Where Did The Week Go?

We have been to Patzcuaro this last week for Day of the Dead. There was no time to write and if I could have written the Internet cafe connections were not the best. For years I had wanted to go to Patzcuaro to see the cemeteries in the villages around the lake during this time but I had heard about the crowds so somehow we had never gone. Well, the crowds are there but it is still something that you just need to see. What I came away with was an even greater appreciation of the Mexican culture particularly in these villages. There are rich traditions that mark the mileposts in peoples lives from birth to death and these traditions are the fabric of the village. The images above were made in a village and they show the home altars of two people who died during the year. Of course, food is prepared and offered to everyone....I don't know if the tradition is always a rich fish soup and corundas but that was what we were served. Even in Patzcuaro the flower vendors take up a whole street and at times the street was grid-locked with traffic, trucks and pedestrians. If you can imagine a huge truck, not just a pickup, loaded to the top with orange and crimson flowers. The perfume of the flowers was overwhelming. Actually the whole scene was overwhelming. Buses and more buses come in bringing tourists and then take them out to some of the village cemeteries about 8 PM on November 1. They either bring the back about 2 to 4 AM or they start the drive back from the cemetery. I don't know if the Santa Fe Workshops which holds four weeks of workshops in San Miguel every Fall did it this year but they usually have students who take a bus from San Miguel, photograph in the cemeteries during the night and then the bus drives them straight back to San Miguel.

If you are going to go, book a room early. Try to find a way to go to several of the cemeteries besides the buses. Oh, and be sure to make restaurant reservations ahead of time. But there is so much going on in the town as well as the villages, it is worth the hassle to be able to say that you have seen it.