IERC: International Education and Research Center
« Back to Special Programs

Approximate Cost:

$ 1,400 US DLLs per student; if taken for credit, tuition must be paid separately.

IERC reserves the right to cancel the program at a full refund, up to two weeks prior to the starting date.

Costs Include:

All accommodations; transportation and airfare; entrance fees to all sites; most meals; lectures and talks; one professor accompanying the group throughout the tour; and a resource package with reading materials required for students to read prior and during the trip.


Sacred Landscapes of Mexico

This program consists of a one-week academic tour, which takes students on a trip to the states of Puebla, Tlaxcala and Oaxaca.  The program can be expanded to include additional lectures in Mexico City at an additional cost.

The program incorporates hands-on learning experiences with lectures and in-depth historic insights.

Students may be eligible for course credit(s), if they meet with additional academic requirements as determined for this purpose by the student’s home university.  Additional work may be comprised of participating in additional class sessions and writing a research project or research paper.

Sacred Landscapes of Mexico Program Schedule:

  • DAY FOUR: Rainforest Diversity
    • Breakfast Question and Answer Session
    • Departure for Mitla & neighboring sites; Tule tree
    • Afternoon visit to central Oaxaca – cathedral, Sto Domingo, etc.
    • Dinner & Guelaguetza show
    • Lecture Themes and Topics:
      • The Interweaving of Textiles and Architecture
      • More on the History of Oaxaca
      • The Columbian Exchange
      • The Significance of Latin America’s Pre-Colonial, Colonial and Independence Heritage on the Present
      • Women in the Americas

  • DAY FIVE:The Final Phase
    • Breakfast Question and Answer session
    • Visit to Monte Albán
    • Afternoon free to explore markets,
    • Students prepare presentations

  • DAY SIX: Revelations and Return
    • Breakfast
    • Student Presentations
    • Departure for Mexico City
  • DAY ONE: A Millenary Pantheon
    • Departure to Basilica de Guadalupe
    • Visit to San Juan del Milagro, archeological site of Cacaxtla in Tlaxcala
    • Hotel in Puebla
    • Inaugural dinner
    • Lecture Topics:
      • The Pre-Columbian Importance of Sacred Grounds
      • Juan Diego and the Virgin
      • Juan Diego and the Virgin
      • The Sinking Churches of Guadalupe
      • Religious Syncretism in the Americas
      • The Forging of the Cosmic Race – Theories of the Origins of Latin-American Indigenous Peoples
      • The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico
      • White and Black Legends of the Conquest: The Aztecs as a Declining Empire; Spanish Means of Conquest

  • DAY TWO: The City of the Angels and the City of the Damned
    • Breakfast Question & Answer discussion
    • Departure for Cholula
    • Visit world’s largest pyramid; monastery Puebla; visit zocalo, cathedral, Capilla del Rosario; other “conventos” & museums
    • Lecture Topics and Themes:
      • Idols Behind Altars in Cholula
      • Amazing Architecture
      • The Foreign Influences of Mexico and the Americas: The War of Independence, French Intervention, the Mexican-American War
      • Politics at Stake: Centralism vs Federalism in the Past and Present
      • Myths of Puebla: What do the Chinese have to do with it?

  • DAY THREE: From City to Sierra
    • Breakfast Question and Answer session
    • Departure for Oaxaca
    • Lecture Themes and Topics:
      • Issues of Development in Latin America
      • Latin American Problems: An Issue of Class or Race?
      • Oaxaca in the Past and Present