El Wally World part dos

29 October 2008: Dia de Muertos part 1

I was pretty excited when I found out that we were going to be in Mexico during Dia de Muertos or Day of the Dead as we call it here.

In Cancun there were a few Halloween costumes and decorations in the store but Dia de Muertos is the big holiday there. The holiday falls on Nov. 1st & 2nd and it is a time for people to remember family and friends who have died. The first day is traditionally to honor children and the second day for adults.

People decorate altars in the homes, cemeteries and businesses to honor those who have passes away.

I first learned of the holiday in about 13 years ago when one of my photographers in Waukegan, Jeffrey Brown, would cover the event locally every year for the paper. I will take a look at this a bit more in a few days but here are a few more shots from Walmart.

The seasonal isle was much like what you might find in the US with a tented area with a giant dragon, inside you could find skeletons and other day of the dead items people could buy for their altars.

Pan de muerto is special bread traditionally prepared and eaten on the holiday.

We ran into a couple in the store and they told us about the sugar skulls. People buy a sugar skull with a child's name on it and give it to the children at a special dinner during the first day of the holiday.

I will follow up more on the traditions in a few days.

john

El Wally World

29 October 2008: I really am easily amused

Day two, we had to attend a breakfast meeting in the morning and after last night Paulette and I decided to pick up a few supplies at Walmart in downtown Cancun. It is about a half hour from our hotel so it only took us about an hour with a 20-30 minute tour of the neighborhoods.

I get a kick out of visiting stores in foreign countries to see what different stuff they have, especially if it is a US chain. This provided us, well more me, with a few hours of entertainment. Plus they are not as anal as stores in the US about taking photos.

The first thing that hit me was we are coming up on Dia de Muertos or Day of the Dead, more on that topic later.

In my hunt for for the odd we came across some choice items. Platanitos Sun Chips were pretty darn good, they were plantain banana chips and came in chile and regular flavor. Nestles Freskas are malted milk balls in Pineapple and other flavors. Bubu Lubu candies are pretty tasty too; chocolate, marshmallow and strawberry. Pepsi Retro was just a retro can the pop tasted the same. Milch is a candy bar that we have not tried yet but the name is great and of course there is teh candy bar Mr. Big.

They treat food a lot of food in Central America. In one area they were cooking chicken on a gyros spike for tacos, you can get taco meal for about a buck. In the bakery you grab a tray and tongues and pick what you want. We grabbed some queso bread, ham & cheese bread and an apple pastry did not try things we were not sure about.

Paulette needed some hair spray so we wandered into the cosmetic side of the store. This may have been the best find; moco de Gorila Gel. Or as the bottle says Snott Gorilla Gel.

There really were too many fun moments but here are three; the stuff, the bakery and the snot.

john