Viva Mexico!!!!

The past September 15th we could achieve one of our 100 things you should do before die... Making the "Grito" at the Mexico's City Zocalo.

Now that we are here, we didn't wanted to let the opportunity pass us by. This ceremony is held each year to commemorate Mexico's independence. So we get all the courage, investigation and mental concentration and we prepared ourselves for a possible "Baño de pueblo" (people's bath).

Cafe de Tacuba

First we stopped to dine at a traditional restaurant: "Cafe de Tacuba", this place inspired the name of the Mexican rock band too. It's a beautiful place with a lot of tradition and you can get the story about the phantom sister that ambulate every night. This place was also Diego Rivera's first wedding site. And what about the food, you can taste traditional Mexican flavors such as: Tamales, Mole, Nogada Chili, Tostadas and Chalupas. We get a good fill to achieve our principal objective.

With our stomachs filled, and our hearts prepared, we headed to the Zocalo, and there we started to get "emotion as well as a little bit nervous". All the city downtown was surrounded by riot police, and because we have never seen any, we started thinking about how many people would be thinking the same thing as us. Somehow we ran into a line and follow it until the entrance. 

Zócalo

Another experience we lived on this lines, is that they separate men from women and children. But because my family is considered childless (2 teenagers, aren't children) I couldn't abandon them, so I went through the men line. And we had to pass 2 separate revisions. By the second one, we separate, but we manage to found ourselves again at the end of the spot. When we get into the Zocalo, we realized that it was a really secure place, and no to worry about disturbs.

Inside the event you couldn't see any peddlers, maybe because of the night or because the security controls. Because we had some time before the "Grito" ceremony we could review that there were some snipers installed at the roofs of each building surrounding the plaza. No one will want to be at this places with the insecurity of a big disturb.

When we arrive to our spot, the concert had started, but the first singer get to the stage about 5 minutes later. Joan Sebastian, who managed to offer a really good concert. The sound, the lights, the songs he played and the type of interaction he had with the people was really adequate to the event. He sang for about hour and a half and when the concert finished, immediately the ceremony started.

Presidente Peña Nieto

We can see through the screens the projection on what happened inside "Palacio Nacional", first the military escort running through the corridors, then the President and his wife met with them and they received the National Flag. The President went out to the balcony for the ceremony.

What happened at Zocalo was Magic, the people that usually shouts at this kind of events, momentarily keep silence. The President rang the bell and pronounced the ceremony words: "Mexicanos.... Vivan los heroes que nos dieron patria" (Mexicans... Hurray for the hero's that gave us this nation)... and the complete Zocalo answered: Viva for each sentence. After that the bell rang again and the National Anthem sang. 

Palacio Nacional

I had lived this experience at some other places, but it was really impressive hear the entire Zocalo singing with pride and nationalism the Anthem. The people forgot everything and lived some fraternity moments.

Of course at the end, we had the fireworks with the music of Cielito Lindo, Zandunga, among other traditional Mexican music. A really marvelous experience that I recommend to have at least once in life.

Cathedral Fireworks