In Villa Corona my first day we hit the local ‘mercado’ – a street full of vendors with various fresh produce, clothing, hardware, you name it. It’s a traveling market, moving from town to town in a circuit and returning once a week. It’s an enjoyable little town and just like everywhere else I’ve been, it’s full of polite, courteous, friendly, helpful people. Try to ask something with a few words of broken Spanish and their faces always seem to light up, and sometimes I’m even surprised with responses in broken English! Evenings, post-siesta, the people come out and inhabit the streets, often sitting on doorsteps, and I got a real sense of closeness and community, something unfortunately we see less and less in the US. Just like most places I’ve been, I’m comfortable leaving the van unlocked and windows down, parked on the street, to go into a grocery store.

Wednesday was a big holiday in Mexico, the day of our lady of Guadalupe, the saint of Mexico. We had plenty of advanced warning for the holiday, with the locals setting off fireworks at all hours day and night. We were told to get there around 5 o’clock for the parade. I arrived then to see the main street in town completely dressed in green, an even layer of small tree cuttings spread on the entire parade route.

It was a beautiful spectacle of various troups of dancers and instrument players, and even a troup of dancing horses. Several representations of Guadalupe were in attendance, and lots of little boys and girls dressed in traditional costumes. Lots of flowers were carried, including immense bunches of roses and plenty of poinsettias. The poinsettias grow wild here and blooming trees are found all over, and many of the commercial poinsettias are grown here in greenhouses.
The parade had begun at one church and then continued down the main street to another church, where all the flowers were deposited in large displays. Then a service was held and afterward there was a street festival but the church was always packed with people keeping a vigil and a brass band would often play for Guadalupe inside the church, continuing late into the night.

paradevideo1.wmv

ater in the evening a few of us returned to catch a fireworks show. The townspeople built a tower with fireworks pinwheels which were let off in succession, all the while letting off small rockets which would whistle and spin out of control through the crowd, to the delight of the children. The grand finale was the top of the tower which would start spinning and actually launch itself into the air, then fell to the ground when the fireworks expended. Not much was done in the way of safety precautions, with sparks spewing all over and rockets flying, but nobody gets hurt and all was well!

fireworks.wmv

The campground is called Chimulco and has natural geothermal hot water at 104F, which is pumped into several swimming pools fresh every day, and the pools are drained and cleaned in the evening. All of the water in the campground including the showers and laundry water comes out at the same temperature.
Villa Corona is definitely recommended if you are visiting Mexico!
Finally got this post up, an update on Zamora is coming soon.

-Hans

Posted on December 17th, 2007 by hansachter
Filed under: Hans and Nellie