Changes in Latitude

Day of the Dead

If you’d like to participate in Dia de los Muertos ceremonies, there are several villages in Mexico with colorful celebrations worth attending. Most are in the Central Pacfic Coast states of Guerrero, Michoacan & Jalisco.

This festival honors the lives of dear departed ones with rich cultural traditions.  Planes full of tourists attend annually. This year, airfares to the best festival destinations are between $200 and $400 rountrip from the U.S.

“Dia de los Muertos” is a holiday celebrated primarily in Mexico but also in Hispanic and African communities worldwide. Families honor memories of their departed with music, costumes, festively decorated sugar skulls, and altars to the dead with many candles. Families visit graves to leave the favorite foods and drinks of their departed. Loved ones are celebrated with stories, feasts, dancing, iconic skeletons, and always with good humor.

These ceremonies date back thousands of years and began as a celebration of death as a voyage to a higher plane by the pre-Hispanic Olmecs & Zapotecs. The Aztecs celebrated for an entire month, honoring their goddess of death. The modern celebration occurs on the 1st and 2nd of November, fusing the pre-Hispanic celebration with two Catholic holidays – All Saint’s Day & All Souls’ Day. In Brazil it’s a public holiday and Spain holds parades and festivals.

Send a note for recommendations on the best festivals.  Even you don’t attend, remember the ancestors who influenced your life!

Those who visited Mexico in 1989 recall plates, stunningly painted, vividly colored cups, and serving dishes worthy of hanging in galleries.  “Yes, they are affordable, but  you can’t  use them because of lead paint.”  These last two words have discouraged admirers of Mexico’s earthenware.  Lately, such worry is becoming misplaced.

Mexico’s National Fund for the development of Arts & Crafts (Fonart) sponsored research that has inspired a revolution in the kilns of this nation’s potters since 1999.  Rather than using lead, which fuses at low temperatures, most potters are now using boron, also low-temp with an added bonus:  it’s non-toxic.  According to Fonart, “more than half of Mexico’s potters have switched and this segment is now earning four times what lead-based potters were earning a decade ago” ( due to the pricing in export markets).

Mexico’s Talavera ceramics are the oldest tin-glazed ceramics in the Americas, dating from the 1500′s.  At that time, craftsmen from Spain’s Talavera de Reinas were sent to Mexico where local artisans were already producing more detailed ceramic painting.  Spanish monks taught Indians about potter’s wheels and glazes, and the monks learned just as much about an extraordinary culture of decorating pottery.

Today, Mexico sells more Talavera-style pottery than Spain.  Just another lesson the New World has ‘learned’ from the Old World?   Mexico is on its way to abandoning lead-based paint completely.   This act is most important to Mexico’s millions of potters, who now enjoy kilns with exhaust fans to improve performance …in addition to living longer!  It’s pure fusion, this blending of the old and the new.    How can one argue with fusion?

The winner for this week’s best reporting goes to Laurie Garrett who says, “We should all stand up and scream Gracias, Mexico!” because  the Mexican government sacrificed by shutting down schools, businesses, restaurants, churches, and sporting events to prevent a global pandemic.  “They basically paralyzed their own economy.  They’ve suffered billions of dollars in financial losses, and thereby brought transmission of this virus to a halt.”  Bravo, Laurie!

Daily, the moronic media has seen reporters standing at a border crossing talking about a country they have never visited and know nothing about.  Remember the avian flu?  China did not swiftly quarantine the source, as Mexico did, so there were far more than the swine flu’s 61 deaths.  Gracias, Mexico!   (By the way, why is the USA so cozy with socialist China while Cuba is off limits because it’s socialist?  Why can’t the U.S. government pass the common sense test?)

How about the misleading drug violence reporting?  Mainstream media have bungled this story as well.  If you are dealing drugs or hanging out along the border you might encounter violence, but the same is true everywhere in the world.  Ready for the real story?  Mexico is more peaceful than the USA in terms of drug-related gang violence.   Three times safer; 15,000 gang-related deaths occur in the USA each year.  Gang-related deaths in Mexico doubled from 2,500 in 2007 to 5,000 last year, when President Bush bribed President Calderon with $400 million in law enforcement aid to initiate armed violence with smugglers in the DEA’s tragic waste of money, “the war on drugs”.  It’s amazing how the media leave out essential facts such as these.  Sloppy research leads to biased reporting.  One casualty of sloppy reporting (and Bush’s sloppy policies) is Mexico’s tourism industry, to the tune of billions of dollars.

Despite such follies, Mexico’s economy is holding up admiraly under the strain of the world recession – another problem made in the USA.  Workers have been laid off in Mexican car factories recently, but this is the first taste of the financial crisis.  The IMF forecast is for a short and moderate drop in GDP for most Latin American economies, including Mexico.  Latin America maintains a current-account surplus and accumulated reserves, unlike Uncle Sam’s financial sector and government which has behaved more like a casino for a decade now.  (Actually, that statement is not fair to casinos; most generate a budget surplus.)

In summary, Mexico is safe, strong, and waiting with welcome arms for summer vacationers.  Remember, your holiday dollars go a long way in this warm and welcome culture.  And Mexico deserves the world’s gratitude for its incredible response to a medical emergency this spring.  Gracias, Mexico!  See you soon…

Mural from Todos Santos, Baja California Sur

A Pueblo Mágico is a place where “symbolism, legend, history, important events and day-to-day life” have collided to create a unique result. “They are magic in their social and cultural manifestations, with great opportunities for tourism.” This is a good description from Mexico’s tourism agency, which is more than can be said about SECTUR’s website. Some things are the same everywhere. One constant is that government websites are not the most useful.

Guanajuato is Mexico’s most charming small city. It is European in its layout and architecture, with dozens of plazas connected by pedestrian walkways. Cafés spill out into vibrant streets and plazas. There is always music in the air. At night, student choir groups wander with guitars and serenade people of all ages, who are dining, sharing a park bench, or strolling while holding hands. Guanajuato is a very romantic city.

Everywhere there are staircases leading to colorful residences. The children are laughing, genuinely happy. Near the plazas, produce stands offer fresh fuits and artisans show their crafts. The climate is, like the city, enchanting. You’ll find art galleries and boutiques along hundreds of alleyways. Guanajuato has something for everyone. It’s the perfect place to take a Spanish Immersion Course.

The best time to visit Guanajuato is during the Cervantino Festival, named in honor of Cervantes, author of ‘Don Quixote’. 2009’s celebration of music and the arts will be Oct 14. – Nov. 2. Ask us to plan your journey now; every room will be booked by summer. People travel from all over the world to Guanajuato every October. One visit and you’ll know why!