I went to the fair, which was in the Centro, with Jean Paul, and we first stopped to have dinner at one of the many many food tents. The traditional fair food is called "Antojitos Queretanos." In QRO, this food consists of - tacos (of course!!), enchiladas queretanas (stuffed with cheese, potatoes, onion, carrots, and in a really yummy garlic sauce), gorditas (think corn tortillas filled with cheese or meat, and cut open to put in more meat and sauce), elotes (corn on the cob with mayo, cheese, lime, and chile), tamales, and my favorite, guajolotes!! (wah-ho-LOW-tays)
Here is a picture (that i robbed off the internet) of people eating antojitos at a similar fair somewhere else in Mexico:
And a guajolote (called a "pambazo" in other parts of the country)... It's a big bread roll dipped in hot sauce and grilled. It's stuffed with meat, cheese, refried beans, cream, lettuce, and jalapeños.
After the wonderful food, JP and I enjoyed some typical mexican music, had a completely non-mexican oreo frappuccino, and went to wait for the event that really caught my attention.
I had heard a couple years ago that around Easter time in QRO, they blow up a big statue of Judas. It happens to be on Easter sunday in the evening that this takes place, which was the time we were at the fair. This is an event sponsored by the Catholic church, and JP said that he thinks they do it to mock Judas - he couldn't keep Jesus dead! This really surprised me because here, Good Friday is the BIG holiday (and cuaresma (lent) the few weeks before). There usually isn't much celebration here on Easter sunday (Resurrection Day, as we call it in the Evangelical churches), as Jesus is still on thee cross in the Catholic churches for the whole year!
Anyhow, we saw what looked like a giant piñata of a devilish man hanging over one of the walking streets and knew that was where Judas would be blown up. We waited about an hour smashed between a couple thousand other people for this event to start.
Along with Judas, other figures are blown up. JP and I only stayed for Judas and one other, as we had to pick up his sister from the bus station. The second figure that was blown up was a monster that said "No to Abortion" on it. Soon, the Republic of Mexico will vote on whether or not to make abrotion legal for the first three months of pregnancy (it's illegal now). The Catholic church is very much agaist this, so they blew up that monster to demonstrate that. There were a few other ugly looking beasts to be blown up that I'm not sure what they represented, and a man in a three piece suit (who we didn't stick around to see). I'm pretty sure it was either ex-President Fox of Mexico, or President Bush, or possibly Arnold Shwarzenigger. All the figures are of people or political acts that the Catholic church, and probably the Republic of Mexico in general, don't like.
Here is a picture of a different Judas in another city (although I have a feeling that it's President Bush, because on the left it says "no war.")
And here's a Judas in the process of being blown to bits. For about 1 minute, the statue spins around letting off all kinds of fireworks, then BOOM! The whole thing goes up in flames in a big explosion, and all the bystanders get showered with burning pieces of paper-mache Judas.
Anyhow, it was an interesting cultural experience!
2 comments:
Friend, that was not the fair, that was only the Easter traditional celebration, the fair is the second biggest in the country with 1,000,000 people attending from all over the country, that fair is HUGE!! and it is in december.
Thank you kindly annomomous commenter, like I said, this seemed to be the equivalent of a "county fair," which are small fairs that we have in the USA. I attended the QRO STATE fair in December, and it was quite large. I went to Leon though, and it was substantially larger. What just happened in QRO was called "Festival Santiago de Queretaro," for the municipio of Queretaro, or, to simplify it for those in the USA, like a county fair.
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