AWF Magazine - December 2023.pdf

This time around, I went to Puebla State, 2.5 hours away from Mexico City to visit the beautiful city of Atlixco, just some 40 minutes ahead of Puebla City. Atlixco is the Municipality that plants and delivers most of the cempasúchitl flowers in Mexico, were huge Catrinas (papier mache sculptures) are scattered around the City on the Valle de Catrinas (Catrina's Valley) Festival, held from 14th of October to November the 5th and was set for second time ever in this beautiful city. By the way, Catrinas were not part of the traditional Mexica/Azteca art or imagery, they were adopted by us, Mexicans after early 1900s, when an engraving printing character, La Garbancera (The Chickpea Gatherer), from José Guadalupe Posada a political cartoonist, that depicted a "catrina" (well groomed lady) a common name, "catrín", given to those who dress up pretending to be part of a social strata higher than the one they actually belong to. Ten monumental Catrinas were built and put on display throughout the city starting with Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl (Mexico's legend volcano characters) and accompanied by the Prehispanic Poet, a reference to Nezahualcóyotl, the Poet Emperor, the Catrina Zocalera, on the main square, and many more, amidst the cempasúchitl fields, on the streets, and to make it even better teamed up with the Corn Fair, bringing delicacies as "elotes" (corn on the hob), corn and meat brochettes, “esquites” (corn on a glass with broth and spices) and many more.