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I first learned about the celebration of the Day of Death in Mexico was from the Disney animated movie ‘Coco’. Mexicans believe that as long as deceased loved ones are being remembered, their spirits will live on and the soul will return on the Dia de la Muerte (Nov. 1-2). On these days, families visit cemeteries, clean graves and built Ofranda (alters) with photographs., flowers, foods, drinks and love one’s favorite items. In every Ofranda you will find the “4 elements” – “paper picador” (paper flags) – ‘air’; a glass of ‘water’ (to quench the spirit’s thirst); Earth – food (especially bread) and the ‘fire’ candles which usually is in the form of a cross to guide the spirits. In public places, we saw Ofrandas dedicated to special themes like soccer players in front of the stadium. There were alters in bookstore, art gallery, churches and inside restaurants. My favorite was an alter dedicated to a beloved art teacher. Her students made all the food items in clay and painted her favorite cats on the mat.
In Mexico City, we started with a visit to the Museum of Popular Arts. The entrance was decorated with fresh yellow marigolds and red cock flowers. Under the entrance was a VW bug totally covered with beads, gorgeous detailed work. The craftsmanship of Mexican traditional folk arts in this museum is magnificent. I highly recommend it to any visitors.
At night we walked to the Zocalo (central) plaza where a huge crowd gathered for the festival. There were shamans burning insects to bless people, indigenous drummer and dancers leading people in circles. The Palace was lighted up with strings of skeletons. All the buildings surrounding the plaza were decorated with colored lights. The National Cathedral is enchanting under a full moon and dark cloud.
We then flew to Oaxaca, Mexico’s most ethnically diverse states, with a much more relaxed atmosphere. IIts also the home of famous “mole’ (a complex blend of chiles, spices and chocolate sauce) and mezcal (distilled agave spirit). One of the first thing Christian and I did in Oaxaca was to have our face painted. She opted for a traditional skeleton and I requested a Monarch Butterfly, complete with a caterpillar on my lips. We then are ready to join the parades! We never did find out the date of Magna Comparsa (big parade with floats) but we sure saw many neighborhood parades by following the music. We were lucky that one of the street parades started right outside of our hotel. Children with full make up leading the parade, adults followed dancing and twirling. Here is a google clip of my videos on the neighborhood parades. Lots of fun.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/iz9dbHByuKGrUCCq7
We visited two cemeteries. The small one is in Barrio de Xochimilco. The graves were jammed packed and hard to walk around. Many families were there performing the ritual cleaning and decorating the graves. The 2nd one was the Panteon General, the city largest cemetary and the biggest one I have ever seen. It has an underground vault with hundreds of niches to place ashes and many of them were lit up with candles. We found a restaurant (Ancestral Cocina Traditional) to celebrate Ray’s birthday. They cooked a sea food soup right at our table using ‘Hot’ ‘Hot’ stones. Quite a sight and they even brought out a small cake for Ray.
We spent a day visiting the Tree of Tule. This giant is in the family of Montezuma Cyress and is located in the town center of Santa Maria del Tule about 6 miles from Oaxaca. The trunk has a circumference of 140 ft and about 120 ft tall. Its age is between 1600-2000 years old. The trunk is heavily “buttressed” meaning it’s a single tree but with multiple trunks merged together. The tree towered over the church and the garden around it also lovingly attended to. A wonderful place to spend some time to enjoy the nature.
We took a tour to visit Mount Alban, a large pre-Columbian archaeological site. On our way back, we visited a Mezcal palenques to see how this spirt was distilled the traditional way. Another stop is to a workshop of ‘Alebrijes’ where animals, whimsical objects carved on wood and painted with intense colors and intricate patterns. These Aebrijes animals also made a showing in the movie “CoCo”.
Here is the link to my Google photo album, enjoy!