20. All through Mexico, we found again and again that the Mexican people were friendly and willing to aid us in any difficulty at any time. For instance, the day we arrived in San Luis Potosi the police very kindly offered to let us use the public plaza or to rope a street off behind the police station and post a guard for us. (This was a bandit-infested area.) As it turned out, a gentleman who lived in Mexico City had a large mansion in San Luis Potosi and we got to sleep in beds of a lovely home. Have you ever dreamed of seeing one of the fancy homes so often shown in movies a mansion with a long staircase, Italian marble and beautiful paintings here and there,a spacious yard with a pond in the front, and a swimming pool? There is no better description of this place, which certainly did seem like a dream to us. Traveling on to Mexico City, the truck broke down in a small town called San Juan des Los Logos. This turned out to be very fortunate for us as we really saw how the Mexican people live, and what one of their celebrations was like. The town was a colorful one noted for the hand work of its people. Practically everyone spoke Spanish, but occasionally a person was found who wanted to try his English on us. To us this was sometimes amusing, as I suppose our Spanish was to the Mexicans when we tried it. It was in this town that we got our first glimpse of a Mexican Catholic Church. People were going in and out of the Church all day and if they had sinned they just crawled to it on their knees. We noticed an elderly woman who crawled a block on her knees to the church. This religious devotion was one of the most evident characteristics of the Mexican people. Later the same evening, the front of the church was decorated with beautiful wreaths of flowers for the fiesta. During the course of the evening we saw a prominade, which is the method of beginning a courtship in Mexico. Many fireworks were displayed all night. The next day they had a parade which proceeded around the plaza five or six times. One of the most fascinating sights on the trip was Paracutin Volcano. Paracutin erupted for the first time in 1942. As we 21. drove up to the volcano we could see that there was no longer any life or vegetation of any kind because of the volcanic dust covering the area. Get -ting closer we saw more hardened lava. The lava had covered a whole city, leaving only a church that arose from it. We hiked two and a half miles closer to the volcano, and as it grew dark we could see red lava flowing down the mountain side. During our hike, we noticed how hot some of the lava still was, and how much steam was still escaping. The evening we arrived in Guadalahara, we were tired and hungry, and we had no place to make camp. Mr. Buss, Mr. Hancock, and Dr. Hardy left to find us some place to sleep. While they were gone, they met some newspaper reporters, and gave them a long article about our tour. The next morning, it appeared in the newspaper, and several of us bought copies. Strangely enough, the place that they found for us to sleep in was an abandoned bull ring. It was something new and different for us at any rate. While we were packing the next morning, several children of all sizes and ages gathered, around and sang to us. They wanted us to sing to them in return. "We had gone into Mexico with the idea that it was going to be warm, but we found it exactly the opposite. The night we reached Toluca it was raining and was very cold. While we were there some of our boys played basketball with some Mexican boys. Even though they could not understand each other they played a good game. We slept in the gym that night. After what seemed like weeks and weeks of journeying, we finally arrived In Mexico City. Naturally, the first task was to find someplace to stay. With the assistance of some the Los Angeles Courts,and decided to stay there. We all had apartments and there were four persons to an apartment. We appreciated living like civilized people again for the three days that we were there. Taking baths, resting, and washing our clothes were rare treats for us. Mexico City is a city of one million people,and is more modern than many of our cities. The buildings are not so high as many of ours, but are well built and numerous.