A Glut of Celebration
Mexicans will cram as many holidays and festivals into a month as is humanly possible. And many of these are 9 day vs. 1 day celebrations meaning that sometimes we are celebrating two holidays simultaneously. It can be exhausting. So here's what we had going on within the 33 days between Jan. 1 and Feb. 2 : New Years (one day-- but for the hardy maybe three); A visit by the Odoms; Three Kings Day; Festival of San Sebastian (nine days); Kickoff for Mardi Gras (5 days out of a total of 14 stretching to Feb 9); Fiesta Mardi Gras; Constitution Day and Candlemas. These celebrations involved three parades, a big fiesta, at least 14 days of cohetes, fireworks and tuba bands, 4 Sundays of rampaging Sayacas (see photos); the burning of the Coffin of Ill Humor and Effigy of Donald Trump (they SO hate him here) and a bunch of other things like a house tour. It is probably best to just randomly handle them.
New Years Day
I'd cover New Year's Eve but Michael and I are such dull human beings that we just looked at each other around 10PM and said, "Yep. We made it another year." And, celebrating that, we went to sleep. The next day, however, I headed off to the parade since Michael was out on the high seas of Lake Chapala doing a New Years Paddle. I felt that the parade this year lacked some of the OOOMPPH of previous years. This could, in part, be due to the closing of Tom's Bar which was right on the parade route and ensured that participants and spectators alike were well lubricated to enjoy their respective roles. It's a bit of a mystery as to where Tom went and why but so much here is.....
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| I think sometimes floats are "swapped around". I'd swear this one was in a Chapala parade last year. |
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| This figure is popular character in Michoacan. |
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| Sometimes it's a little hard to ascertain gender. |
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| The official Ajijic guitar |
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| Mexicans are a little challenged in the area of indigenous species. Remember the turkeys in Bethlehem? Well, now there are leopards in Mexico |
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| No matter what the holiday is, there is always an "Island Life" themed float -- I have no idea why. |
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| From The Simpsons to |
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| Candy Land. Note adorable children tucked in between candy. |
Three Kings Day
Passed uneventfully. We did not attend a Three Kings Day party which insured that we didn't get the baby Jesus in the Rosca (crown shaped cake) containing one or more of the indigestible Holy Ones. Should you be fortunate/unfortunate enough to get one in your slice, you are obligated to have a party with many tamales and much tequila on February 2nd. Dodged that.
Arrival of the Odom's
Winning the prize as first guest arrivals of the New Year were our niece, her husband and two year old son. We crammed a whole lot of local color and charm into a long weekend and extracted a promise of a longer return visit. Archer, the tot, is a real champ and lots of fun. You deserve a picture of him.
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| Archer at the playground. |
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| Carrie, Archer & Devin. |
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| The peacock at the restaurant was a big hit. |
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| Street food in Tapalpa, a Mexican Alpine village we visited,... |
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| which everyone enjoyed. |
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| At first we could not understand what the garlands in the church were made of until we looked closely. They are pine needles strung together. |
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| Texas is not the only place with long horn cattle. |
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| Outside Tapalpa there are large rock formations known as Los Piedrotas, which have been turned into a zip line attraction. |
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| This brave girl is riding the zip line to its terminus... |
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| which is on top of this other large rock formation in the distance. |
Festival of San Sebastian
I am guilty of rather glossing over these Holidays in that we have covered them extensively in prior years. So, just look back to Jan/Feb. of the other years for more specifics. The best part of San Sebastian is that the Sayacas come out to play for four subsequent weeks. These are the cross dressing, masked characters who dance through the streets and then chase the young boys who are taunting them. They are surprisingly fast for grown men in heels and often catch the young'uns and douse them liberally with flour. Also bystanders. Also dogs. You would never be able to make up a story that would be reasonable about how this custom came to be so, once again, refer back to older blogs if you want the full scoop. San Sebastian is one of the nine day celebrations insuring that we are awakened each day circa 5 or 6 AM to the blast of cohetes and the soothing notes of a tuba/brass band playing all our favorite hits.
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| The Sayacas make their first appearance of the year. |
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| They reach into their flour bags poised for attack.....having trapped this unwitting victim. |
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| Somehow the Aztec dancers end up in everything although their relation to San Sebastian is sketchy at best. |
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| Pan Tachihual is laid out on long boards to be paraded through the streets. The traditional breads decorated with white icing, tinted sugar and a sprinkling of sweets are baked in a wood-burning oven. |
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| We have often speculated on seeing these red-haired Mexican children. Are they descended from the Irish who helped Mexico during the revolution or are they descendants of the more recent German emigres? |
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| This float has a real life representation of San Sebastian. |
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| No parade would be complete without some pretty senoritas. |
Mardi Gras and All That It Means
Fat Tuesday is early this year (Feb.9th) so we had to kick off the festivities leading up to the big day on January 29th. Chapala has its big parade at the beginning of the Mardi Gras season and Ajijic has its big parade on Fat Tuesday allowing us to get an overdose of Mardi Gras fun. The Chapala parade was extraordinary this year with the culmination being the burning of the Coffin of Ill Humor AND Donald Trump at the Malecon to the cheers of hundreds, if not thousands of spectators. Then, in the middle of the crowd they ignited a two story Castillo that burst into spinning, flipping pyrotechnics followed up by fireworks over the Lake. Maybe the new administration in Chapala isn't so bad. Oh, yes it is!
