Cartegena independence day celebrations

There's still more to come about Oaxaca, but right now I'm in Colombia and in the moment as November 11 is a huge holiday in Cartegena. While it is Remembrance day in Canada, in this city on the Caribbean coast it's their version of Carnival, but celebrating the city's independence from Spain in 1811. At the time an extremely wealthy city, it was the first in Columbia to break with Spain and led the way for other city states to do the same. Caracas, Venezuela was the first city in South America to gain independence from Spain.

The celebrations in Cartagena go on for about five days and culminate with the Miss Colombia pageant (which, by the way if you're trying to get tickets, is sold out). We aren't going to be here for the full throttle of partying but are having the chance to get in on some of the action.

Today there was a parade of most of the schools in the schools in the city. Each one has their own costumes and dances and parade through the old walled city accompanied by live bands or bicycles laden with second-rate but loud sound systems.

Obviously some of the kids were more enthusiastic than others but alongside all of them were teachers and/or parents who made sure they were hydrated while dancing through the streets in temperatures of about 33C with 100% humidity.

I am not entirely sure what the black-face troupe was all about. 

The grown up parade is tomorrow and apparently it's totally crazy here with most shops and restaurants in the old city closed due to how crazy it can get. Will we brave it? Or will we simply chill by the awesome rooftop pool at our hotel? It could go either way.

Altars

Altars are an integral part of the celebrations of Dia de los Meurtos. Most families and businesses create one to honour the lives of those who have passed away. In the days leading up to Nov. 1, I saw them popping up all over Oaxaca. Some were very elaborate and expensive while others much smaller and more modest. But all have the same basic premise and building blocks.

Sugar skulls, bread, and flowers are integral to all Dia de los muertos altars.

Generally an altar will be two or three tiers and each layer will be covered with a cloth and ofretas or offerings. Many will have an arch made of marigolds and sugar cane over the top.

Almost all altars will contain the following elements:

• Marigolds, which symbolize death.
• Pictures of the dead (in many cases including beloved pets (or mascotas)).
• Candles.
• Incense, usually from the copal tree.
• Sugar skulls.
• Pan de muerto, the egg bread symbolizing the deceased.
• Food, drink, and fresh fruit that were the favourites of the deceased. These can include traditional as well as modern foods as well as alcholic beverages, particularly mezcal in Oaxaca.
• Papel picado, the hand cut paper decorations.
• Salt, which represents the continuance of life.
• Pictures of saints.
• There are often other favourite things included such as cigarettes, and other items belonging to the deceased.

At our school, we built a modest altar but all went together to the market to buy the items. Anyone could add in items for people they wanted to remember. Weaving the flowers and putting all the pieces together and remembering lost loved ones, even though mostly with a group of people who didn't really know each other well, was actually quite uplifting. 

Bottom left from our house and bottom right was the altar from our school.

These pictures show some of the altars I saw around Oaxaca, including the one from our school, the house I was staying in, as well as a few other family and business ones.

Dia de los muertos

While everyone knows I came to Oaxaca in large part for the food, the timing was expressly to ensure I was here for Dia de los meurtos. While I didn't go to everything or see probably even a tiny bit of what was going on in and around Oaxaca, I was fortunate enough to go on a few trips with the school to some cemeteries.

Crazy school kids on a wild night field trip.

I sort of knew what to expect but also didn't. I made a point of not looking at travel blogs or anything like that so when I got there, it would all be new and amazing. And it was! So spoiler alert if you're coming down to Oaxaca for the celebrations and don't want to see what it's all about, then stop reading.

Dia de los meurtos is actually more than one day. It kind of stretches from Oct 31 to Nov 2 but in reality celebrations stretch through more than a week. At least in the city, there's a parade of kids, marching bands, and even dressed up pets at least once a day for the whole week. It was a rare day to not hear the subtle sounds of a tuba nearby.

But for now, here's a bit about the cemeteries.  We went to two, one in Oaxaca and one in a small town nearby called Atzompa.

The cemetery in Atzompa is well known for having quite a raucous all-night event on Oct 31-Nov 1.  The whole gang of us from the school arrived and found the walkway toward the cemetery packed with people and vendors selling food, drink, and more with loud live music blaring from a stage up ahead. But once we walked through the gates, we were greeted with an awesome sight of hundreds of candles and the scent of thousands of flowers. There was a big stage set up on the one end of the cemetery but the live music stopped shortly after we got there and was replaced with some really odd Mex-pop that provided the soundtrack to our one hour visit.

