Friday, December 2, 2011

San Miguel's Feast Day (Part 2)


So, only a few hours following the Alborada (see previous blog post), it's time to get up.  There are a whole host of festivities about to erupt on this day celebrating our town's patron saint, San Miguel Arcangel.  So with about 4 hours of sleep, Janan managed to get me and the kids piled onto the moto, and we all sped down to the Jardin (the central plaza) to take in a full day of sights and sounds...

Heading down the hill to the festivities...
The day begins with various troupes of indigenous dancers, performing their way through the streets to the booming of drums, with their elaborate face paint and costumes...








After an hour or more of this, then come the "Para Chicos".  These are dancers dressed in costumes that appear oddly Byzantine, yet I've been told these costumes originated during colonial times and were designed to subtly (or not so subtly) make fun of the aristocratic Spanish-blooded elites.  If you look closely, you can see that the elaborate costumes are embroidered with scenes celebrating the resistance of the natives against the Spanish invaders. And yet while the trappings may lean toward the serious and somber, the dancing and music are the quintessential opposite.  I love how the Mexicans continually seem to transcend tragedy with joy...

You can see the indigenous motifs & symbols here...
... and of eagles & tropical birds...
...and frogs, the name-sake creature of our home state...
...while here you have Cuauhtemoc clobbering a Spaniard...

...with all the seriousness drowned out by music and dancing!
As the dancers turn the corner and the sound of trumpets begins to fade away down the side streets, we spend the next 20 minutes or so mesmerized by the process involved in assembling the "castillos" or towers of fireworks that will be shot off later after dark.  Basically, a 60 foot tall tower, consisting of a hand-made frame of mostly scrap lumber and in some cases trimmed branches, is somehow tied together and held with twine, then a handful of brave souls scamper up the quivering scaffold to attach big wheels of fireworks.  I'm scared to death just watching these guys...


It's amazing what you can do with twine...
Here's a close up.  Yep, those are sticks....
I wonder what OSHA would say about this.

While they continue working, the next spectacle arrives right on time.  Well, it actually takes a while to get this one started, as you'd expect.  It's time for the "Blessing of the Caballeros".  This involves somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 horseback riders, many with women and/or kids sharing the ride, who all manage to line up right in front of the Parroquia (parish cathedral) with an impressive amount of order.  Nearly all of them have come from villages in the surrounding countryside and it's clear many have been riding for quite some time before getting here.  Soon (well, it actually took about 30 minutes or more for that many riders to make it through San Miguel's narrow streets), they are all ordered in rows in front of a makeshift altar at the main gate to the Parroquia, and then Mass begins.  Yes, a full-blown hour long Mass.  I'd done enough of those in my 12 years of Catholic Schools, but this was a first.

In they come.  I love the grandpa with the two toddlers on his horse...
...and they keep coming...
...horses, riders, banners, statues of the Archangel...

At the conclusion of Mass, as you can see in the shot above, everyone forms a procession line and all are blessed with holy water: the men, women, children and beasts.  This takes a while too, and a good three or four buckets of holy water.  Not bad for being in the high desert!

So by now, it's somewhere shortly after noon.  And there is a lot more to come today, including the Voladores ("flying men") and a parade of exploding puppets.  But that will have to wait for another blog post.  Part 3, coming soon....

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

The Alborada (Part 1 of the Feast Day of San Miguel)



Literally translating as "The Dawn", this crazy festival could only happen in Mexico.  It would certainly be illegal in the US (much to the shagrin of personal injury attorneys, who would make a fortune if this type of thing was allowed up north).  In a nutshell, this is a pre-dawn fireworks battle like nothing you've ever seen or heard.  It's just one part of the celebration of the feast day of San Miguel, the patron city of our town, which actually lasts an entire week (very Mexican).  The Alborada itself is a re-enactment of St. Michael's battle with Satan, so the idea here is to have a fireworks battle between good v. evil.  Armed with gigantic bottle rockets of tremendously dangerous power, San Miguel's holy warriors launch them from right in front of the cathedral out into the crowd of people standing in the central plaza.  Satan gets his fair share with his own barrage of huge, spark-trailing rockets that are fired straight up into the sky from the roof of the municipal office on the opposite side of the plaza.

San Miguel initiates the battle with flames and explosions...
...followed by rockets fired at Satan's minions in the plaza...

... aka the crowd, who bravely dance amidst the blasts...
...and here's Satan's reply from the other side of the square...
Words really cannot do any justice to the sheer madness of this spectacle.  The noise is deafening, the smoke intense, and no matter where you choose to seek protection, huge bottle rockets are exploding all around you.  It is the closest thing I've experienced to what an all out fire fight in combat must be like.  And this thing doesn't last a half an hour, it lasts a full two and a half hours.  Two and a half hours of ear drum damaging mayhem!  This thing makes a Who concert look tame.  Each year the firemen and ambulance crews are on hand to attend to the wounded, of which there are usually around 10 people with serious injuries.  No lie.  Only in Mexico...

