Besides Halloween, Dia de los Muertos is my FAVORITE holiday.
I’m not a freak with a dark evil soul.
I think it just started innocently as a kid because I loved fall weather, dressing up in costumes, and candy.
I mean who DOESN’T love all that stuff?!
And then…
…I fell in love with Mexican culture as I got older.
So then I had to add “Day of the Dead” to my list of Holidays to be obsessed with.
It’s actually a short list:
-Halloween
-Christmas
-Day of The Dead
-Cinco de Mayo
Judging off of that list, my soul is half hispanic, haha.
Since today is Day of the Dead…
…I wanna share one of my FAVORITE travel experiences every with you guys.
‘Cause my mom taught me to share and not keep all the good stuff to myself.
Day of the Dead in Mexico had been an item I wanted to check off of my bucket list for a long long time!!
Day of the dead exists throughout all of Latin America, but NO one can hold a candle to Mexico.
No one.
I did all the research.
The BEST place to spend Day of the Dead in Mexico is a little known town called
Patzcuaro in the state of Michoacan.
There is a little island on the lake next to Patzcuaro called Janitzio.
Most people who go to Patzcuaro stay on the mainland part, and then when day of the dead rolls around, you hop on a bus at midnight which takes you to a graveyard in Patzcuaro.
Oh, and don’t forget to put on face paint before you go.
If you can’t do it yourself, or just don’t happen to carry face paint with you everywhere you go…
…a local in the town center will paint your face for about $2.
Then, from there, you go on a boat across the lake.
Here’s what the face paint looks like in the neon glow of the boat:
Once you’re across, you’re at the island of Janitzio.
Tons of locals are there at the island cooking up a storm ready to sell you drinks and food that you can carry with you into the graveyard.
Super fun just carrying around all the new local food you’re trying while exploring the entire island at 1 in the morning.
And everyone is awake.
Nobody sleeps.
I can’t even explain how cool of an experience this was.
You stay up all night being taken to different little islands on the lake and visiting different ceremonies.
The locals are up all night literally picnicking around the graveyards of their loved ones.
I can see how this sounds totally creepy.
And you can read mixed things about it online.
Some people will say their worshipping their dead loved ones and it’s wrong.
But it’s not like that.
It’s literally just a time where families and friends all get together and essentially party all night in the graveyard in honor of their loved ones.
I mean people are eating, drinking beers, laughing together. Some of the locals even talked to me and invited me to come join them for a few minutes.
I think they were really drunk, though haha.
They spend TONS of time preparing the graves.
The graveyards are lit entirely by 1,000s of candles.
Total fire hazard. #WorthIt
They make beautiful flower, fruit and sugar skull arrangements and place them everywhere.
Honestly I’d go back every year if I could.
It was one of the coolest things I’ve done in my life.
The whole town parties for about 4 straight days, too.
Not just on the day of.
Some people paint their faces more than once, but most people just dress up in traditional dress for the days before and after.
But the day of…EVERYONE has face paint.
Or a crazy costume like this:
I loved the little Island of Janitzio so much, that I went back the next day to explore and stayed until sunset.
I wanted to see it in the daylight.
I’ll write another more detailed post about it someday once I can find more of my pictures. Kinda freaking out because I’m missing the majority of them and I don’t know why.
Bye for now!
