Dia de los Muertos celebrations around DF

I bought several of these "papel picados" (cut paper) at Mercado Jamaica in various colors with a variety of fun, friendly skeleton themes...

These were just a few of the calaveras de azucar (sugar skulls) for sale at Jamaica. The chocolate ones looked good enough to eat...

My favorite little white flower dogs from my last visit to Mercado Jamaica were now decked out in their festive Halloween best.

We first stopped at the Frida Kahlo museum, aka her "Casa Azul" near the heart of Coyoacan. Despite not being a Frida history expert, I must say the museum was quite interesting & really well done... Seeing her house & gardens and getting a few snippets of her life w/Diego Rivera was time well spent.

Here's Diego del Muerto at the ofrenda in the garden of the Kahlo museum

...and another one of the folks hanging out at Frida's place...

We saw this intricate design being filled in with copious amounts of table salt...

Ironically, many flowers died to create the amazing images for this holiday... particularly marigolds and cockscombs...

This ofrenda won points in my mind for its subversive, "government sucks" messaging

The fountain in the nearby Centenario Garden was taken over with this gorgeous display

Next, onto the Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares, entrance shown above. Entry was free this Saturday, but normally it is a mere 11 pesos and they had an interesting exhibition about sugar that could still be worth a peek post-holiday. Here's John bonding w/his mother-in-law. :)

Inside the museum, they had some excellent vendors selling Dia de los Muertos food & crafts. We were particularly impressed by this table of Catrinas.

In fact, we liked them enough that we made purchased two new little friends (for a grand total of $460 pesos, which seemed reasonable despite our lack of calavera-price-benchmarking)! I have to say, it is fascinating how the more you see things as a normal part of culture, the more they grow on you... If you had told me before we moved down here that I would someday purchase an 18-inch-tall trendily-dressed skeleton woman + a fat cowboy skeleton with a dead rooster at his feet, I wouldn't have believed you for a minute. :)

One of the hot controversies in Coyoacan is that after they remodeled the main square, they kicked all the street vendors out & relocated them to the Frida Kahlo Garden, a few blocks southeast of the square. The vendors are displeased, but I will say they are in a lovely area--especially when the main fountain is covered in flower petals.

The wee skeleton figurines are always good for a laugh-- my mom purchased one of the dog+vet options that was the spitting image of our Jack Russell terrier Dave back in Nebraska. Note the pile of cheery horse-drawn hearses in the back... (From the main mercado in Coyoacan)

Also inside the Mercado Coyoacan, we visited the Tostadas Coyoacan stall for a late morning snack. My mom's guide book informed us this is *the* original spot & not to be fooled by the mimics nearby. I can vouch--both the drinks & seafood here were AMAZING. I recommend an agua de sandia (watermelon) and a tostada de camaron (shrimp). Look at those piles of seafood, people!!

A massive book display in the spirit of "The Black Cat"....

I should know my Poe stories better... Anybody know the story where someone is cut in half or loses a head via an improvised guillotine?

One of the popular themes was a cemetary with headstones citing each of Poe's best known works. We were able to quickly identify "The Tell-tale Heart" and "The Pit and the Pendulum"... Some gravestones seemed a bit redundant; not sure if the students got a bit lazy in their Poe research?

The Pumas are the UNAM soccer team; here, John brings life to a player's body...

This is a subtle interior design technique that I think will easily stretch both across the calendar year and across cultures... Any takers?? ;)