Dia de Independencia

Hola, buenas tardes,

The night of the Palacio festivities we drove through the Plaza, and in the Palacio we could see the chairs were set up for the inauguration of the new mayor. The Plaza was very festive and alot of people were sitting and talking, children were playing, vendors were selling and the dessert ladies had out long tables of Tres Leche Cakes (three milk cakes).

A few blocks from the Palacio several women sell tamales from their casa, so once we got home we turned around and walked back to buy tamales and empanadas.

On the walk home, we got involved in a street soccer game, playing well into the dark with about ten young boys. Senor hit a tope and the tamales went flying, but he quickly saved them and proceeded to score a goal and skin his knee at the same time. The boys whooped and hollered and did not seem to mind a bit that we had joined their game. When we decided our legs could not take anymore we called hasta luego and gracias and many more than ten boys' voices called goodbye to us. We looked up to a high stone wall to see that we had drawn a crowd......

Back home we devised this plan to stay up until midnight to hear the 'grito', but that didn't work. At midnight when the first fireworks went off, Senor shot out of bed thinking a gun was going off. As soon as he realized those were fireworks, he said.............oh, yea, the fireworks, we should go and watch.............and went back to sleep. I watched outside from the garden room. The fireworks were brief, but I could hear alot of screaming and yelling from town, so I imagine everyone had a very good time.

We were up early to go to the parade and below are some photos from Dia de Independencia. The parade here in Alamos begins with all the children from the entire municipality of Alamos, carrying their school flag and the Mexican flag, wearing their school uniform and marching to a cadence through all of the streets of the historical district. There are many, many schools and they all wear different colored uniforms. The pictures below are only representative of a few schools.

Some of the schools will have drummers, usually girls, and coronet players, usually the boys.


Below, the secondary schools are marching. The teachers march along with the students, calling out the cadence for them. The hill top ahead is the Mirador. They will soon turn left and head toward the Plaza de Armas.

After the schools go by, the famous little red train, pulling the younger children, goes by. Their school flag is the red banner on the train.

Then come several bands.And, then comes the newly elected PAN mayor and his family. Behind them are all of the municipality employees that will begin working for the new government administration.Then come the horses.
Once the parade has gone through the historic district and around the Plaza, it goes to the Alameda and back to the Plaza where the horse dancing begins.

After the dancing, the mayor and his family began walking up Calle Juarez for the third time and all of the horses and horse dancers took off behind them, dancing to the Mariachi band.

The musicians below headed toward the arroyo and Senor and I headed toward the little Sonoran hot dog stand at the Alameda. After we ate, we went to the arroyo where the Tecate stands were already open and men were already waiting in line.

Yesterday, we had big plans for the afternoon............maybe watch a little baseball, some soccer, the horse dancing competitions, eat a little carne asada, but it was just too hot for us. I think it was one of the hottest days we have had all summer and there was absolutely no breeze. I am one of those people who hates to miss anything. If something is going on, I want to be there to see it, but we did not see anything else........by one o'clock we were walking home................. turned on the mini split, and slept the afternoon away..................