Halloween and getting our faces painted

We ate tortillas for breakfast at the hostel and then headed for coffee and to the big market. It was chaos there with people everywhere buying all the things that they needed for Day of the Dead celebrations. There was lots of flowers, bread, sweets, ornaments and decorations. I brought a pretty blue dress to wear. We had lunch in the market and I tried a Tlayuda, basically a pizza with steak on it. We changed and walked to the main square to get our face painted. We weren’t sure what to expect but it looked like a skeleton face. We watched some of the performances in the street before getting on a tour bus to go to some cemeteries. The first was in Xoxocotlan and it was crazy. There was people everywhere and candles, stalls, music, flowers and our ‘tour’ which was super unorganised. We had some mezcal and were given two hours to wonder and look at all the decorations on the graves. It was very difficult to walk around as there wasn’t proper paths. We saw some happy family celebrations and other families mourning and sleeping on graves. There was lots of mezcal, mini fires for cooking food and some singing. We had flowers and candles to put on the graves so we found the most lonely looking ones. We then went to the old cemetery which was much smaller and had more of a rustic feeling. We got back on the bus and went to Atzompa cemetery which was the most beautiful with many candles. It had less people and less structured graves just made from dirt. Candles shimmered for as far as the eye could see and it looked amazing. There was groups of families, kids asleep with blankets and mezcal or hot chocolate being drunk. It was 2:30am by the time we arrived back at the hostel and we were very cold. It was a very enjoyable night.Read more