A young Purepechan Indian woman stands on the sidewalk, watching the procession of cars pass by. A woven shawl draped around her shoulders, she holds a large bundle of long-stemmed, orange marigolds and waits to cross the street. The narrow cobblestone streets of Patzcuaro are clogged with traffic, carloads of Mexican nationals and tourists pouring into town for the Dia de los Muertos -- Day of the Dead -- observance. Finally, there is a break, and the woman winds her way through stalled vehicles honking their horns.
I follow in her path toward the town square. I have traveled to this colonial city, high in the Sierra Madre range, 178 miles southeast of Guadalajara, to witness the Day of the Dead festivities. While this holiday is observed all over Mexico, the city of Patzcuaro and the nearby island of Janitzio draw thousands of visitors each year from around the country and around the world.
This region of Mexico is a tourist destination throughout the year, because of the temperate climate, the preserved colonial-style towns, excavated pre-Hispanic ruins and its native handicrafts (textile arts, pottery, copper work and hewn wooden furniture).
Another attraction between November and February is the nesting grounds of the monarch butterfly, which migrate south from the US and Canada to spend each winter in the mountains of Michoacan, a few hours drive from Patzcuaro.
Dia de los Muertos, an ancient Aztec tradition to honor the dead, originally was held in midsummer. After the Spanish Conquest, Roman Catholic priests moved the date to Nov. 1 and Nov. 2 to coincide with All Hallow's Eve and the Feast of All Souls Day.
The holiday expresses the Aztec belief that death is not the end of life but a passage to another realm where the souls of the dead exist. To welcome the souls who will journey from their world to this one, people visit cemeteries and decorate graves with flowers, candles and candy in the shape of skulls and skeletons.
In Patzcuaro, vendors' booths border the perimeter of the Plaza Grande, and are teeming with orange marigolds, the traditional flower of the dead, which symbolize the cycle of life and death that embodies universal harmony. Buckets of yellow mums and gladioluses in lavender, peach and cream fill the sidewalk.
More flowers arrive by the truckload and are sold as quickly as the trucks are emptied. Tables overflow with miniature sugar skeletons and basketfuls of small, round loaves of bread imprinted with crosses and skull designs, to be offered to the dead or enjoyed by the living.
Outside the nearby village of Tzintzuntzan whose name in Purepecha means "the place of hummingbirds," cars line the shoulder of the narrow highway that divides the town cemetery into two sections. I enter into the main cemetery through an archway filled with thousands of marigolds.
Children play tag among the headstones while their families clean weeds from around the graves, which they then decorate with flowers and votive candles.
One little boy holds a miniature toy coffin with a string attached and shrieks with delight when he pulls on the string, and a skeleton pops up. The Purepechan woman from the town square, her shawl folded on the earth beside her, sits with three other women next to a grave, talking and laughing as they divide bundles of flowers into small bouquets. They seem oblivious to the tourists around them snapping photos and shooting videos.
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