Today we went on a Hidden Mexico tour to El Tuito, taking in a botanical garden, a village, a wood turning workshop, a bakery with an adobe oven, an artists’ cooperative, a graveyard, some ancient petroglyphs, and lunch in a stream. 

We saw coffee plants with beans on them, avocado trees, lime trees, orange trees, a vanilla vine, a strelitzia flower, and loads of bougainvillea. It’s cool to see things growing outside that we only know as houseplants and hothouse flowers.

Our guide told us some interesting stories, including one about tiny “witches” (maybe spirits or fairies?) that live in a particular tree and can steal the soul of any passing baby. If you get home with your baby after passing this tree, and your baby is colicky and fretful, you have to go back to the tree and ask it to give the baby’s soul back.

Avocado tree

Vanilla vine

Strelitzia (bird of paradise flower)

Avocados on the tree

Coffee beans

Ancient petroglyphs (age unknown, discovered in 1998)

The bakery with its adobe oven

Galeria Coppelia, Artists’ cooperative, El Tuito

This deer was part of the Christmas display of the church in El Tuito, but naturally my first thought was of Cernunnos.

Lunch in a stream on the rancho

---

If you enjoyed this post, you might like my books.