Riding to Patagonia

[1.21GW]

Hadn't thought of that, K, but thanks for the compliment.  Right now I'm just trying to make it to patagonia in one piece, then I'll figure out what to do.  I've had trouble finding secure parking here in Guanajuato and so I've chained the bike to a post outside my apartment and put on a cover.  Today I awoke to find the cover lifted a bit and so now I'm paranoid something was taken or will be taken.  Need to try again to bribe a parking guard to let me use the lot (they say bikes aren't permitted for a reason that is secret even from lot employees apparently).  One more week here (I paused to take some spanish classes) and them I'm off, assuming the bike hasn't been stolen or stripped of parts.

[Monsterlover]

Yikes.

Wishing you continued good luck.

[koko64]

+1.
I hear the Patagonian Tooth Fish is delicious.

[DarkMonster620]

Don't worry . . . It could get worse until you get to Panama . . . For Guatemala, I will send you info for a DMFer in Guatemala City

[GregP]

I concur that this would make a great coffee table book. Great photos and writing. Your kind of flowery without being over my head.  Safe travels!

[1.21GW]

Thanks.  And yeah, I can get a little carried away at times in my descriptions. 

[1.21GW]

Ok, so my next stops were Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende, two old and colorful cities about and 80 minutes apart.  I was hoping to experience their respective Day of the Dead celebrations, but the cities are both so beautiful they deserve a separate post.

Guanajuato sits in a valley surround by hills covered with houses and structures of every color.   The streets curve and twist around (and sometimes tunneling through) the hills, inviting you to wander aimlessly around the center where small plazas and churches appear around unexpected corners. 























The city has a very artsy feel, partly due to the large student population of the local university, but also due to a former resident and patron that started an annual celebration of Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes of Don Quixote fame.  Every October, Guanajuato is host to a multitude of events related to Cervantes, including plays, concerts, lectures, and art shows.  Unsurprisingly, the city is full of tributes to the author and his titular character.  Here's a statue below a mural in the Museum of Iconography of Don Quixote:




And here a statue of the "Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance" and his squire:




Music really pops up everywhere.  Sometimes the local orchestra is playing in a gazebo in the center of Jardin Union, sometimes its a guitarist playing in an restaurant with his speakers spilling out into the plaza.  But the most popular and unique tradition are the men and women who dress up in 16th Century attire and lead crowds of revelers through the streets playing music on guitars and madolins.  The crowds sing along and, for those that pay a fee, libations are provided.  These go on year round, giving life to the city even in its off-season.
















San Miguel de Allende is just as beautiful and, like Guanajuato, is full of colorful homes built on the hills.  What's interesting is that every one seems to have a door that is completely unique, like the craftsman threw out the design after completion and started fresh for his next patron.  SMA is more polished and refined, and has become an ex-pat destination (15% of the population are foreigners).  Things are noticeably more expensive in SMA as a result, and many of the bars and restaurants in the center would fit in easily in Brooklyn or Seattle or Monterey Bay.














The second night I was there there was a major lightning storm around the region.  I sat on the terrace of a pizza place and just watched the show while dining.  It was sublime.

[1.21GW]

So the only festival that I had specifically identified as a must see for the whole of Latin America was Mexico's Day of the Dead.  For the uninitiated, Day of the Dead has its roots in Aztec rituals and veneration of the dead.  The Spanish imperialists tried to stamp of the tradition but failed; the best they could do was to merge it with Catholic All Saint's Day.  It's celebrated Nov.1-2, although for many cities the events begin a week before and lead up to the actual holiday.

The costumes of Dia de Muertos are a continual delight, each face a unique and personal interpretation of José Guadalupe Posada's original catrina.






























Meanwhile, the storefronts and residences add to the atmosphere with their own peculiar decorations.  Venders sell candies made of hardened sugar colorfully decorated in the shape of skulls, mariachis, animals, and toys.  References to the dead appear in colorful iterations in every street corner and window sill.  The cities are rich with skulls and marigolds.

