Independence Day

Well, this certainly has been an exciting weekend for us. Today, dieciséis de septiembre, is Independence Day. However, the celebrations began on Saturday with la regata de globos - festival of balloons. It kind of reminded Walt of the balloon festival in Albuquerque with the exception that these balloons were made of tissue paper and the source of heat is a plastic ring wrapped with cloth and dipped in kerosene. So, needless to say, they were unmanned. They make the balloons in all kinds of shapes, and some are sponsored by local businesses. Here are some pictures of this event. They actually do fly very nicely as can be seen here. Everyone cheers when they launch. The ones that didn't burn up sailed right over our house. You can tell when one is in trouble when it begins swaying back and forth like a pendulum and then the flame touches the side, as seen here. Then they finally burn up totally with the only things falling being the ring and the counterweight (usually a soda bottle filled with water), the rest is simply ashes, as shown in this clip.

Sunday afternoon is bull riding and charro events in the old bull ring and then later there is the parade of the shawls in the plaza. This is where the women come out with fancy shawls and parade around the plaza stage. You can see some of the pictures here. Our friend Ana's mom was one of the ladies in the parade of shawls. Also note that all the villages are decorated for this event. To give a flavor of the mariachi music we have included a little clip.

Monday is rather quiet with the only real event is activity near the plaza ending with the mayor of the village doing the "grito", ¡VIVA MÉXICO! in honor of Father Hidalgo leading the fight for independance in 1817. It was raining and 11 is kinda late anyways so we just saw and heard some of the fireworks - rather subdued because of the rain.

Then it all started all over again today on Independence Day with a parade through the village. We watched the parade and here are a few pictures of this event. The plaza was overcrowded with the locals as they were all there watching the parade and enjoying the day. The parade is made up primarily of charros on their horses and, we think, every school in the neighborhood with all the kids in their uniforms. They all marched very energetically and it was fun to watch. There were the proverbial Mariachi Bands and some of the charros got their horses to dance to the music.

We have only highlighted the events that we managed to get to. There were more charro events, bull riding and roping, soccer tournaments, traditional folkloric dances and more. Maybe we will see more of these in future years. Suffice it to say, four days of celebration for a single Independence Day can keep anyone going a long time! We are sure there are some folks with headaches today....

We are enjoying all the new sights, sounds and experiences.