm sure by now though, you are all wishing I would stop blabbing and get on with pretty girls!

The living room! There were 8 of us in the house; 5 troupe members, my self, and two other dancers.
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A local beggar
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He spent each day pulling weeds in the street
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In exchange for food and change
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Elsanne, the ex-Salamat member who puts this thing on every 18 months or so. The lighting on stage was almost as bad as the sound system, so while I have quite a few photo's of the dancers, most of them aren't anything terribly special except to the dancers them selves.
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And of course the closing performance and the whole reason I was there, Troupe Salamat starting off with my beautiful Ustadza
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Afterwards we went out for dinner, and a little girl wanted her picture taken with the girls in their outfits
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Cathedral in a nearby town square
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One of the things that San Miguel is famous for is its natural hot springs...which of course we took time to visit
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Ustadza starring into the sunset before the start of Saturdays Hafla (traditional dance party)
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Katarina, one of the members of Bal Anat, the first American Tribal dance troupe
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The Hafla finally kicked off in full shortly after sunset, with probably 50 girls dressed up and dancing for fun rather then a public performance, which created quite the energetic mood!
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I apologize if it's a whole lot of photo's, but hopefully you all enjoy them!

Clark
I recommend wearing trashcans on your heads to avoid any accidental exposure to knowledge - Dogbert

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