I must say, the Dia de Los Muertos parade was spectacular this year. It felt more like a parade than a very compact promenade. As it has in the past.
If you follow me on Facebook, then you’ll find nothing new here. I posted all these photos right away to Facebook, and it has become one of the busiest and best posts I have ever hosted on my page.
Continue reading
OK, I can sit here all night and write about the beautiful Catrinas and Catrins. About the amazing make-up jobs and costumes. About how people came from all over the world just to parade from Calle Cordo to the Ancha to the Jardin in Centro.
Did I mention this is San Miguel de Allende, the most magical city in the world?
No, I didn’t. And I won’t go on because this is one time, my friends, when pictures speak way louder than words.
Continue reading
Tonight in the public park (The Jardine) there will be scores of kids in costume, each carrying a satchel or plastic pumpkin. Arrayed around the park will be ex-pats with bags full of candy.
The twain shall meet.
Halloween is becoming bigger every year, much to the consternation of the grumpiest among us. Perhaps rightly so, there is some concern that the holiday will dilute Mexico’s own customs.
Continue reading
Don’t go looking for her. She is gone. I’m glad I stopped to make her acquaintance before heading next door to Cafe Murmullo to meet friends for breakfast.
In the time it took me to down waffles piled high with blackberries and raspberries with a drizzle of strawberry compote and two cups of chai latte, she was gone.
Women like that, so fickle. Here one moment, big hat and bangles. Gone the next.
Maybe next year. Same time, same place?
I will wait for her. Grateful for what little time we had together. (About five minutes this morning, to be honest.)
Meanwhile, the murals remain, of course. In the entrance to Instituto Allende on Calle Ancha de San Antonio 22. And they are beautiful. Are they not? Stop by and peek in the door. Murals are meant to be seen and appreciated.
Catrinas, too. But their time is short.
Who ever heard of a parade starting on time in San Miguel de Allende? Well, ALMOST on time.
Last night’s official parade of the dead got off within 20 minutes of its announced time of 6 p.m. By our standards, that’s awfully good. And it caught a lot of Catrinas and Catrines by surprise.
The first band and mobs of gaily dressed skeletal creatures were out of the gate on Cardo like it was the Kentucky Derby and not Dia de Muertos. All of a sudden, a hundred bystanders with iPhones and Nikon cameras were scrambling down the Ancha to get ahead of the parade.
Continue reading
Gaily costumed and made-up men and women just sort of filtered into the plaza last night in twos and fours. If there was a grand parade from any of the private Catrina parties around San Miguel de Allende, it was after I left.
By 8 p.m., I’d seen enough. And what I saw was delightful.
(Catch up with Thursday night’s official parade here.)
There were lots of traditional Catrinas and Catrines but there were spinoffs, too. Like the two cowboys, the bishop, the woman in the illuminated cape, and the tyrannosaurus rex. Yes, a dinosaur. It is just that kind of year.
Continue reading
Traffic finally emptied on the Ancha at 8 p.m. Monday and down the broad street, and out from the Rosewood resort, streamed hundreds of Catrinas, Catrinos, ghouls, skeletons, and even an underworld creature or two.
And they came on fast — as if all the pent-up energy from last year’s cancelled parade was unleashed atop this year’s and resulted in a headlong rush to the finish.
The crowd where Nemiseo Diaz meets the Ancha was so thick and eager that costumed paraders had to run a tight gauntlet, elbowing their way to the merger point.
It wasn’t so much a parade as a fast jog of the living dead in glorious technicolour and fabulous costumes. They marched, they merged, they posed for pictures, they trundled up Zacaterous, turned onto Canal and cascaded into the Plaza Principal where the crush of Catrinas and onlookers must have been something else.
Continue reading
You meet the strangest characters on the streets of San Miguel de Allende at this time of year.
Bigger than life, a bit on the emaciated side, and not that responsive to a cheery hello. Their appearance marks the run-up to Dia de los Muertos — Day of the Dead — although I’m seeing that more and more in the plural, Days of the Dead, as just one day no longer seems enough.
Bars, hotels, and boutiques seem to especially revere the dead as they decorate and plan events for days leading up to the traditional Nov. 1 celebration. Door frames get beautiful floral treatments, too.
Continue reading
Our downstairs neighbor Jimmy Hickey painted Rose and Caira for Dia de Muertos on Saturday (last day of a three-day observance.)
Jimmy favors the more-colorful “sugar skull” Catrina look, rather than the scarier black-and-white skulls. I think it works with these two!
We’re blessed to have such creative neighbors! Jimmy and his wife, Gina Bradley, both worked in the animation industry. He was an artist and she was a production manager, most recently called out of retirement by Disney to work on “Frozen II.” Jimmy worked for Hanna-Barbera, Pixar and a lot of freelance animation. Continue reading
A lot of people don’t know this but Rose Alcantara is a shy person. You wouldn’t think it if you ever took one of her pilates or yoga classes.
But that shyness extends to her photography, too.
Whereas I take lots of pictures and post them willy-nilly to the blog, my wife sits down with her iPhone and hits delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. Continue reading
Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 