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

My favorite word.....Vacation

We had a little free time in between swearing and the end of training and our start dates for work. I traveled with a friend from the states for about 10 days in the central region of Mexico to Zacatecas, Morelia, and Pátzcuaro.

Zacatecas

Zacatecas is another colonial city of Mexico located in the state of Zacatecas, about 6 hours northwest of Queretaro. While the city is surrounded by barren semi-arid lands, the city itself is a great example of colonial architecture and has what is considered the best example of a baroque cathedral in Mexico. Originally, Zacatecas was established around the large silver mine (which I did go down into, but is no longer functioning and most is flooded). Built in a valley, the surrounding hillsides offer great views of the city and its many churches. One of the museums in town has one of the best private art collections I have even seen and included works from around the world and by artists such as Miró, Dali, Chagall, Picasso, and Goya.

About 40km outside of town, there are Aztec (actual origin is still disputed) ruins dating from 500AD called La Quemada (nickname means the burned and reflects the fiery end that the building met at the hands of the Spaniards). Getting there involved convincing a 2^nd class bus to drop us at the nearest road crossing (literally in the middle of nowhere as you can see from the pictures) and then walking about 3km to the ruins and then hoping that you could flag down a bus on the way back even though it was Christmas Eve. We did make it back and spent Christmas Eve with one of my PC friends on the top of our hostel overlooking the cathedral.

Morelia

After 9.5 hours on a bus, we finally arrived in Morelia, the capital of the state of Michoacán, another colonial city. Here we did the normal looking at churches, plazas, and government buildings, but also had the chance to go to a tiny natural history museum that had the strangest collection of Siamese twin animals and deformed fetuses (no worries I’m not including the picts that I took of those). Morelia also has a fairly large market designated almost entirely to sweets which the state is famous for.

Pátzcuaro

Pátzcuaro is a small town about an hour’s bus ride from Morelia. The town is near a lake (Lago de Pátzcuaro) and many of the residents of the area are Purépecha ( type of indigenous people). Just outside of town is a fairly large hill that offers good views of the town, lake, and islands on the lake. We took a small boat out to one of the islands (Isla Janitzio) that has a huge statue of Morelos on the highest point. One the second day, we visited two other small villages (Tzintzuntzan and Ihuatzio) near the lake that have Tarascan ruins. This town and surrounding areas might be one of my favorite places that I’ve visited in Mexico so far.

Pátzcuaro also had a huge market for such a small town that featured a lot of fish from the lake (which is highly polluted), a huge raw pig’s head, and chicks that were dyed and wearing football helmets.

I spent new years eve in Queretaro, where surprise surprise there were more fireworks. I really don’t think that I have been in Mexico a single day without hearing a firework. I’m currently in Puebla and about to finally start working. More about Puebla and all that in a later post……

I did manage to get one picture from the swearing in ceremony so here’s a group shot (for the most part, I think one got cut out).