Día de los Muertos

ok, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: día de los muertos, aka day of the dead.

think of it as mardi gras meets halloween meets nacho libre. the biggest night is november 1, where people in costume, people on stilts, people with their faces painted, people with lucha masks, people dressed in vests and pants covered in bells, people with headdresses, and, most universally, people who have consumed incredible amounts of alcohol gather in the streets and dance in parades called comparsas.

clad in face paint and with a beer in our hands, chucho and i cabbed to a pueblo called etla about 40 minutes outside oaxaca centro the night of the 1st. we followed the parades all night, meeting up with friends, losing them, finding them again, and repeating the process until i couldn’t remember just who i’d seen and for how long. i might’ve otherwise been frightened by the bloodied and grotesque costumes of some of the performers, but it was impossible to feel anything other than the pure elation that drenched the air and fell onto our smiling, shouting faces.

drunk on mezcal and high on… happiness… we danced and sang and laughed and yelled as the sun slowly peeked over horizon, as if nervous whether it was allowed to join in on the party. we welcomed it gleefully and continued on. finally, near 9 am, chucho and i headed for home. anita had been up for several hours by the time we arrived and laughed as we dragged our painted, tired carcasses upstairs.

i know i’ll look back on this memory fondly for years to come. more later...