Who doesn’t like the colors and costumes, the magical music and the fierce dance, the vibrancy and the enthusiasm of festivals, especially when they are weird? If you have festive mood and are looking for something different, filled with unusual events, then Mexico is a great choice, a popular tourist destination that truly loves to party!
Mexico is home to a wide range of festivals, events and celebrations available twelve months a year, which celebrate the country’s rich history and emphasize the shared values of Mexicans. Below are some of the most bizarre and unusual festivals you can experience in Mexico.
Día de Los Muertos
Held on November 1st and 2nd, Mexico’s ‘Day of the Dead’ is definitely one of the country’s most unusual and interesting festivals that celebrates the reunion of relatives with their dearly departed. During the festival in most Indian villages altars are built and then carved with food and decorated with candles, buckets of flowers, peanuts, plates of turkey mole.
Colorful costumes, loads of festive food and drink, often in the shapes of skulls, skeleton figures and yellow marigolds, cigars, skeletons on stilts, parties in cemeteries, skull-shaped lollies and mariachi bands, performing next to graves are all part of the festivities to show the totality of both life and death.
The origin of the festival comes from the belief that spirits of the dead pay a visit to their families between October 21 and November 2. The Day of the Dead is not scary, rather it’s a day to celebrate the dead and enjoy their memories.
The festival is best celebrated at two very special places in Mexico, including Mixquic, a small town in Mexico, and in Janitzio, a charming little island state of Michoacan.
Night of the Radishes in Oaxaca, Mexico
Every year, on the 23rd of December, just two days before Christmas, the Mexican town of Oaxaca changes into a different place. The Raphanus sativus, or radish as it’s more commonly known, escapes its destiny as root vegetable and becomes ART on the Noche de Rabanos (Night of the Radishes.)
Started about a century ago to generate some buzz about the local farmers’ market, and to showcase the creativity, ingenuity and the skill of Oaxacan gardeners, the Night of the Radishes, is a rather unusual folk art competition that is strictly about the Radish. Radish growers from around the region gather together for one huge radish-carving contest, where abnormally large radishes are carved into elaborate sculptures depicting historical scenes, nativity plays, and mythological tales.
The night is topped off with a huge amazing firework display and, as you would presume – a massive salad. The winner for best sculpture is rewarded with their photo in the local paper. Even if you don’t like radishes, you certainly will after this truly bizarre night. So, come for the rabanos,s stay for the totomostle!!!
La Morisma
If you visit the colonial mining town of Zacatecas, usually around late August (between August 25 and 28), you will probably see its streets filled with over two thousand faux soldiers both Christians and Moors, who attack one another at the Lomas de Brancho Park, while accompanied on the streets by bands of musicians.
Each side comes to show off their troops, artillery, uniforms, garments and other paraphernalia, making this a wonderful celebration filled with color and tradition.
Global Rainbow Gathering
Another interesting festival that is worth checking out is the Global Rainbow Gathering from November 1 to 31 in the city of La Paz, Mexico. Peace and love and a fair bit of nudity are on the line-up at this crazy hippy fest, which has travelled around the world since 1972. It’s free and non-commercial, drugs and alcohol are banned (except marijuana, of course) and days are filled with fun, massages, drumming and discussing how to heal the world.
