War Zone

As I wrote yesterday, there was no way that I was going to get near the "Cinco de Mayo" reenactment of the Battle of Puebla that is staged here in the neighborhood of San Juan de Aragón where Alejandro lives.  For some reason it is not enough to fight the battle on the fifth of May.  They have to continue their bellicose festivities on the sixth... and, no, the original battle did not last more than one day!

Starting at 2:00 P.M. and continuing past 9:00 P.M. on Monday, you would have thought that this was a war zone with constant rifle shots and canon explosions.  Around 7:00 P.M. I climbed up to the roof, and recorded a bit of the noise... although it really doesn't capture the chaos.  

The air smelled of gun powder.  Some of the explosions were so intense that they set off the car alarms and rattled the windows.  The family's two dogs were living in terror for the past three days.  Traffic in the neighborhood was a nightmare, and the Metrobus route running through the neighborhood was shut down.  Alejandro says that there are not many things that he hates, but he hates "Cinco de Mayo" in his neighborhood. It's not my idea of a fiesta either!