On a chilly dawn, we’re outside a restored convent, where we’d been staying. Flagging a taxi to the bus station, at this early hour, heading south to Acapulco, we’re picked up by a small yellow VW beetle. Cute, or what? The locals call this sweet car a Vocho. Ours is driven by a fellow disappointed, I later understand, in his dream of becoming Mexico’s best race car driver, his life instead unfolding in this small mountain town, driving hapless tourists.
We hurtle down the narrow cobbled streets, careening downhill, narrowly miss clipping two old women inching along. No sidewalks here, just on one side, a ledge of slightly raised paving stones, where the women perch, struggling to balance their bags whilst clasping one another.
On the green town square, the zócalo, on shaded wooden benches, under gnarled ancient trees, sit Taxco’s old men, smoking and reading newspapers. We’ve seen old men like this all over Europe, in town squares forever. The womenfolk are hawking paper flowers and bookmarks with hand painted birds. When I noticed bunches of marigolds, candles and incense tied in bright ribbon, of course we bought a few. While the old woman wrapped the trinkets, something else caught my eye.
What’s this? Grinning skulls? Dancing masked skeletons? What are they? I ask the woman. “Marzipan,” she says and smiles at my confusion. “We have many almond trees,” she answers. “Yes, but why skeletons, and skulls?”
But there were too many questions and too little time. Maybe too much time to betray my ignorance.
Yesterday in the square we’d seen an altar, prominently displayed. It too struck me as, truthfully, kind of weird: all those skulls and skeletons, amongst the traditional crosses and flowers. What’s the connection here between these papier mâché grinning skeletons and religion? These skeletons are not grave – they’re’ happy, clicking their heels, tripping the light fantastic like there’s no tomorrow.
And yesterday afternoon we had watched little children parade from the Santa Prisca Church on the main square, pouring from the doors of the old pink stone church, following the priest in happy procession, festooned with streamers and garlands of bright marigolds and carrying balloons, flowing past the white stucco and red-tile roofs of Taxco.
We’d made a bus reservation, after seeing what was on offer in Mexico City, minivans with no doors driven by 15-year-olds, bullet holes in the windshields, passengers hanging out the sides. We were assured this bus company was most reputable. Our stylish Diamond B bus is second from the top in terms of amenities. Luxury dangled like sugar plums: air-conditioning, toilet and movie. Our Diamond B bus pulls up, bullet holes and all.
Boarding the Diamond B is like going through airport security. We are frisked by guards carrying serious guns, like back in Mexico City, where guns are handled like toys, played with at intersections along with police whistles. Despite our general queasiness as to firearms, we feel a measure of confidence, probably because we Canadians are used to trusting security forces, ergo these guards are here to protect us from the bad guys – drug dealers and worse.
At a village along the way, the bus driver stops, leaves the engine running and gets off the bus, making way for some women to get on to sell us burritos. But these women are not frisked. Maybe they’re not really innocent mothers after all? And, who’s to say some n’er do well might not board our bus and rob us? Or worse – take us away?
With such nightmarish fears, it’s a relief to be offered normal looking burritos nesting comfortably in their trays. Interesting how perspectives shift. How we no longer care about our non-functioning air conditioning, inconsistent toilet, or watching a Eugene Levy comedy about a dentist in Spanish three times in a row. My reassuring self tells me all is well – take a few deep breaths and relax, buy a normal burrito, watch a normal, stupid film and try to sleep.
But sleep will not come despite the mesmerizing landscape, passing one small village after another, past goats on straggling hills, past groves of cactus, aloe and banana. I read my guidebook. Often this will induce sleep. But not today. I find a reference to a favourite writer, Marguerite Yourcenar, whose “autobiography” of Hadrian is on my must-reread list. Here, Yourcenar writes “autumnal rites are among the oldest celebrated on earth. It appears that in every country the Day of the Dead occurs at the year’s end, after the last harvests, when the barren earth is thought to give passage to the souls lying beneath it.”
Passing a small village, we glimpse women carrying armloads of bright flowers, walking along a dusty road towards a graveyard. In Mexico, All Saints Day (Dia de Todos los Santos) occurs on Nov. 1. All Souls’ Day (Los Fieles Difuntos), also called Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) occurs on the following day, Nov. 2. Honouring the saints and remembering the dead relatives are intertwined.
Death and life as a continuum, as celebrated by the graveside, where memories are shared, and sadness and loss lightened. The graves are prepared and adorned and the souls of the departed are awaited with anticipation. In some villages amidst burning incense and candles, relatives recite chants, and then eat and drink in a party atmosphere. The candles and incense are to help guide the departed souls home, where it is believed on this night every year the souls of the dead return, to eat and drink and be merry with their living loved ones, just as they did in their own lifetimes. In some villages, bells are rung every 30 seconds, beginning at 6 p.m. to summon the dead and continue tolling all night long. At dawn, when the tolling stops, the relatives, who have held their long vigil, return home.
