{"id":4401,"date":"2010-11-02T07:00:27","date_gmt":"2010-11-02T14:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=4401"},"modified":"2010-11-02T07:00:27","modified_gmt":"2010-11-02T14:00:27","slug":"progreso-carnival-ecstasy-merida-yucatan-peninsula-day-of-the-dead-halloween","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=4401","title":{"rendered":"One of Those 'Dias' in the Yucatan"},"content":{"rendered":"

PROGRESO, Mexico \u2014 What would you say if we told you we would go to a city we never heard of\u2026meet a history teacher whose name we didn’t know\u2026and find out how Mayans celebrate the “day of the dead” or as the locals say Dia De Los Muertos<\/em>?<\/p>\n

You could never plan that. And then it happened.<\/p>\n

On the way to Progreso<\/a>, a port built so that cruise ships would come, we got on a bus to Merida. Come again\u2026Merida? We’d never heard of it, either, which just goes to show you there are cities of almost a million people that live in anonymity out there in our world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Why would somebody take a bus \u2014 the local bus, Auto Progreso \u2014 from the pier to Merida? Because it was there. Because it cost $5 per person, each way. Because from all we’d read about Progreso, it was a map dot disguised as a port (not true).<\/p>\n

After the Carnival Ecstasy<\/a> slipped into place on a pier that is either 4 or 6.5 miles long (we read both), the bus option was available from one of the local vendors selling tours on shore. Since we’d already decided Merida was our destination of the day and since we’d read on the Internet that two other cruisers spent $48 taking cabs each way, the $20 investment seemed like a bargain.<\/p>\n

Besides, we like meeting locals.<\/p>\n

Enter Alphonso Pe\u00f1a.<\/p>\n

“English?” he asked, as we stood in front of an ancient church in Merida “Centro” pondering our next move.<\/p>\n

“Si,” we replied.<\/p>\n

The next 45 minutes was fascinating. As eager students, one of our lessons was learning that today is the last of five days devoted to Dia De Los Muertos. There’s another word for it in English.<\/p>\n

Halloween.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In the Mayan world, and this is the heart of where that all began, the holiday starts on Friday for school children, then there’s the weekend, Monday is a day off for adults and Tuesday is off for everyone. Since this was Tuesday, Alphonso wasn’t teaching history in high school, but he was educating visitors who spoke a language he is still learning.<\/p>\n

In a way, he was teaching history on his day off…<\/p>\n

At the heart of the festival is a meal, and isn’t that always the case? This meal is called “Comida de Muertos” and the main dish is “Muc-bipollo” or, when anglicized, a three-inch thick tamale big enough to feed three or four people. Think humongous pizza. It’s all tied together with banana leaves and cooked in them on hot limestone for two and a half hours.<\/p>\n

It’s accompanied by candles, incense, flowers and drinks. Traditionally, the drinks are Maya wine (xtabentun) and alcohol (bacalche).<\/p>\n

“It makes you happy,” explains Alphonso.<\/p>\n

On a day devoted to the dead, that’s probably a good idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PROGRESO, Mexico \u2014 What would you say if we told you we would go to a city we never heard of\u2026meet a history teacher whose name we didn’t know\u2026and find out how Mayans celebrate the “day of the dead” or as the locals say Dia De Los Muertos? You could never plan that. And then… Continue reading One of Those 'Dias' in the Yucatan<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,25,31,15],"tags":[154,51,86,35,102,386],"class_list":["post-4401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-people","category-ports","category-stories","tag-carnival","tag-cruise-ports","tag-cruise-ships","tag-cruises","tag-mexico","tag-progreso","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}