Goodbye to Metztitlan

We had a nice long weekend thanks to Día de la Revolución (which actually falls on 20 of Nov, but a gov’t rules moves all holidays to the Monday of the same week) and so with Janet’s upcoming change, we decided to head out to Metztitlan for one last weekend. While some other people that decided to come were stranded on the highway for up to 2 hours or stuck on second class buses that stopped so the drive could eat, I had my fastest, least interesting trip ever. Saturday we “toured” the normal sites of Metztitlan in the morning: convent, cemetery (still filled with flowers from day of the dead), and the cactus sanctuary.

The cactus with the white hair are called viejitos (which means little old men). Some of the ones in the cactus sanctuary in Metztitlan are more than 300 years old.

This is me with a biznaga.

courtsey of Jen (thank you)

At 3, we got invited by Janet’s host family for esquite. Esquite is a corn dish cooked in a big pot (sometimes with chicken too) and then lime and mayo (and sometimes cheese) are added to it. It was the perfect food to be eating as the cold started setting in.

Somewhere between esquite and several tequilas and squirt, the carnival masks were brought out. In Metztitlan, for carnival, there is a day-long dance that is preformed that winds through the town with all the dancers wearing masks (and yes it is hot) and dancing to Huapango music. Janet’s host dad is one of the dancers that endures this hot, 12+ hour long tradition and before long he (as well as a few of us later) were running around in some very very frightening masks.

Sunday, after a breakfast of barbacoa (sheep cooked in banana leaves in a pit in the ground), tamales, and quesadillas in the market, Janet’s host family was nice enough to load us up in their truck and take us to the laguna of Metztitlan, at the far end of the canyon. Before getting there we stopped at a high point on the road with incredible views of the canyon.

another incredible view....
Once we got to the lake, we were pleased to find that the migratory while pelicans that call the lake home from about November to May, had in fact returned. Just as the cold was starting to set in with the setting sun (and yes for those of you at home its probably a lot colder right now, but its still getting down to about freezing here at night without heat and with concrete and tile houses, so cut me some slack), we headed to the small town of San Cristóbal to see some ancient paintings on the rock walls of the canyon. By that point, the paintings didn’t really get their full deserved attention because we were so cold and already thinking about hot tea and blankets back at Janet’s place.

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.