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He worked the timber harvest until a leg injury sent him to the mill to supervise the cutting crew. As several women delivered more heavy wool blankets and a couple of men came around offering tours to nearby waterfalls, the small crowd that formed in our room proudly pointed to the gifts of Señor Cabrera's love for woodworking - the pine dresser, beds, chairs, and notched walls. Señor Cabrera had been returning home on El Día de los Muertos for nearly five years. Señor Cabrera was not returning home from a nearby rancheria, or his job rigging timber on the mountain slopes - he was returning from the dead. But in the light of day we realized what we had missed in the infinite darkness the night before.

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The women closed the kitchen promptly at 9:00am and went out to the mercado to stock up on groceries and paper streamers for El Señor's return.īriefly, as enthusiastic children ran from the guest house to greet the morning train, we imagined they might come back swinging a suitcase like a piñata full of treats ready to burst open and a kind old grandfather in tow.

The guests were served an elaborate breakfast featuring huevos con chorizo y Queso Menonita with sope de pollo, pink grapefruit, fresh tortillas and crushed jalapeño salsa on the side.

Off to the side, the freshly baked cake was cooling. A framed photograph of El Señor rested in the middle. The table Señor Cabrera's daughters had huddled around the previous evening was covered with a white cloth. The guests would enjoy all the things Señor Cabrera enjoyed during their stay this week at the Casa de Huespedes. A woman in the kitchen told us that this was Señor Cabrera's favorite. We woke to clanging pans and the toasty sweet smell of pineapple upside-down cake. Piñon burning in a small stone fireplace cast an orange glow over the pine board walls and we settled in for the night under heavy wool blankets guarded by tall hand-carved pine bed posts. Their father, Señor Cabrera, was returning home in a few days for a visit, one woman told us as she led us by the light of a single candle down a hall to our room. The pictures were of their father and each one evoked a sweet childhood memory. My road-weary companions and I stumbled out of the darkness into a candle-lit kitchen, where six women were gathered around a shoebox full of photographs, passing them around the table and laying them out carefully in rows. At a pause we knocked lightly and were invited in. A faint glimmer of light glowed at the base of the door, helping us find our way.įearing we were too late to check in to the Casa de Huespedes, we listened at the door and heard women singing songs in Spanish. Our destination was tucked away between two churches by the town square. Our headlights seemed a nuisance, so we found our way down a long cobbled street by the amber glow of our parking lights. The little town, under dense autumn skies, was hidden in the darkest dark - the smoke of chimneys not visible all movement absorbed in the night and no dogs dared to bark.

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We finally arrived in the small lumber town in the Sierra Madre around 10:00pm, an hour after the town's electricity generator cut off to signal the mill workers that it was time to trade in bar stools for a productive night of sleep. Traditions of Mexico - El Dia de los Muertos TRADITIONS OF MEXICOĪfter nightfall, on a long drive, late in October.