Hello again! We’re now halfway through our ISEED program here in Mexico, and San Cristobal de las Casas could not be any more different from CDMX. Pretty much all of it good, too! I’m a huge fan, but let me not get ahead of myself. This was also the first week where we had more consistent classes, which was more of the study abroad experience I was expecting. It’s been great how much freedom we have to explore the city even around a more consistent class schedule, so here’s the required photodump:
One of my favorite buildings here in San Cris, right down the street from our apartment!
This city is pretty unique, especially coming from the gigantic metropolis that is Mexico City. Everything moves a little slower here (besides the cabs, which is saying a lot), but I’m having so much fun and I enjoy how much more approachable everything is – so much less overwhelming!
Unhappily drenched after our “field trip” to the lagoon…
After discussing our term-long water purification project with Dr. Loyo, we took a trip to the place we would be collecting the water that we would be attempting to purify. The weather did everything in its power to stop us, but we pressed on!
Betty the yellow Labrador, the mascot of a very cute restaurant we ate at after our visit with Cantaro Azul
This was at a very indie little cafe near Cantaro Azul, where we had just spent the morning learning about their unique approach to helping people purify their water, as well as a discussion about the role of government and public policy in changing things for the better.
The tallest of the five waterfalls of Chiflon
We spent this Saturday on a long road trip to Chiflon, a quintet of waterfalls and pools that was exactly what the doctor ordered after a long week of class. This was incredible – the clarity of the water, the spray, the raw height – there was even a zip line down the canyon!
The topmost waterfall, and the final resting place of my trusty cap
Isa, Fernando, and I were the only troopers all the way to the top, and I got this great photo with my blue National Gallery cap – only to immediately forget it here and not realize until we were on our way out of the park. Rest in peace, hopefully someone cool steals it!
A cenote (water-filled crater)
We ended our Saturday at this cenote. I was told the water wasn’t quite as cold as at Chiflon, but I was too tired to see if that was the case. Had a nice short hike around the rim, though!
Horse riding! (Before torrential rain cut the adventure short)
Earlier today, myself, Yanelli, Emmanuella, and Isa went horseback riding in a nearby village. It was a great time and we got to see an indigenous place of worship, but by the afternoon, it rained and rained. We spent some quality time under a corrugated metal roof watching the valley flood and playing crossword, before catching a taxi home.
The primary focus this week was twofold: looking at the same problem in different ways in Dr. Loyo’s class and exploring manufacturing techniques in Dr. Hunter’s. Focusing on the former first, I found our visit to Cantaro Azul incredibly eye-opening, as it not only showed a type of purification I had never seen before in person, UVC purification, but we also had the chance to discuss how engineering solutions often don’t solve the underlying problem, and any engineering design work that happens must, at the bare minimum, be intimately tuned to the audience it intends to serve. We talked more about the effectiveness of solutions besides pure engineering here than we did at Isla Urbana, and thinking about problems in this way was very new to me.
As for the latter, manufacturing techniques, Jovanny and I spent the week disassembling and documenting a LifeStraw in order to reverse-engineer how it was designed and manufactured. I do have some experience with disassembly and repair, having had the opportunity to repair my iPhone and laptop myself in the past, but this focus specifically on manufacturing techniques was new to me and it was one of those lessons that changes the way you see everything around you forever. Although the LifeStraw is pretty straightforward, it was pretty cool to talk to my classmates to see how different these designs were when trying to accomplish pretty much the same thing, water filtration.
That’s all for this week, I’m looking forward to diving deeper into the respective projects and exploring San Cristobal more!