I got a new digital camera for Christmas, so I took a lot of pics of Tangancicuaro, Parangaricutiro (Nuevo San Juan de las Colchas), Paricutin Volcano, San Juan de los Lagos, and Zamora. Most I'm keeping to myself (how many different shots of the interior of the "Santuario de la Virgen de Guadalupe" could you want?). Below, though, is a representative sampling.

Silvia's parents' farm and ranch (GPS Coord. N19.8805333 W102.1490333) sit outside the village of Tangancicuaro de Arista, in the state of Michoacan, Mexico, a half-hour drive east of Zamora, and 2 1/2 hours SE of Guadalajara.

In Mexico, religion plays an extremely prominent role. There are "miraculous" churches everywhere, and there is a near-idolatrous devotion to the Virgin Mary (particularly the Virgin of Guadalupe), to the point that every church displays an icon of the Virgin front and center in the altar, shunting Jesus off to the side.

I visited two miraculous churches. First, Nuevo San Juan de las Colchas near Parangaricutiro, a town destroyed in 1943 by the creation of the Paricutin Volcano, which erupted from a fissure in a cornfield and devastated everything for miles around. The church was covered almost completely by volcanic rock, leaving only the steeple showing; amazingly, though, the church is intact inside, and can be accessed by climbing down through the steeple. The people left and founded a new city nearby (Nuevo San Juan). Second, San Juan de los Lagos in NE Jalisco between Leon and Aguascalientes, considered a very miraculous place. There is a grand stairwell where the walls are completely covered by a truly bizarre variety of "ofrendas" (offerings) left behind by grateful or hopeful pilgrims. Bicycles, hair, truck parts, jewelry, prosthetic limbs, and a wedding dress are some examples.

In San Juan de los Lagos and in Tangancicuaro, visitors entered and worked their way up to the altar on their knees. In Nuevo San Juan de las Colchas, pilgrims performed a peculiar bouncing, shuffling dance (3 steps forward, 2 back) up the aisle. In the Old Cathedral of Zamora, I heard an old lady with an angelic voice singing as she crawled to the altar on her knees. Later, at the New Cathedral, I saw and heard her again. I should mention the New Cathedral has the single most amazing stained-glass windows behind the main altar, an enormous Surrealist blue flame surrounding the icon of the Virgin Mary, highly reminiscent of Marc Chagall and unlike anything I've ever seen in any other church. In fact, all the upper windows are blue, casting an eerie glow throughout the church. Additionally, there are beautiful but more conventional stained-glass windows all around the massive Neo-Gothic structure. Begun in 1898, it is slated to be Latin America's largest cathedral upon completion.