THE K2J VIRTUAL RUN ACROSS CANADA WEEK 3
On Monday April 27, 2020 K2J Fitness started to run across Canada in a virtual kind of way!
We ran the first 5000 km roughly following the route taken by Terry Fox in 1980. Sadly, he had to end his run in Thunder Bay but we will continue on to Victoria. The entire run across Canada is 8180.81 km. We have now gone beyond that distance and we are traveling South to Cabo Hornos at the tip of South America.
Enter your weekly distance here
Week 4
We started our week in Buelton California we traveled from there across the US border into Mexico. We ended the week just past Mexico City in Huamantla, Mexico. 13,819.87 km from St. John’s Newfoundland and about 850 km from Guatemala. You can see the details of this week's trip below.
Huamantla is the home of the National Puppet Museum
Housed in an eighteenth century mansion this fun museum contains the puppets
and dolls used and collected by the brothers Rosete Aranda, who were famous
puppeteers in the nineteenth century. The museum has eight rooms where you
will see the more than 500 pieces brought from Germany, France, Italy, Indonesia
and Pakistan among other countries. Alas they do not appear to sell T-shirts
If you are looking to do some hill work. It is a 14 km trip to
La Malinche National Park. Matlalcueitl volcano in the park is 4,462 metres
high. It is a gentle slope and there is a paved road to the top.
Mats of Sawdust (Tapetes)
Every Saturday from noon a colorful rug is made in the alley Margarita Maza with multi-colored sawdust. People come to see the elaborate process and the colorful result. At the end there are matachines rockets and dances.This custom takes more force on 14 August the famous” Night that nobody sleeps”which is part of the celebrations of the Virgin of Charity. We should obviously plan a trip then.
The Night Nobody Sleeps
La noche que nadie duerme (The Night When Nobody Sleeps) is the colorful star of the Feria de Huamantla. A two-week August extravaganza of culture, comida and color, bringing together bull runs, dances and traditional stuffed chilies to give thanks to the Virgen de la Caridad.
Thanks is given through the creation of elaborate mats of wood shaving art – tapetes that cover most every street in town. About 8 km of art.
Each street plans and executes their own design, each design has at least six colors and no tapete will ever be the same as the last. Even the adornments strung across the street are all unique.
On the night of August 14th, artisans stencil and sawdust their way around the town, tap-tap-tapping on tin cans full of the stuff. They watch as the colorful shavings spill out over every nook and cranny of the intricate pattern immortalized in a cardboard cut-out. Like bakers adding the icing sugar to a cake, the process is rinsed and repeated along the length of the street.
Once the tapetes have been made, they stay on the streets for around four to six hours so they can be admired by the residents and visitors. Nobody can step on them until the procession starts
When the clock strikes 1 a.m., the procession of parishioners, led by the image of the Virgen de la Caridad--heads through the streets of Huamantla, mussing up the carefully crafted tapetes as it goes.
This video is in Spanish but you get the idea. You can see the video here.
May 18th We started in Buelton California. It was 529.7 km to Mexico. We crossed the border. We would have crossed in the early morning on May 19th
We continued on just past Mexico City to Huamantla.
May 19th. We traveled inland a bit and made a brief stop at Torreon only because the whole trip was too long for one map!
Although it's tempting to stay and wait for the big celebrations in August we are off to Guatemala next!