[1.21GW]

The centerpieces of Dia de Muertos are the ofrendas: decorative altars composed of ancestral photographs, flowers, candles, food, drink, incense, memorabilia, and other offerings to the departed.  The most spectacular ofrendas are constructed near central plazas, with images crafted from a kaleidoscope of flowers, seeds, rice, salt, wood shavings, leaves, charcoal, and other natural pigments.  Belief that bright colors and floral aromas help guide the spirits of the dead to these altars leads to a friendly one-upmanship with each display trying to outshine its neighbors.  Fittingly for a holiday that celebrates the inevitable, before the day ends these molecular creations are swept up by public works employees, their order and beauty lost to the colorless mix of the dustpan.

[1.21GW]

The local festivals openly embrace Mexican folklore, an important part of which is expressed through regional folk dances.  Understandably, there are a lot dance performances throughout the week.  Costumed in provincial attire but unified by the ubiquitous catrina makeup, these dances take on a supernatural aura.

















I would not consider myself a fan of dance performances---I feel asleep during the only ballet performance I ever attended---but the dances put on as part of the festivals in Guanajuato and San Miguel Allende were so striking that they became the highlight of the holiday for me.  Here are clips of my favorites:


LA DANZA DEL TORITO
On a stage in front of the Basilica Nuestra Señora, a Guanajuatan folk dance called the Dance of the Bull is performed to an audience overflowing the Plaza de La Paz.  The dance tells the story of a bull breaking free from its enclosure.  A host of archetypes unsuccessfully try to ring it in one at a time: a landlord, a cowboy, the landlord's daughter, a drunken servant, a dandy, an old religious man, Satan himself, and finally Death.  Farce ensues, with the dandy and the cowboy fighting over the daughter, satan and the old man taunting each other, the drunk stumbling into the others, and everyone trying to evade Death.  In the end, Death takes each life one by one, and even the slippery bull is unable to escape the inevitable:




FLAMENCO
In Guanajuano, where streets wind and curve around the mountainous terrain, music calls out from narrow alleys and hidden plazas.  Following your ears leads to strange and wondrous surprises as you stumble into events, both staged and impromptu, that cry from another world.  In Plaza de Allende, a flamenco is performed in full skeletal costume, adding a Mexican touch to what is a traditional Spanish dance:




LA BRUJA
In San Miguel de Allende, a half-dozen regional dances are performed by members of a local dance school as part of the city's weeklong La Calaca festival.  One of the most captivating is a beautiful and haunting dance from Veracruz called La Bruja ("The Witch").  The steady clicking of the clogs are like the ticks of a clock marching towards the inevitable, the expressionless faces of those young girls made up like skulls echoing the indifference of time.  And yet, the synchronicity of their movements, deliberate and precise, and their white gowns lit up magnificently in the darkness create a ghostly beauty that is hypnotizing:




ZAPATEADO
Another dance from Veracruz is the spiritual opposite of La Bruja: fast, lively, and frenetic.  In the Zapateado, men and women perform a rapid tap that has the energy and speed of a troop of horses galloping on the open plains.  The ability of the dancers to start on the instant is inhuman; the woman here appear as animated dolls that come fully alive as if by the flip of a switch:





BURLESQUE
But not all dances are polished.  Impromptu performances pop up in the streets and lowbrow charades spill out into the plazas.  Here, in León, a cast of ghouls pour forth from a doorway to the sound of a country fiddle, flopping clumsily to the rhythm, their lack of coordination emphasizing their burlesque:






Though death is the face of the festival, it is a lively and humorous celebration of life at its heart.  If you haven't experienced Dia de Muertos in Mexico, I recommend you add it to your travel list.  

[Howie]

Seems a lot better than our Halloween. 

[1.21GW]

Yeah.  I've learned that all holidays in the USA sooner or later devolve into reasons to get drunk and Halloween is no exception, at least at the adult level.  

Here, the grain and the grape are secondary considerations during the festivities.  More family friendly then, say, bars in the Village or West Hollywood on Oct 31.

[koko64]

You gotta send your resume to Lonely Planet. Seriously.

[kopfjäger]

Can I preorder the book?   

[koko64]

He's pretty bloody good.