More Zacomania

Wow, this is a fun town! In just a week we have been to four museums, including one in the ruins of a catherdral, one in an old convent that was converted to a prison, and now it is the modern art museum! We've eaten more good food, including the fresh buds of prickly pears, buckets of gorditos, fantastic mole, and pozole (great spicy soup for those rainy days).
This past weekend was the big Independencia fiesta. The tradition goes back to Miguel Hidalgo, who shouted "Viva Mexico" from the town square in 1810 at the very beginning of Mexico's break from Spanish rule. So we followed the crowds to the main Zocalo here in Zacatecas (we are only a few hours drive from the City of Dolores Hidalgo where the cry (grito) originated), we find a place on the stairs with the others and wait. They have a huge stage covering one end of the square and shortly many singers and bands take the stage and the crowd builds until the whole square is filled. By 10 pm, the crowd is getting excited! The other end of the square is a 40' tall tower of fireworks, a contraption of metal framework covered in fireworks, and in the square just to the north of us, one block away, they've set up HUGE mortars in big steel tubes, just like the ones we see on the barges in Seattle. At exactly 11pm, the governor comes out on the balcony to great applause and flag-waving. She shouts "Viva Mexico" and the crowd answers, "VIVA", the whole square and half of the town is filled with people shouting and waving flags! It was amazing. The school band is on stage and played the national anthem and soon the fireworks start up! We are about 100' from the main display and as soon as they atart up the crowd surges away from them as the sparks start to fly! Mexican fireworks are fantastically dynamic, powered by loud whistling crackers, they spin and whorl in bright colors and shapes. Like a ferris wheel on fire! They filled the square with smoke and ash but deterred no one! The crown of the display swirled and twirled until it completed flew off in a blaze of white sparks! Everyone cheered and shouted for more! The whole side on the cathedral behind us was rigged with crackers at the top that covered the whole side of the church with a curtain of white sparkles. Then in the final show, the entire length of the teleferico (aerial tramway) above the town was strung with more! It went off turning the colors of the flag and then turning into an enormous curtain of white sparks falling down abopve the city! Stupendous!
Not to be outdone, the huge mortars go off right over the town and continue from ontop of the Bufa (the big hill nearby).
I think we like this place...