After transferring through Mexico City, we arrived in Oaxaca, the home of the Day of the Dead festival (Dia de los Muertos). On our first day there, we went for a wander into the city centre to reacquaint ourselves with Mexico. We found that the city was substantially cleaner compared to the previous time that we had been there. The protesters, who had taken over the main square, were gone. We were looking for a meat market that we had eaten at on our previous visit, however, it was closed and I was sorely disappointed. In general, we spent the day looking around the market and watching people assemble their impressive decorations and alters for the festival celebrations.
The next day we had the opportunity to eat at the meat market, we managed to find it! It was delicious, as good as we remembered. We picked out a couple of pieces of meat with some chorizo sausages, ordered some greens and drinks to accompany it. After our lunch, we wandered the markets looking for anything to add to or make a costume for the festival (a hat for me was of the utmost importance). We also needed to walk off the vast quantity of meat that we (I) had just consumed. That evening, we visited a number of cemeteries – which was a surreal experience, filled with people dancing, singing, eating, and drinking. It was a huge festival with decorations, merriment, and sometimes sadness, everywhere. We only visited a couple of cemeteries; however, our understanding is that every cemetery in the city was home to some form of celebration.
Having arrived back at the hotel at 4:00 am, we were a little bit tired at breakfast. The majority of the day was spent traipsing all over the city trying to find a postage tube for our Cuba purchases to be posted home. We also made a couple of trips to the post office due to insufficient funds. In the afternoon we walked back in the city centre where we both had our faces painted and enjoyed the party atmosphere and the preparations for the evening street parties to come. The street parties started just before dusk. These were in effect parades full of locals drinking and dancing, but tourists were welcome to join in. Due to the previous night being a late one, we only made it to midnight. However, it was a lot of fun.
The following day we, along with a number of other weary tourists, proceeded to the airport to seek out our next adventure.