by Monica Hartlief
The last 5 years from Oct 30th to Nov 2nd Xcaret has been celebrating the traditional Mexican Day of Dead holiday with a festival called Festival de Tradiciones de Vida y Muerte. This year is Mexico’s bicentennial year so it was additionally called 200 años de Vida y Muerte. The festivities started every day at 4 pm and lasted until almost midnight.
I was lucky to be invited to join a few friends to celebrate the holiday with them in Xcaret this year. When we arrived around 5 pm on Monday the 1st the park was already packed with people. I was surprised to see mostly Mexicans, I was under the impression Xcaret was mainly a tourist park but this turned out not to be the case, at least not when it comes to the Day of the Dead celebrations.
During the 4 day festival Xcaret had more than 200 events planned, ranging from song and dance to elaborate concerts and theatrical shows. There are also many activities for kids, beautifully decorated traditional altars, elaborate tombs, displays and sales of artesanias, photography expositions, and much much more. This year the state of Chiapas was the “special guest” so there was a lot of emphasis on the arts and crafts of this state.
The food was also wonderful: empanadas, polcanes, churros, esquite, tamales, torta cochinita, etc. It is hard to get me to eat even the smallest piece of meat but for some reason I had no trouble wolfing down an entire cochinita sandwich. My friend did mention it was the best thing to eat when hung over… (we did celebrate Halloween the night before).
You can find more information about the Festival de Tradiciones de Vida y Muerte on the festival’s website. The Xcaret Eco-Archeological park is well worth a visit on other days and nights as well.
