My destination was Nopala, a mystical place, high in the purple mountains. I was told that of all th

An opalescent sky muted the harshness of the emerald earth as the old car struggled up the rock-filled Mexican road, leaving walt disney world park tickets the breeze blown coast behind. I had begun a journey deep into the verdant mountains of Oaxaca, peaks that faded into the haze, massive blue-gray shapes filled with mystery and magic... and little else.
The tires spun, wildly flinging stones against the taxi's metal belly. The metallic groans from the ancient car echoed across the jungle like funereal wailing. Although the rainy season had ended, walt disney world park tickets the steaming humidity trapped by the decaying vegetation made the very air I breathed palpable.
walt disney world park tickets In my worst nightmare, I had imagined traveling this road in a bus full of worthy walt disney world park tickets souls, sliding and bouncing on bald tires mounted on springless wheels. That conjured agony made the actual passage in the car no less painful.
The gaudy bus, a chrome monstrosity, bore down upon the pathetic, tin metal sedan. Nameless faces pressed against the dirty, half-opened coach windows, wide-eyed in anticipation of a cataclysm. Envision yourself careening up this poor excuse for a highway in a relic of a car, destined for some ominous mountain top village to witness the Day of the Dead celebration, walt disney world park tickets only to meet a bus --- head on. Such madness made sense in Oaxaca, Mexico.
While English North Americans celebrate Halloween with costumes and candy, ancient tradition in Mexico calls for family reunions with the dead. For three days, from October 31st to November 2nd, specific rites are observed faithfully. They occur in the home and in the cemetery amid bouquets of flowers, banquets of bread, and ghostly candies ornamented with skulls.
These candies are called Muertos, and are given out much the same as parents dispense candy bars and chewing gum to costumed children demanding trick or treat. But among Mexicans, the dead are considered supernatural guardians. Not only do the dead visit during this time, but they also enjoy their favorite food and drink, called "ofrendas," lavishly laid out on home altars and shrines.
In the mountains of Oaxaca, there is a much deeper meaning to the festivity, which begins weeks, perhaps months, before the ordained days, with the collecting of the special dishes and treats which the departed spirits loved most when alive: the best chocolate for mole: fresh eggs and flour for the bread, Pan de Muerto ; fruits and vegetables; even cigarettes and mescal. Lux Perpetua votive candles flame day and night, illuminating the decorative wild marigold flowers, Flor de Muertos , which adorn the altars and the graves.
The passengers on the bus hurtling toward my car were rushing to visit the burial sites of departed loved ones. The distinct possibility that they might soon join the dead, in spirit as well as otherwise, accentuates the duality of belief that was being celebrated.
walt disney world park tickets My destination was Nopala, a mystical place, high in the purple mountains. I was told that of all the villages walt disney world park tickets in Oaxaca, only in Nopala would I truly witness the warp and weft of centuries of tradition, with Colonial religious and ancient Indian beliefs blending into one colorful weaving.
walt disney world park tickets Earlier, as I was examining the wall map in the tourist office, it had seemed that state highway 131 was an all-weather, improved surface road that snaked through San Pedro and San Gabriel Mixtepec on its way to Oaxaca City. The turn-off to Nopala supposedly was in San Gabriel. Instead, there was a large vacant stretch where the village of Nopala should have been. At the outskirts of Puerto Escondido walt disney world park tickets the improved surface had turned to a dusty, rock strewn road. Barely wide enough for one vehicle, it wound up the Sierra Madre del Sur Mountains to the legendary capital.
walt disney world park tickets In the tiny pueblo of San Gabriel Mixtepec, a red dirt side-road walt disney world park tickets set off twisting and climbing to the mountain top that is Nopala. I took the turn with the faith that the map viewed earlier was wrong, that the white space was an omission, not reality.
Finally, the pinnacle, and the mystery that is the Day of Dead became, paradoxically, walt disney world park tickets alive. Carved from the rock peak, Nopala's crowning architectural achievement is the Baroque municipal building, a glorious quasi-Colonial structure painted a brilliant white, its wrought iron balustrades crumbling walt disney world park tickets from rust. Set within its plaster walls are stelae brought from the mountains hidden by clouds. The chiseled inscriptions walt disney world park tickets come from ruins so far away, and from a time so remote, that few people know the story the stones tell.
A melancholy sound filled the empty square. Unearthly music played on a motley collection of discordant instruments, with only the tuba and trombone identifiable, provided a heartbeat to the ethereal pueblo. It is almost magical.
The people slowly wind their way between the leaning plaster walls to the plaza. They pass over cobblestones worn smooth by years of weather and the footfalls of generations. The women enter first from the side streets, dressed in black, walt disney world park tickets yet brilliant with color. Clutched to their breasts are marigolds. Large golden blossoms are carried by everyone; some have bouquets, others only one stem.
The individual pilgrims slowly form small groups, then merge into still larger congregations walt disney world park tickets until they converge as one solid processional walt disney world park tickets in the stone square surrounding the crumbling church. High in the tower above the crowd, a solitary bell chimes walt disney world park tickets plaintively, reverberating against the white-washed walls, rolling over the stones, tumbling down the mountain top, into the river valley below. As the music from the instruments fades, a chorus of sweet voices rises from the sanctuary, as angelic as any choir of St. Peter's.
At the cemetery, the people quietly dispersed among the cluttered tombstones. Bright walt disney world park tickets garlands of marigolds ornament the graves. A trail of their golden petals leads back the path to the village. It is strewn as a beacon, a pathway especially for the souls of los ninos , the children, the littlest angels.
An ancient race that dwelt in Mexico once wrote, "We only come to dream. we only come to sleep; It is not true that we come to live on Earth." Dia de los Muertos translates that prophecy into a mortal manifestation.
With regret walt disney world park tickets I set out through the smoky haze covering the mountain back to my world. But now that world is different from the one I remember before the journey to Nopala. Now there is a continuity, a link with the living past that I hadn't known. It is that past which is either a curse or a salvation.