It was fading to twilight when the driver dropped us off at the cemetery. Yellow candles burned inside gray tombs in the blue evening. Aaron looked sharp in his fedora, guayabera and skull face, and I wore all black with long false lashes and bright flowers in my hair. (All the Mayans wear white huipils, not black, but I’m too broke to buy a new one.) Aaron and I strolled arm and arm through the graves, admiring flamboyantly dressed Catrins and Catrinas, and posed for pictures with strangers who were so sweet about our first (awkward) attempts to dress the part.
We waited a long time for the parade to start—I should have known the time given was “Mexican time.” We waited on a beautiful tomb, watching children dressed as corpses cavort around us, stealing shy looks at us. Finally the drums sounded and a game of Pok ta Pok was played, ending in the usual flaming-ball routine. Then the parade began.
The children came first in the procession—white faced and white clad, carrying candles that flickered in the wind. Behind them, a long white line of adult skeletons advanced forward, slow step by slow step, holding their own candles and lanterns, the peaks and crosses of the surrounding tombs rising around them. Eerie faces turned towards us as they passed by, blacked out eyes like empty sockets. A spidery Victorian carriage drove past carrying four gorgeously ghoulish Catrinas in long white veils.
The train of the dead seemed endless. It was flowing slowly, and we followed it as it left the graveyard, proceeding through the city streets. We stopped to buy pan de muertos, and pushed through the crowds and vendors selling micheladas, elote, chicken, cookies, and bread, arriving at the plaza ahead of the parade itself. Aaron got a blue snowcone and we strolled past the other vendors while we waited.
Finally, the spirits—still carrying lit candles—came up a street criss-crossed by string lights, passed under one of the great arches that mark the neighborhoods in Mérida, and came crowding into joyful confusion in the plaza.
THIS gothic romantic was deeply satisfied by the end of evening. I can’t imagine a more poignant celebration of the dead, but we’ll see what kind of party Guanajuato can throw…
The Sun & the Scorpion 