San Miguel de Allende, Summer 2009: Dia de Los Locos

On Sunday, it was Dia de los Locos in San Miguel de Allende. The main attraction of the festival/ party was a parade where all participants come dancing along in funky costumes. It supposedly has religious origins, but they were not apparent, similar to the way I celebrate x-mas.

The best way to describe the parade is as a walking reverse Halloween, where those in the parade were dressed up and threw candy to onlookers. Each of the floats, consist of a big truck with music (undoubtedly blasting the same synthesized banda song), with the groups members dancing around the truck. The floats had a theme, so everybody would dress up nearly the same. There were monsters, Disney characters, the Pittsburgh Steelers, Aliens, zombies, and of course, pigs with the flu. Along the parade route all the participants of the groups would dance their side to side banda step; and toss candy into the groups. It was only later that I thought of any possible connection of crowds chanting “Dulce, Dulce, Dulce!” to the number one cause of mortality in Mexico (Diabetes). Probably just over analyzing right? Just can't turn off the thoughts.