Valle de Bravo (day 6)

Sometime last night we got some sleep. But it was in the earlier part of the night, because we were awake well before Santiago came and knocked on our door around 5:15am. Mexicans have a thing for loud fireworks. Not the fancy, pretty kind…just the loud kind!

So sometime in the night, these loud fireworks started randomly going off. Occasionally there would be a break of ten or fifteen minutes…just long enough to allow you to start to doze off, and then they would start again. Whiskey doesn’t like this noise at all, and even though she’s fairly deaf, some of the closer ones did bother her a fair bit.

December 12 is Our Lady of Guadalupe Day in Mexico, and all Mexican celebrate this day no matter their religion. The festivities start in most towns all over Mexico well before daybreak, and it was no different here. We were quick to get out of bed and get dressed and outside by 5:30am or so and they already had a fire going up near the house with quite a few people gathered around.

Seven of us piled into Santiago’s little car for the quick drive over to the local church. It was busy there already, and the church started out pretty full but we managed to get a seat against one of the side walls.

The decorations above the entranceway were all done with flowers.

We missed some of the discussion at the beginning, but then there was a lot of music and singing that went on for an hour or so. People came and went, and they served a hot coffee style of beverage. Many families there, with quite a few children. And it was chilly! Even when we made it back to Sherman at around 7:30am, there was still some frost on the ground.

I seemed a little more tired than Ruth, and I had a nap in the morning. I had another nap in the afternoon. In fact, other than reading my book and playing with Oso and his stick, I didn’t do very much all day! Ruth did some more hand laundry (a little every day), and seemed to keep busy enough with other things that she never had a nap. Hopefully the noisemakers stop at a decent hour tonight, but I wouldn’t count on it!