Mexico - A Garden Of Wild Wonders

Hello there!

After a short break and consolidating my first edition of my Travel Diaries, which included my travel posts to 14 different countries, here's kickstarting my second edition of Travel Diaries! For those who are keen to read my the first edition, you can find them here.

I am actually quite excited to start this new country and new series of posts, because it's something that I wanted to do for quite some time, but I needed some time to tidy up my photos and organise my storytelling and places. And this new country is Mexico!

Back in 2009, I had the opportunity to go for a summer exchange programme to spend 7 weeks studying in an university in Queretaro, a small city in Mexico and that was one of my more memorable parts of my life! Going halfway across the globe from Asia, I didn't know much about Mexico so I went there with my eyes wide open, and ready to embrace the different cultures and experiences.

A few months before the actual trip, if you are old enough to recall, there was the H1N1 virus which was quite prevalent in the world, including Mexico, and the trip was almost cancelled. Eventually, the programme was postponed, and the situation got better and travel restrictions were lifted. Even so, many participants of the programme decided not to go ahead for personal reasons. Because this trip was such a rare opportunity, I made the decision to go ahead.

So let the adventures begin!

Here's the series of Mexico posts so far:
Mexico - Flying Halfway Across The Globe
Mexico - A Journey Beneath The Vineyard
Mexico - Where Peña de Bernal Comes Alive
Mexico - A Leap Of Faith At Las Pozas

I remembered I took a "Ecology and Sustainable Environment" class, and there were field trips, which meant more exploration outdoor and less time spent in classrooms. One of the weeks, we travelled to another neighbouring state, Guanajuato. The city name was San Miguel de Allende. And here we were, at El Charco del Ingenio Jardin Botanico (Botanic Gardens). It was a protected area where the people let plants and animals thrive. So this post is going to be heavy on plant photos haha!

This was one of the main plants that greeted us! I think it's only in different places and different terrains that I get to see plants that I don't see in my country.

I believe these are some type of beetles, and they were feeding on the cactus fruit!

And then we came to up an area with many little potted plants! Looked cute and we just looked around.

This is the agave, similar to aloe vera but under different families. We were told it was used to make a certain type of tequila.

We also visited the greenhouse at the botanical gardens, which had a diverse collection of cacti and desert succulents.

Even the weather was hot, I still found it a meaningful visit, and it's refreshing to have these classes outdoors where we are able to see and learn things in such live environment. Perhaps it was because it was a summer exchange class. Perhaps it was a different education approach compared to my own country. And that's the beauty of such overseas exchanges, to open our eyes, to see new stuff, to embrace new ways of doing things.

And that's all I have today! Have you been to Guanajuato or Mexico? Let me know in the comments below!

Finally, thanks for reading my post in the community under World Map Pin!