Road Trip to Colima, Mexico (part 1)

We rented a mini van with our dear friends on s/v Ceilydh and visited the volcano in Colima. It is the most active volcano in North America. My photo of it is not great; it was a tad hazy. However, it puffed for us! We were most excited to see the puff of smoke floating above the crater!

We then visited some small ruins discovered in Colima. Finding the ruins was a Mexican adventure in itself - signage is either non-existant or in the weirdest spots. El Chanal is not completely understood as it was abandoned before the Spanish conquistadors arrived. It is believed that its peoples inhabited the area between 1100 and 1400 AD. The probability of human sacrifices and ripping the beating hearts out of the victims was (sickly) my favorite part. We threatened Maia and Carolyne and tossed them into the pit-of-doom in case they were contemplating bad behavior. We snacked on baguettes (yes, the French Baker's, of course!) and brie in the shade. There is a blog post that Diane found that has excellent information on the ruins and the history- I won't even try to recreate the info. Just go to Jim and Carole's Mexico Adventure here: http://cookjmex.blogspot.com/2010/02/colima-part-3-mysterious-ruins-of.html