The BIG Birthday Bash

Caballero with Flag

This week started with one of the biggest birthday parties in town. 244 years ago, Ignacio Allende, namesake of the town and one of the leaders of the revolution was born. This requires a major parade topped off with fireworks at the end of the evening.

Ready for the Charreada!

In Mexico I have found that parades have 4 required parts

1. Large numbers of school kids , preferable with drums, often with bugles!
2. Flags.
3. Well dressed horses with well dressed riders.
4. Marching, marching and more marching.

Sadly , by the time I got to the parade and into position I had missed the marching kids. Usually each group of kids have their own flag representing their school or group. I wasn’t sad to miss their version of “battle of the bands” as each group of drums and horns plays a different piece within feet of the next group.

Send in the Cavalry!  (Or the Rurales actually)

This time there were even more horses than usual with the addition of the Rurales, which is a part time militia that I wasn’t familiar with until seeing them in the parade.

Guess what , more marching!

Ghillie suit or cousin IT from the Adams Family???

I had good luck getting advantageous view points to get some good pictures of the parade. Being tall helps, but being lucky helped also.

Starbuck’s unintended climbing wall

Kids love parades but tend to be much shorter that I , but they did not let that get in their way. A little initiative and some thankfully strong bolts gave more than a few kids a clear view of the show. This was a not uncommon sight throughout the parade route.

Castillo in progress

After the parade,  the building of the Castillos begins, the giant fireworks displays that are used to finish off the festivities.  I guess these were to be the candles on the birthday cake so to speak. I made sure to bundle up against the evening chill, and get a good viewpoint. The fireworks did not disappoint!

Happy Birthday Ignacio!

What Colour Were Your Panties?

Happy New Years all!
My New Years involved a quiet night at home with my sweetie, then a quick zip out right after midnight to get some pictures of the fireworks over the Plaza. The fireworks here can typically run 20 to 30 minutes so I should be able to get 10-15 minutes of taking pictures. Sadly for me, the new mayor has different budget priorities, and the fireworks ended at 12:06, about a second after I got the camera and tripod setup. I hope this isn't an indication of the way my timing is going to go for the coming year. LOL

I hope you had a great night on New Years and weren’t in to much pain the next day.
Our New Years day involved a get together at a friend's home that included making a few new friends, eating some great food and enjoying a drink or two ( BTW Thanks Terry and Michelle, we had a great time!).

We were having a conversation about New Years tradition. I told about when I was a young fellow, a Scottish tradition we had in our household had me going outside the house to be the first person over the threshold with a piece of coal right after midnight chimed.

We chatted about the traditions here in Mexico. Having 12 grapes, and eating one for each chime of the bell at midnight to get your New Years wish. Then I asked a question that seemed to throw a few people, as it was about a tradition that most there had not heard of. “What colour were your panties?”

So, what are you looking for this year, Love or Luxury?

Starting in mid December, you will see in the major stores, large displays of red panties and yellow panties. By the end of December you can find them in most stores that carry clothing. The photo above was of a display hanging in the doorway of a store in El Centro.

The tradition involves a woman buying a new pair of underwear to ring in the New Year. There are two items of importance. They must be new, and their colour indicates what they are wishing for from the upcoming year. Red is for love, and yellow is for prosperity. Sometimes they even have dollar bills printed on the yellow panties!

I have also heard that green is for health, and white is for peace, but for some reason they never seem to show up in the store displays, hmmmm, I wonder what that says about our priorities?
So, what colour were your panties?