Kelly and Quang's Global Roam

This is a long entry. Brace yourself.

The Day of the Dead was anything but dead. It was crowded. It was loud. It was sometimes smelly. But mostly, it was alive.

Because we didn’t plan ahead and didn’t get a hotel in Patzcuaro for its world-famous Day of the Dead celebration, we decided that instead we would just show up in the afternoon and stay awake all night. Day of the Dead really starts at midnight on Nov. 1 anyway, surely people would be awake and about. So this is what we did. We took a bus from Uruapan to Patzcuaro at 4 p.m. on Nov. 1. We stayed up all night and took a bus back to Uruapan at 7 a.m. on Nov. 2.

At this point I must stop and clarify one thing. I should not have used the word “we”. This was my idea. If this distinction is not made, I fear I will suffer ongoing commentary for the rest of my life from Quang.

The Day of the Dead was in full swing when we arrived in Patzcuaro. People were milling everywhere. The police were out in full swing. Vendors had taken over every available corner and sidewalk in view. “See,” I told Quang. “Look at all the people! This party’s gonna go on all night!”

He scoffed.

We decided to eat a big, big dinner to keep us going all night. We also decided to drink caffeine. Lots of caffeine. We ate. We wandered around a bit to get our bearings. We inquired at the tourism office about nightly activities and were advised to go buy tickets early for the boat ride over to the island of Janitzio. This we did. I knew we wanted to go to the island at some point in the evening. On the island, villagers decorate grave sites, light candles and hold all-night vigils at the cemetery so that the souls of their dead loved-ones can return and commune with them for one night. What I didn’t know was that we would spend the entire night on the island.

Even though we bought our tickets for the boat ride at about 8 p.m., we didn’t get on one of the boats until about 11:30 p.m. In between, we browsed vendors, listened to a local rock band and drank more caffeine. And people were everywhere!

People were still everywhere when we finally decided to ship out to Janitzio, and people were everywhere once we landed. In fact, there were so many people that we just followed the crowds and never got lost or misdirected.

We followed the crowds and ended up at Janitzio’s cemetery where villagers were indeed in the midst of their graveside vigils. However, the crowds were there too. The cemetery was so crowded we could hardly move. We got stuck plenty of times, squashed between people, just standing there. It was near impossible to walk without stepping on a grave. This caused great distress to Quang who preferred to stand still until a path was clear in which he could step around a grave. I was distressed by the number of people taking pictures.

The midnight sky was filled with camera flashes snapping. Some visitors were even getting right into the villagers’ faces and taking pictures of them while they were lighting candles. They’ve turned this into a circus, I thought, and refused to take any photos. But Quang told me to get over it and take a picture, otherwise he didn’t want to hear me talk about how I didn’t have any pictures of Day of the Dead for the rest of his life. So I took a few pictures, but I stayed out of villagers’ faces and tried to take them from a distance.

Finally, we’d been pushed through the cemetery and found ourselves outside of it on the opposite gate from where we’d entered. We followed the crowds again and were wound through the island’s cobbled streets. We climbed up and up and up. The island peaks high above Lake Patzcuaro. As we climbed, we were surrounded by drunken twenty-somethings. Many, many, many drunken twenty-somethings.

We quickly concluded that we were on an island in the middle of a Mexican lake in the middle of a Mexican kegger. Plus, there was lots and lots of pot smoke wafting about. We tried to escape the drunken, high Day-of-the-Deaders who were sloshing about and tripping on the cobbled streets, but we couldn’t. They were everywhere.

Eventually, the drunken masses steered us towards an outdoor basketball court where a troop of street performers were banging drums and twirling fire. Around the edges of the basketball court, people had set up tents. Quang and I decided this was probably the safest place as any to park ourselves and wait out the evening. The partiers were loud and annoying, but there is supposed to be safety in numbers, right? And besides, the villagers who weren’t tending to grave sites were selling food at every turn. Here we would have a place to sit, food to eat and free entertainment. So this is what we did.

By 2 a.m. we were cold and Quang was grumpy. “But Quang,” I said, “we’ve never stayed up the entire night together.”

“I don’t need to stay up the entire night in order to bond with you, Kelly,” he said frankly.

By 2:15 we were droppy.

By 2:30 Quang was trying to figure out where he could curl up and go to sleep.

By 2:45 a.m. he was buying blankets from a vendor.

By 3 a.m. he was spreading the blankets on the cement floor of the outdoor basketball court between two tents.

By 3:30 we were both asleep, exhausted, even though the drum-banging fire-throwers were still going just yards away.

By 4:30 we were awake and stray dogs were sniffing at our feet.

By 5 a.m. we were winding through Janitzio’s streets back to the boat launch.

By 5:30 we were on a boat back to the mainland.

By 6:45 we were standing on a street corner waiting for a bus back to Uruapan.

By 7 a.m. we were on the bus and fast asleep.

We’ve been catching up on sleep ever since and have learned a very valuable lesson: we are sooooooooooo past all-nighters and wild keggers.