The yellow hacienda.....finally

The whole time we were in training in Queretaro, there was a poster of a bright yellow hacienda hanging by one of the women’s bathrooms. While there was never any time to actually figure out where it was and go see it while we were in Queretaro, this past weekend was finally my chance to go see it. The only problem was I didn’t know the name or exactly where it was in the municipio (county) of Pedro Escobedo. So we got to the town of Pedro Escobedo hoping that showing the picture of it would lead to an easy answer, but apparently there are a lot of old haciendas in the area and people that live there weren’t all that familiar with which one was in which town (or the most important thing, which one was yellow). We finally got it narrowed down to two choices, San Cirilo or Escolasticas, and as we can down the hill into the tiny town of San Cirilo, there was the yellow hacienda beeming in the afternoon sun light. So now that we had finally found the hacienda, there was another slight complication, apparently it is only open during the week. We were lucky though and the owners were away when we got there so the housekeep stood watch for their pick-up truck while we quickly snuck in the yard for a closer look.

There were piles and piles of ears of corn scattered around the patio drying in the sun.

There wasn’t much to see in the actual town of Pedro Escobedo, but of course there was a pretty church and even a fountain with a huge ear of corn.

Sunday we went to the Regional Museum in Queretaro and later even got to watch part of the Bear’s game.

Xantolo en la Huasteca

After wrapping everything up with work late on Friday night, we headed to Huejutla, hidalgo for Día de los Muertos. The area is known as the Huasteca and includes parts of the states of Veracruz, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, and a little of Puebla. There is a very distinct culture and still many indigenous people that live in the area, which is partly why Xantolo (the name given to the festival for día de los muertos in the Huasteca) is so different from other parts of Mexico. The altars are all adorned with an arch made of marigolds and instead of the traditional looking bread (pan de muertos), the bread is made in the form of animals and people. There are also traditional dances, one where the men dress up as women and another called “Comanche” where the dancers wear wooden masks and represent the link between the living and the dead.

Altar

Bread in the form of dolls, flowers, and animals

More bread, hanging from the arch over the altar

Papel picado

Row of altars

From Huejutla, we crossed into the state of Veracruz and went to the town of Tempoal. Planning on only spending the morning there, we arrived to find that the dances and festivities were later in the day. However, the market was already busy and there were a series of altar displays. The above photos were from Tempoal. Planning on returning to Tempoal in the afternoon for the dances (and they were shooting a TV special), we headed to Tantoyuca, another small Veracruzana town with one of the best markets I have seen. The zocalo of Tantoyuca was also filled with altars and people in wooden masks.

On the bus back to Tempoal you could see preparations for the night´s events on the dirt roads to the smaller towns. People had their bundles of marigolds and the men were already in their dresses and masks for the dances.

After waiting through the TV introduction for the night´s actual events (there is a huge push to get more national recognition for Xantolo and it is virtually unknown to international tourists, we were the only gringos in the area), some of the most amazing dances I have seen in Mexico began. All the dances were set to a trio playing Huapongo music (you can hear it in the video clip). There were a mix of men, women, and children, all dancing in hand-craved wooden masks with amazing outfits. Each colonia (neightborhood) in Tempoal had a dance group representing them and each seemed to get better and better as the night went on. The governor even stopped by for a while which was cause to set off the end of the preformance fireworks in the middle of the event.

Día de los Muertos en Puebla

So the Reunión Nacional de Ordenamiento was Thursday and Friday and actually went quite well. We had good attendance and central offices was very happy with the event. We were super busy, but I still managed to duck out after the conference and prep work to see some of the day of the dead sites and altars around Puebla.

The cathedral in Puebla with a projection of José Guadalupe´s drawings.

Example of an altar from a town in Puebla that only has white altars.