El Pueblo de le fiesta eterna

This past Friday, Danny and I took a day trip with his IMBA group to Tuxpan, a small town about 2 hours south of Guadalajara. Tuxpan hosts many fiestas throughout the year, but the one we attended this weekend was part of a festival celebrating San Sebastian which runs from January 20th to February 2nd each year. We woke up around 6:30, got ready and took the bus out to Tec, grabbed a quick breakfast and were on the bus by 8:45. The trip wasn't too long and we got to see more mexican countryside while we rode. 

early morning bus rides are not our thing

We pulled into town around 11am and could already see costumed dancers heading to the town center to start the parades We then exited the bus and made our way to the main street to watch the parade. There were children and adults who participated and they stomped their feet to create a beat as they danced through the streets of Tuxpan on their way to the churches with their saints statues in tow. Here's a sweet video I took of the whole procession: http://youtu.be/rmI4j8tVqr4

Archer guys

There were several groups of these guys with the deer horns, masks, and colorful hair. Each neighborhood's group has different colored hair.

The different types of dancers were the masked guys you see above, colorful rainbow-vested rattle dudes, archer guys wearing red costumes and peacock headdresses, and then children who were all dressed as scary goblin things. Apparently, the rainbow vests are recreations of the vests that Mexican warriors wore a long time ago. Originally, the vests were made of the skin of their victims and the more you collected, the more you were respected and feared.

Colorful rainbow vested rattle dudes

The guest of honor, San Sebastian himself

Once most of the parade had moved on, we explored the center of town, stopped into a pharmacia to purchase some desperately needed sunscreen (our faces were burning after just ten minutes in the sun), and some of the guys enjoyed some ice pops they bought off a street vendor. Anosh and Danny grabbed a sort of shrimp cocktail thing with avocado from a cart downtown.

Unsure of where to go exactly, we wandered the streets for a bit until we came upon a town square with a church and an altar and a LOT of locals sitting around. We asked in broken Spanish what the dealio was and were promptly handed plastic cups and served ponche which has mezcal, tamarind and, i think, a little guava. We were also told to help ourselves to food inside if we wanted any and then a band started setting up. Danny chatted up an old woman sitting nearby about the festival while we sat in the shade and enjoyed the ponche. 

And the party sort of continued on like that for most of the afternoon. We walked around to a few other neighborhoods who were doing the same thing. There was music and dancing and lots of food. They served a red soup which had bits of chicken in it and yummy looking tacos. People would walk around with huge trays of food and men with large containers of ponche would run over to you and fill your cup any time it was looking low. Several groups of locals, who probably don't see a ton of gringos, even approached us and asked for us to be in photos with them (a self-esteem booster that I strongly suggest). After drinking a fair amount of ponche, we decided to grab some lunch and sit in the shade for a bit. We found a pool hall and ordered some pork tortas from the owner who made them on a grill behind the counter. 

After pool and lunch, we decided to explore the main cathedral a little before getting back on the bus at 5 to head back to Guadalajara. 

Afterwards, the whole sunburned (and slightly buzzed) group boarded the bus and we rode back home to Guadalajara. All in all, it was an awesome day trip and a cool way to get to know the local culture and people. And also a great excuse for day-drinking.