Taxco and the 44th Huey Atlixcayotl

After spending 6+ hours in a car on Friday to go to the Forest Expo in Mexico city (for less than 3 hours), I got up early on Saturday morning to go on my 1^st Mexican tour. Really, it was just paying for a bus transport and turned out to be a lot cheaper than paying for the round trip bus ticket. The only bad news, the bus left at 5am and we got slightly delayed when we got pulled over by police at 5:02am. I spent Saturday in Taxco (if that name sounds familiar, I’ve been there a couple of times so the name might be familiar) for some silver shopping (Saturday is the day for the wholesale silver market).

On the last Sunday in the month of September, the town of Atlixco, Puebla celebrates the Huey Atlixcayotl, the 2^nd largest dance festival in Mexico outside of Oaxaca’s Guelaguetza. The festival takes place on the Cerro (Hill) de San Miguel and coincides with the Sunday closest to the saint’s day, September 29^th. Huey Atlixcayotl means the Gran Festival de Atlixo (Altixco’s Great Festival) in náhuatl. After arriving late last year and having to stand, I left a little earlier and was able to get a seat in the 1^st row of the general admission section. The festival features dances from the 11 distinct regions of Puebla, as well as 1 invited state.

Puebla's governor was in attendance and got pulled from his seat on several occasions to dance.





So you've probably seen the following dance before, it's the voladores from the Totonacan region of Puebla and Veracruz. They probably have one of the most impressive traditions of all Mexican dances since they swing down from a pole hanging by their feet. I've seen them a couple of times, but this is the 1st time I've seen something go wrong.






It turns out that after that the voladores' pole is only put up for the festival each year. When deciding where to place the pole this year, someone clearly miscalculated the length of their ropes. Unfortunately as they we almost to the ground, they began to fly into a nearby tree. Most were ok, but the 1st on that crashed was injured and had to be taken out on a stretcher and rushed to the hospital, an unfortuante end to the 44th Huey Atlixcayotl.

La Noche que Nadie Duerme and Fería de Cecina

This was another busy weekend filled with festivals and fairs. Friday night was “La Noche que Nadie Duerme” (the night that no one sleeps). I went last year, but this year several more vols decided to go as well, so I had a full house this weekend. We got to Huamantla at about 9pm as the streets were just beginning to be filled with colorful sawdust and sand designs. The idea of this night is that all the streets in the historic center of the town are filled with tapetes, or basically carpets, of colored sawdust. Eventually, around 3am, the virgin and her procession of followers, leaves the church and walks through the streets of the town, on the carpets. We didn’t stay to see the whole procession, but did visit the virgin in her church.

Partial group shot (from Jen)

On Saturday, we made a quick side trip to Cholula. I’ve already put up pictures from there a couple times, but here are some from the inside of the church that sits on top of the world’s largest pyramid.

On Sunday, after most of the group headed home, Kurt and I went to Atlixco to the Feria de Cecina. Cecina is a type of think sliced beef that is grilled and often served with lime, tortillas and salsa, and in this fair, accompanied by a plate of cheese, cactus salad, grilled chilies, and avocado.

Next weekend they are going to make the world's largest chilie enogada in Atlixco, but I will be in the US for my sister's wedding and then off to Belize and the Yucatan.