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| This year the focus was shifted from Christiana Park to central Chapala & the malecon... |
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| with the theme of "Let's make noise". (As if the Mexicans needed an invitation.) |
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| This young boy has a perfect vantage point from which to witness the parade. |
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| While this one isn't sure what this all about. |
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| The coffin off ill humor passes by carried by black & red hooded figures. |
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| The presidente (mayor) of Chapala on seeing the camera could not resist posing (as any good politician would). |
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| El rey feo (the ugly king) rode on a horse drawn carriage. |
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| No carnaval parade is complete without an appearance by the devil... |
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| as well as beautiful, but scantily clad women... |
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| and men with a loud band as accompaniment. |
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| The most interesting float featured this gargoyle hulking over the dancers. |
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| The gargoyle had an amazing wing span. |
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| More scantily clad women.... |
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| a hand standing and hand walking individual... |
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| giant transformers all lit up... |
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| and aliens riding in a car added to the bizarre yet festive parade. |
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| In an attempt to improve their public image, the police had this figure in the parade... |
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| with these two figures riding in the back of the police vehicle... |
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| which was immediately followed by these two strange characters. |
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Sparks fly up as the coffin of ill humor (with Donald Trump inside) is consumed by the fire.
For a You Tube video of this click on this link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=40DBzXtytss |
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| This year there was also a giant castillo (an elaborate Rube Goldberg fireworks contraption). |
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| The following pictures will give you an idea of what this is like. |
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| The grand finale is a giant explosion of the top of the castillo. |
Remember how I told you about the impending war between Chapala and Ajijic and the somewhat dysfunctional method of municipal governance? Well, another example of rampant discrimination has been inflicted upon Ajijic. For a number of years Gossip's Kitchen (marvelous Cajun food) has sponsored a Mardi Gras block party replete with shutting down the street, cranking up the music, spooning out the gumbo and slurping down the Hurricanes. Being that the town is composed of geriatrics with various physical limitations it has has never attained Woodstock's level of rowdy and everyone had a great time. So, the proprietor of Gossip's went to Chapala City Hall to get the requisite permits and -- guess what?-- no go. He spent 12 and 1/2 hours cajoling people. Here's what they wanted him to do: 1) pay for six cops; 2) pay for an ambulance; 3) pay for two fire trucks to attend; and 4) (my favorite) contribute to their "charities". Mind you, the last administration allowed a rave of 3,000 drug crazed adolescents to take place on the shore of Ajijic and had no problem with issuing a permit. Ah, the injustice of it all. Life is different here.
And Yet More Carnaval
LCS held a big fiesta to get things moving even faster for Carnaval. There was a great band (The Dirty Black Beans), a preview of the Caballa equestrian event that LCS is hosting in Guadalajara on Valentine's Day and costumes, masks, great Cajun food and mucho drink. A good time was had by all.
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| Our friends Catherine & Eric... |
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| and Lois (who came from Boston & has been here since 1978). |
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| Caballa performed a ballet with a ballerina & a horse. |
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| The Belgian Malinois performs with the horse and jumps up on the horse... |
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| and then settles in for a ride on the horse. |
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| After a successful ride the dog poses for its picture. |
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| Terry Vidal, the Executive Director of LCS, was dressed as Elvis and served as emcee for the event. |
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| Our friends Alex & George got into the carnaval spirit... |
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| as well as our friend Luzma. |
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| The finalists in the Carnaval costume competition. |
Shoehorn in a House Tour
Yes, time for another house tour. This blog is going to be giant at this rate so I'll just throw in some pictures. House #1 was my favorite in terms of decorating but #3 was my favorite in terms of layout. No mega houses on this tour -- just nice, cozy places.
Don't Even Get Me Started
This is just a teaser. Over the course of the next two months you will get to vicariously enjoy the thrills/terror/tedium of our changing our immigration status from temporary to permanent and having to ditch our car (you'll find out why soon) and drive it over the border (through Sinoloa no less) and take a Mexican driving test (rigged often) and buy a new car and plate it here. This will probably consume a whole blog but, let's face it, too much is going on now to even get started. But you won't believe it.
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| We will leave you with this magnificent view of the full moon over Ajijic captured with my new 83X zoom camera. |
