Retiro.

Every year, the teachers of our school go on retreat (I work at a Catholic School). And we just had our annual retreat this weekend (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday). This year we went to a small town about one hour from where I live called Yuriria. Yururia has a lake, and the retreat center overlooked the lake. The retreat center, called Centro Espiritual Agustiniano, is really beautiful with a colonial architecture (al least that's the way it is called here because of the way the Spanish built here while Mexico was a colony of Spain).

I had a wonderful weekend, and want to share some photos with you.

On the road.

This is the chapel. It is not finished yet.

The wooden cross has a very expicit painting.
The Spanish made paintings like this when
Mexico was a colony.

Stone carving of San Agustín.

This was the room I shared with Lolis.

View of the rooms and the columns.



The stone fountain in a courtyard.

Colonial architecture used this blue color very often.
Here is a wooden carving of San Agustín in a niche.




This bush is called "Huele de Noche· (smells at night).

This is the small flower of the "Huele de Noche". During the day
no smell can be detected from it, but at night, the smell is intoxicating.
It is a sweet smell that I love, but many people don't like it.

The heat was terrible. Since this is not a hotel, it had no air conditioning.
Most of us slept with the doors of the rooms open.
So it is logical to have some of the gardens with different types of cacti.
This cactus is called "mounstro" here.



I have some small "mounstros" in my garden,
but I didn't know it flowered. I was really suprised to see these big flowers.

I hadn't seen cactus with yellow flowers either
.

There were dozens of hummingbirds around. Of course
it was very difficult to get a photo of one. But this one stayed still
long enough to ge a shot of him.
They were of different color. This one has a white front, but there
were some that had a beautiful turquoise color.

The retreat center is about 10 minutes from downtown Yuriria.
On our way back home, we took some photos of the church there.
They were taken from the car, so I don't know the name of
it nor when it was built.
We may go back to visit this town next Sunday to celebrate Father's Day.
I'll try to get more information then.

It looks really old!!

I read two novels that have to do with church construction during
the middle ages: The Pillars of Earth by Ken Follet and
La Cathedral del Mar by Ildefonso Falcones.
I was easy to visualize both novels by looking at this church.

Here most of the church can be
seen.

I liked this place very much. I hope we can come back to see more of Yuriria next week.
Have a great beggining of week!!!

*Ooops, I just noticed I didn't upload a photo of the lake! I will put it up tomorrow. Night, night.