A glimpse at my inability to cook......

Today, we went to the neighborhood called Pueblito with our friend and colleague, Marthe. Marthe lives in a neighborhood here in Queretaro that is home to a giant Toltec pyramid that was only just uncovered in 1998:

The 'pueblito' as it is called is small in comparison to its Teotihuacan counterparts closer to Mexico City. Perhaps that explains the "ito" on the end. However, for my gringo eyes, the pyramid was huge. We walked around and took a tour and saw sacrificial altars and dancing platforms. After the trek, we decided to go for gorditas at a nearby roadside restaurant.

While waiting, it was quite obvious that all but one of us were foreigners. The cook said something to Marthe in Spanish that was more than my 3 week crash course brain could handle. I was delightfully surprised when I realized that we had an invitation to come back and attempt to make tortillas. Here is some photographic evidence of my major FAIL at creating a tortilla:

First, we take some dough that has been premixed and roll it into a ball. That, I can handle. Next.........

We place the dough into a press and smash it flat between two sheets of wax like paper.

Finally, we carefully pry the tortilla away from the wax paper and let it gracefully drop onto our hands. Note the word graceful. Probably where my tortilla went awry.

As you can see, mine is the broken one. I think it was politely cast aside when I was not looking. The rest of them made it into the basket for future gorditas. However poor my tortilla making skills may be, it was still a great way to spend my final day here in Queretaro.