The firemen stand by, ready to put out burning tourists...
Another view of San Miguel's rockets being launched from the cathedral into the square.
Last year I attended the event with my pal Sam Hillers, who managed to get an exploding bottle rocket right in the bicep, leaving a nasty black and blue and green bruise and a third degree burn the size of a golf ball.  A minor injury.  I managed to get my camera snatched out of my hands (hence no posting a blog last year) but with cat-like reflexes, I dove and tackled the guy right in the middle of the plaza and nearly ripped his pants off.  He got arrested but the camera was gone for good, so I hung around and watched the rest of the show.  I later stumbled home with bloody elbows, a torn shirt (a white shirt, I must add), covered in soot and ash, and nursing some bruised ribs (the thief's buddy was kicking me in the ribs while we were wrestling on the ground).  Minor injuries.  "Don't ask" was all I could muster in reply to the look of shock on Janan's face.  It was sometime after 6:00 AM.

This year was a bit more tame.  I avoided the thieves and explosions and only suffered a few burn holes in my jacket, some mild bronchitis from the smoke inhalation, and ringing ears for the next 12 hours.  And this time I managed to get home with my camera to document the spectacle...




And as if the endless battle between St. Michael and Satan wasn't enough, the Alborada concludes with one additional fireworks display with the lighting of a "castillo", a three storey tall tower of spinning, spark spitting, rocket firing pyrotechnics that concludes with a three foot wide sparking wheel that shoots a few hundred feet into the air before burning out and crashing down on someone's roof deck.  Only in Mexico!

The castillo gets going...
...more sparks are flying into the crowd...
...and the grande finale blasts off into the sky.
It's time to go.  The sun is coming up, San Miguel has defeated Satan, my ears are ringing, and I smell like I've spent some time in one of the lower and more sulphurous rings of hell.  So I'm heading home to catch a few hours of sleep before heading back down to the plaza for more festivities to come...




Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Another Visit to The Local Fair




An annual highlight of September for the whole family (even though this is just our second year) and one that simply can't be missed, is the "Feria" - the local fair that comes to town once a year, jam packed with entertainment ranging from old carnival rides that have been deemed unsafe and have been retired from Europe decades ago, to the simpler pleasures of old-fashioned darts-&-balloons type games.  And so much more!

Just look at all the fantastic prizes to be had!


And we had a day of gorgeous weather, and the setting was beautiful...


One of Will's big-time favorites is the inflated ball in the pool.  This years' version was significantly upgraded, with inflated pool walls (as opposed to old rusty metal walls last year) and a bigger, newer, cleaner ball.  Still need to inflate it with the leaf blower, though...


...which is tough on the ears...


...but well worth the pain.


Will's pal Mason got vertical on this one!


It can't be easy to stand up in those things, especially when the oxygen starts running dangerously low.

Time to drag him out...
And there's plenty of entertainment and fun for the adults, too, especially given the fact that the environment is super-safe and kid friendly, so after handing them a fistful of pesos and watching them run off into the crowd, we head to the beer tent for a gigantic michelada (a refreshing combination of beer, lime juice, tomato juice, hot sauce, worstershire sauce, and a few other secret ingredients - call it a beer-based bloody Maria).

Sam and Pablo enjoying a Michelada
And what makes more sense, after pounding 22 ounces of beer and hot-sauce, than getting on the mechanical bull???  Pablo did OK, actually.  He managed to hold the Michelada in:



And with such big and cheap refreshments, you should probably spend the 10 pesos on this:

Bargain of the day:  75¢ wristband gets you all-day, unlimited access to the loo
And speaking of refreshments, the cornucopia of snack options at a good Mexican fair just can't be beat. You not only have the usual suspects imported from up north (pop corn, hot dogs & hamburgers, cotton candy, etc.), but there's an endless array of the good stuff:  all types of tacos, gorditas, sopes, tortas, soups...  You name it.  And it's GOOD.  And if you haven't filled up completely, there are plenty of little snack stands, too, such as this one:

 

And this stand comes with the added bonus, as you can see in the close-up below, of stocking some additional items you might need while browsing the fair:



I see cans of marinated jalapeƱos, a jar of hot sauce, a liter of milk, a can of coffee, a bottle of Clorox bleach, some laundry soap and fabric softener, pine-sol floor cleaner, and what appears to be a bag of the Mexican version of Rice-a-Roni.  One stop shopping!

Will's big favorite this year was the "Euro-Bungie" contraption, best described as a human slingshot of sorts with a safety harness.  We blew through some serious pesos on this baby and got every centavo worth of fun!



Will loved it so much, he blew out one of the rubber bungie bands:


But no biggie, a quick replacement fix and he was back at it:


And while Will is distracted by the latest thrill ride, Alya heads straight for the good stuff:


She certainly enjoyed the cotton candy, but no doubt Alya's highlight of the day was the purchase of "Scrummy" (short for "Scrumptious"), her new hamster, that set us back all of 30 pesos (that's about $2.30) .  Well, they told us it was a hamster, and it looked like one, so we took it home.  With a friend, of course (we couldn't just get one, right?).  More on the hamsters in a future blog.  It did not turn out quite as planned, but on this day, she was all smiles:


And she and Janan also had a great time on the bumper cars.  Good old-fashioned fun!


I was just mildly concerned that, as I was standing at the edge taking pictures, I might accidentally brace myself by reaching up and grabbing onto the metal ceiling, which was at about 6.5 feet in height and fully juiced with 210 volts.  With my body now containing at least an additional 10% more water content than the normal 75%, and standing on a steel platform, I could almost feel the rarified air around me crackling with electricity.  I managed to keep my hands down.

Doesn't that ceiling look a bit low? 
As usual, a good time was had by all! 
We're already looking forward to the Feria coming back next year,
but I can guarantee you, there will be no more hamsters.  More on that subject in a future blog...