Dia de los Muertos 2009: Michoacan and Aguascalientes

On October 31st, a couple of us headed to Aguascalientes for the Festival de las Calaveras (Festival of Skulls). Aguascalientes is a cute colonial town. Our first stop was the Museo de Muerte (Death Museum) that featured paper mache skeletons (special for day of the dead) and then normal exhibits of art and artifacts from Mexcio related to death.

Aguascalientes’ most famous resident is probably Jose Guadalupe Posada, one of Mexico’s most famous lithographers and creator of probably the most used image of a Catrina (the female skeleton often associated with Day of the Dead). There is a small museum in town with many of his prints.

Then we headed down to the fair grounds area where they had a bunch of food stalls, big skulls, and general fair activities.

On Sunday morning, Kurt and I headed to Patzcuaro in the state of Michoacan, and perhaps one of the most famous places for Day of the Dead in Mexico. The indigenous communities around Patzcuaro Lake and on the islands in the lake spend the entire night from the 1st to the 2nd in the cemetery, as well as the 2nd. They build large structures out of marigolds (the official flower of the day of the dead, called Cempasúchil) that vary from community to community. We headed out to the island of Janitzio on the night of the 1st and wandered around the island seeing various altars inside people’s houses and visited the cemetery. We decided to leave around 12 when the majority of the crowds are filling the cemetery and beat the huge line for the boats back to Patzcuaro.

A tip if you ever decide to do Day of the Dead in Patzcuaro…..don’t actually stay in Patzcuaro. We decided to get a hotel room in Santa Clara del Cobre (20 min outside of Patzcuaro) and were about to make a reservation 2 weeks in advance and pay $300 pesos for a room for 2 people (less than $30 usd). Rooms in Patzcuaro are booked months in advance and prices more than double.

The cemetary (from above)

On Monday morning (Nov 2nd), we visited more cemeteries, starting with the local cemetery in Santa Clara del Cobre. The cemetery and flowers seen there are much more similar to what you will see in most areas across Mexico. Graves are cleaned and adorned with flowers and families will spend a significant part of the day there, eating, talking, remembering, but you don’t tend to see the elaborate structures from some of the more rural communities.

Then we visited cemeteries in 2 communities outside of Patzcuaro, Tzintzuntzan and Ihuatzio.

Tzintzuntzan

Ihuatzio

Vacation 2: Paracho, Uruapan, and Tzararacua

Paracho
After leaving Guadalajara Wednesday morning and arriving in Uruapan (state of Michoacan), we dropped our bags and headed to the nearby town of Paracho, famous for its guitar making and home to the National Fair of Guitars that was happening that week. While there were a lot of guitars on display and a guitar-making competition, as well as a giant guitar statue that welcomes you to town, there were also a lot of non-guitar related things as well. Like the normal carnival rides (now avoiding those after the last incident), Polynesian dancers, fireworks, flaming balloons, and a lot of crafts from the areas (known for woodworking, textiles, pottery, and copper).

Uruapan

Like Guadalajara, there is a park very close to Uruapan, this park, Parque Nacional Barranca del Cupatizio, is a lush leafy park with stone walkways and waterfalls. There is even a “catch-your-own” rainbow trout place.

The other highlight of Uruapan is the world’s narrowest house. Evidently 4 people really did live in the house for 15 years, but moved out after it was added to the Guinness Book of World Records and opened it up to the public. It is 4 stories tall and is only 1.4 meters wide.

Tzararacua

For the afternoon adventure we went to Tzararacua, a huge waterfall that you can hike down to. The one downside is that while the national park in Uruapan has nice, clean water, this waterfall is located downstream of the city and is carrying a fair amount of sewage and trash. So while pretty to look at, the spray of the falls is not so refreshing as you avoid getting any of it in your mouth. An attempt to hike upstream and find some other waterfalls was foiled by locked gates, but there was a good picnic spot above a dam at the firewatch tower, far away from the splash of fecal coliform.