Last weekend was quite eventful to say the least. On Halloween, Jack & I went to a birthday party of his brother's girlfriend. I only had a few beers since I had to leave the next day at 7AM for Michoacán, but we still had a good time. Like always, we made a few new friends and heard plenty of Mexican jokes - some which were hard to understand because the translation wasn't exactly the same. Anyways, it was a good night - I left around 2AM and I guess Jack stayed until about 7AM....at that time I was already awake and showering haha.
Sunday was Dia de los Muertos (Day of the dead), so the family and I headed to a nearby state called Michoacán where the celebration of this day is pretty big deal. The city we went to is called Pátzcuaro, where we stayed on this island in the middle of this huge lake called Yunuén. Actually, this lake has five islands; the one we were one was an indigenous island and the cemetary we would later visit was called Janitzio, which is the largest of all them.
The car ride was about 3-4 hours, most of which I slept & when we arrived at the lake we took a boat ride over to the island. We stayed with the family of our neighbor in Guanajuato & everyone was very welcoming. After arriving we ate lunch which was incredible - I had fried fish and ate the whole thing. Of course it was accompanied by a Corona, which made it even better haha. We talked for a little while after lunch and then Anai and I went to take a nap since we had been partying the night before. Around 9 we woke up and were ready to start our night. I came downstairs to find the women wearing the traditional dresses of this area which were so beautiful, but I couldn't help to wonder how cold they would be when we went outside (yeah, it's starting to get cold here!)
Everyone got ready and then we left to go to Janitzio to see all the activities going on there. We had to take a boat ride there and although it was a little cold for me, I think everyone else was suffering pretty badly since the weather is now "very" cold for them. After arriving at the island, we walked around and found some indigenous dancing that we watched for a little while. It was pretty cool, but one of the dances I had seen before when I was on vacation in Ixtapa. Then, we headed our way up the island to where the cemetery was. There were people everywhere, which got really annoying at times because it was hard to move. Despite all the people, the cemetery was beautiful and put all the ones in the U.S. to shame. All the graves had candles all around them along with baskets of Pan de Muerto (bread), marigold petals all over the ground, candy skulls, and sometimes something that the deceased person really liked (there were a few graves with beer around them). It was definitely a very unique experience and different from anything I've seen at home.
After a few hours at Janitzio, we made our way back to Yunuén around 1AM. When we got back we had dinner and hot drinks to warm up. Everyone was pretty tired so we all went to sleep around 2:30-3AM. I woke up before Anai and Norma in the morning, so Miguel and I went for a walk around the island. It was a beautiful morning and I took a lot of nice pictures. We walked by a bunch of cabañas (cabins) and now the family is talking about renting one for a weekend with the whole family. Once everyone was awake, we had breakfast - I had fried fish again...it's was so delicious that I didn't even mind. After, we packed up all our stuff and headed back to the mainland.
We left the lake around noon and headed into downtown Pátzcuaro to do some shopping and walk around. Norma bought some curtains for the kitchen and then we headed back to the car. They wanted to go to this other town called Santa Ana de Cobre which is a town known for it's copper. When we got there, we walked around the plaza where copper stores were located all over the place, mostly right next to each other. We went to the copper museum for a little while where we saw some guys making pots and little things out of copper which was pretty cool. Definitely not the kind of profession I would want to go into - to make the stuff, all they do is pound it with different hammers to shape it in different ways.
After looking at all the copper, we had lunch which was good and then we headed back to Guanajuato. Of course, it's always nice coming back home.
Then, Tuesday was my 21st birthday! I had a great time and everyone here made it a very memorable day. I spent the day hanging out with Sarah & Jack and then around 9PM the festivities began. Some friends came over to my house for pizza and drinking games before we headed downtown. Jack, Sarah, & I introduced beer pong to all the Mexicans which was definitely a hit. We played for like 2-3 hours and it was great. Around midnight we headed down to the bars - most of which weren't open since Cervantino just ended so no one wanted to work. Anyway, we went to one of my favorite bars and stayed there until 2AM or something. Sarah bought me a party hat which I wore all night, and I think this helped me to get a lot of free drinks ... plus Sarah was telling everyone in the bar that it was my birthday. It was cool because I had 3 shots that night that were on fire - it was pretty cool haha. After the first bar, we went to a second one where we just hung out and drank some more. That bar closed so I went to a friend's house until a little after 6AM, then I went home and got back around 6:30AM. It was funny when I got home because Norma was up and getting ready for work and just laughed at me when I said goodnight haha. More events happened than what I want to write on this blog, but it was a great night and I couldn't have asked for anything more.
Hope all is well with everyone at home! Gosh, I can't believe I'll be home in about a month! It will be great seeing all of you for sure! Here is the link for the Day of the Dead pictures::
No comments:
Post a Comment