Hola, Leo joined us here last night just in time for the St. Patricks day celebration in Melaque. OMG, it was the most amazing fireworks demonstration and fiesta I have seen in Mexico. We would NEVER, NEVER, EVER see anything like this in the USA.
Festivities began this week with the Fiesta del Torros which included rodeo events, bullfights, carnival, parades, blessing of the fishing fleet, folk dances, boxing matches, and nightly fireworks.
The town which I refer to as Melaque, is actually three towns seamlessly joined together: Melaque, Villa Obregón, and San Patricio. St. Patrick is the patron saint of San Patricio as in many other towns in Mexico. They all have a Saint Patrick's Day celebration but perhaps the biggest celebration is the Melaque, Jalisco, March 17 celebration which is the one event we went attended.
We took the bus over to Melaque from Barre de Navidid around 6:30 PM in the evening. The fiesta was in the town square. We wandered around and marveled at all the food stands selling taco, crepes, pancakes, hot dogs, hamburgers and finally decided on a taco stand that had a table, real fine dining.
After eating our tacos, which all had very elaborate names like a volcano, a gringa, etc., we shuffled off towards the bull ring to watch the dancing horses and the bull riders. On our way there we went by the church which was still having a service that was now including 3 troops of native dancers in the aisles of the church. I couldn't help but poke my nose in an have a look, very fascinating.
Just outside the church they had erected the "Castillo" which was a free standing fireworks display. You could smell the ingredients of the fireworks, it looked very explosive indeed. There was one small circle of caution tape around it with two fire extinguishers. This was to be set off around 11:00 PM. I noted that there was not a bombadero (firefighter) in site, not even a truck. I guess if something were to go wrong it would just be part of the show.
We continued down to the bullring and enjoyed a show of 2 dancing horses and the blessing of the bull riders. From our seats you could hear the 12 piece live band loud and clear! As we sat in our seats we experienced another only in Mexico! a vendor coming by our seats offering 10 peso aqave shots. We watched several bull riders (no hands) in the ring. One of the bull riders fell off and was trampled by the bull. It actually looked like he was injured pretty bad. The ambulance came into the ring. It was an old pick up truck with flashing lights. The driver/medic only had one leg but managed to move rapidly. They tossed the bull rider into the back of the pickup and took off. I'm figuring if he wasn't hurt by the bull that the truck ride to the hospital would certainly finish him off. On that note we decided to go pick a place to view the fireworks show.
We had heard you didn't want to be too close to the castillo so we found a spot in the square and waited for the fireworks to begin. We didn't have to wait too long, a guy just walking through the crowd let off huge bottle rockets with his cigarette! It was as loud as a shot gun and the crowd moved like a wave. Then the castillo ignited. The castillo is a very, very tall structure with several pinwheels attached. They started at the lower pin wheel. I can't even imagine why people where standing so close. The castillo launches fireworks out into the square and up into the sky at all levels. The crowd just goes wild trying to avoid the hot fireworks. Inside each pinwheel was a spinning figure of some sort having to do with the festival. Where we stood way in the back we were still ducking and jumping to avoid the fireworks. The show seemed to go on for a very long time. It really gets your heart pumping as you are wondering about crowd control, what crowd control! The top of the castillo finally ignited with even more gusto then any of the pinwheels. It was a little difficult to watch the whole show as I was avoiding hot piercing fireworks and trying not to get trampled but it was spectacular! The finale was a hot molten sign that said "fini" was launched into the crowd and landed on a tree and caught fire.
So we were thinking, ok, shows over the same guy who had started the show with the bottle rockets lit off several mortar rounds. I didn't even see the guy set them up but we where so close I could feel the concussion. I never even looked up at the fireworks cause I was too busy looking at the mortars that looked like they had misfired and exploded on the ground. Just after that little show a guys starts running through the crowd with a fireworks shooting rig in the shape of a bull. He ran through the crowd, leaving NO ONE out and aimed the rig and shot off fireworks intentionally right at people. It was absolutely nuts! This was a pretty big square and it was packed with people and I think I actually had eye contact with this guy at least 3 times! We had been trying to stay together as a group but at this point it was every man for himself. I ran into Kathy and Leo behind a small box truck trying to duck out of the guys aim only to see Kathy get pinned in between the truck and a motorcycle. It was crazy, crazy! When Kathy came out from behind the motor cycle we chatted and decided we thought we both we our pants on that one!
We tried to regroup where we all had been watching the show and let the guys know Kathy and I had to go find a bathroom. We walked around for a very long time trying to find a bano that did not have a huge line. We never did find one and I won't go into any details about that. What we did find was a carnival, Mexican style. I'm telling you it was like a dream, only we were walking through it. The carnival was pretty typical with the carni rides and amusement booths. At one booth they where playing a bingo game for kitchen plastics. It appeared to be a family oriented right up until we came to the full bar booth complete with "titty" drinking cups, "Call" drinks at a carnival.
Kathy and I spent the next 30 minutes looking for our group in the crowd so we could go back to Barre de Navidad. When we finally did find our group they where all sharing their version of how they managed during the show. Most everyone had black soot somewhere on themselves. The buses had all stopped so we went in search of a few taxi cabs. I think we were finally tucked back in our bunks by 2:00 am. what a night.
We are renting a car tomorrow (Saturday) and driving down to Zihutanejo to take Clark to the airport and drop Leo off on his next crew position about SV Precious Metal.
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