Mexican Flora & fauna... so far...

I know, I know... I need to post about Monte Alban and Mitla... I'll get it to it I promise. But for now, you can check out fellow NEHers blogs:


Pearl Lau (Art teacher, with great info and she's a great artist too!)
http://pearl-mexico.blogspot.com/ 
Zak Foster (Spanish teacher, all-around cool guy with a quirky sense of humor, LOVE it!)  http://zakinoaxaca.wordpress.com/ 


For now, thought I'd show you some of the flora of the Oaxaca region, most of the pics were taken at Monte Alban and El Tule, but some at Yucundaa ruins.

Love how this one (above) starts out (to the R), then the individual buds

bloom into tiny white flowers which makes a bigger flower!

Some flowers around Monte Alban (above and next two below). 

They are trying hard to reintroduce native plants to the ruin site.

Very pretty but painful!

 

Cactus living in the remains of a tree at Yacundaa ruins.

 Very odd tree leaves at Monte Alban... Our resident biologist (Stef T.) thinks maybe they are a parasite... but the looked to just come up straight from the leaf, not attached like a parasite would, but I dunno... Mom? Thoughts?

  

                              See how the bigger the cactus gets, 

the more bark-like the bottom part gets/ looks?

Tadpoles at Yucundaa ruins.

El Arbol del Tule... MASSIVE tree. It's a sabino tree (a type of cedar, I believe). Over 2000 years old (!!!) and 160 feet in diameter! It's said to be the most massive tree in the world, but not the oldest nor tallest. Very impressive.

You can see abit better here, with the people standing in front of it, just how big around El Tule is... Even with my small lens (28 - 105mm) on the good camera, if I stood where they were I couldn't pull back enough to get the whole trunk in the shot, so had to get farther away!

Lovely gardens at El Tule, which is in front of a church.

Cool clouds over the mountains on the way home from Yucundaa (about a hour outside Oaxaca city).

 
And finally, a great rainbow from the bus window yesterday!

I am going horseback riding this weekend with Stef T. and her friend Sonja (she's not a teacher, she's here for Spanish classes), so no more posts until I get back. We are staying and riding here: http://www.horsebackmexico.com/ 

Hasta luego!