Atzompa

The Atzompa cemetery is quite old and also quite small. The graves are somewhat of a disorganized mess but almost all had new soil piled on top and decorations of marigolds and other flowers as well as candles. We arrived about 10 pm just when it was getting busy with families arriving to spruce up the graves, light candles, or sit together and pray, eat, drink, sing, and laugh.  It was quite a wonderous sight.

The celebrations go on all night there and many families, and tourists, stay through the night, but I opted not to since there was really no connection to any of the families.

The next night we started off watching a parade in central Oaxaca, that was punctuated by a wedding celebration outside one of the city's large churches that we happened to be standing nearby. The couple had set up what is known as a cathedral, but is basically a huge fireworks structure that they set off and it ends with their names being all lit up at the top. Totally off the charts here with the fireworks.

Oaxaca's main cemetery. 

Anyway, after that the school gang walked over to the main Oaxaca city cemetery, which was substantially larger and more formal than the one in Atzompa. The owner of our language school and her husband both have parents buried there and we visited and decorated their graves and showed our respects.  

So there is a very serious side to Dia de los meurtos but there is also just total craziness as well. Especially in Oaxaca, it was like a cross between Halloween and I don't know what with tons of people in the graveyards all dressed up and taking pictures with each other. There was live music and bands wandering around and just outside the walls of the Oaxaca cemetery there was a carnival, complete with rides, games, food, and flower sellers.

It was a party for sure in Oaxaca.

It was total pandemonium and complete sensory overload. I'm not sure these pics do it justice but it gives you a bit of a taste of it.

The corridor of smoke

Not enough has been said in this little blog about the food in Oaxaca — at least not in my opinion as this trip is largely about the food!

I don't know if it has an official name, but at the Mercado 20 de Noviembre is a corridor that serves grilled meats. I call it the corridor of smoke because as you enter, you're assaulted by the smoke of dozens of charcoal grills being fanned by ladies cooking up meats, many kinds of meats.

I had read about it a bit in advance but otherwise the place makes absolutely no sense. You walk in and both sides of the corridor are lined with meat sellers. As you go by they loudly try to convince you of the superiority of their products and prices. But to me, they all seem the same, selling thinly sliced beef and pork as well as fat little chorizos and tripe; there's occasionally some other option. You order by weight, so if you know how much you want, you can tell them, or you can just give them a measurement with the space between your hands, ie: I want "this much."

But, first you actually need to go to another vendor to get yourself fresh chiles de agua (hot and grown only in the state of Oaxaca) as well as the delicious small white onions. Once you get those in a little basket, head over to a meat vendor, order up your meat, and then give them to the lady at the grill.

She'll chuck your chiles and onions right into the coals under the grill. Then the meat dude gives her the meat to cook. In the meantime, go find yourself a seat back with the vendor from whom you got the chiles and onions. From them you can order drinks, including beer, which is a delight in the smoky furnace of the place. They will also bring you a wide selection of side dishes including salsas, guacamole, pickles, fresh vegetables, and other stuff. You pay 15 pesos for each of these side dishes. So it does actually pay to go with a bunch of people 

At some point, your meat along with a few fresh and very large tortillas will be delivered to you and then you pay directly for that (I believe the ladies who cook and sell the tortillas are also independent vendors but as noted, it's a bit confusing). 

Well finally after all that, it's just up to the eating. I went with just one other person and we had way to much for just the two of us. I will say the chorizo was absolutely the best. Totally out of this world. The beef, carne asada, was tasty but a bit chewy. I didn't try the pork but my companion suggested it was tastier than the beef. 

I've seen now this meat selling, grill as you stand there thing in a few markets but the one in 20 de noviembre is by far the biggest and most elaborate.

This is me enjoying it all! Thanks to my pal Alice for sending me this (and insisting I post it!)

Beyond the corridor of smoke, this market, which has just been renovated (like last week) has dozens of places to eat traditional Oaxacan food. On another day, a school friend and I went and basically picked the counter that had the most Mexicans having lunch there. Unlike many of the other places, there was not someone yelling out to you to and sticking a menu in your face. We sat down and this place and asked for a menu and the dude was like, 'we have five things, pick one.' So I picked the chicken in salsa verde, which was also ridiculously good. And he topped me up with rice and sauce. Who doesn't like a place that gives you seconds. That and a drink cost 40 pesos. That's about $3.50!