Day 5.......Mexico City...So, how many people can you STUFF in a Volkswagen van, Duck & Cover (the sequel - read the San Blas blog) - celebrating Chinese New Year...who knew?....taking a cab CAN be dangerous to your health...and in the shadows of the Hunchback of Notre Dame....read on...

,,,,,And we thought the San Blas fireworks celebrations were wild, well.....you ain't seen nothing yet... 

We spent the entire day, about 12 hours, by our hotel, wandering a 2 block stretch that had been set up to celebrate Chinese New Year..

Chinese New Year meets the Mexico's love of noise, music, color, festival and chaos. It is a perfect fusion of 2 great cultures and a recipe for a wild, wacky and outrageous celebration!

What follows are moments from our day...

........ martial arts demonstrations by young and old, lion and dragon dances.......drummers drumming...

.... vendors set up shop everywhere selling everything from clothes, jewelry, toys, shoes, food, drinks, trinkets from Asia.....anything you can imagine in a flea market...

...little children sit in cardboard boxes under tables...

.....crowd continues to swell.......

...lions continue to dance throughout the alley, around people.....

....., people appear from second floor windows, make speeches about life, God, acceptance of differences (yes, we can now understand these basics).

......crowds surge forward, little children, old women almost trampled in the rush to catch candies, pouches filled with small gemstones and seeds, calendars and confetti thrown from windows....

.....at a market stall, we score some Ray-Bans sunglasses for 50 pesos! Hey, for that price they must be genuine......

...drums continue to pound, music continues to blare, vendors yell and shout over and over and the odd set of firecrackers begin to blast off....,.it is sensory overload...

.... afternoon moves toward evening....

....there are at least 2 dozen strands of firecrackers, 3 - 4 metres in length, extending to the ground, hanging from various buildings around the alleyway....

.....several structures holding FIREWORKS are erected in the crowded plaza....

.....as darkness descends, the madness & chaos starts to boil.....

.....we begin a night of drinking (to quell the nerves) in a quiet cantina (that, later swells, as groups of people flee the chaos to seek sanctuary inside). It affords a front row seat to the impending explosion of sound and colors...

.....firecrackers go off on the ground around the lions as they dance amid  the smoke and blasts...

....the dragon weaves its way through the packed alleyway...

.....the hanging strings of firecrackers are set off around the crowd.... gunpowder fills the air....fireworks are set off, ricocheting off the walls, windows and rooftops...breathing becomes more difficult...

...And, then....fireworks are set off among the crowd......(in Canada, crowds would be blocks away, here, mere steps)...

....we hide out (more like, duck and cover!) in the cantina, as the final strand of fireworks goes off, literally in the open doorway...….paper, smoke, smells pour into the cantina as people take refuge....

......then, fire, shoots out above the crowd, showering the lucky few who didn't duck and cover, with sparks and singed clothing.. Somehow, no one gets burned (badly), no babies got crushed, no one was robbed, and everyone stayed polite and laughed!  See Shayne in the doorway!

The amount of smoke hanging in the air over the alleyway, resembles the aftermath of a tear gassing after a local demonstration out of control....

Truly, a wild, wacky day that they would repeat for 3 straight days.

If anyone is planning a trip to Mexico City, find out when Chinese New Years would be held, and plan your trip around that! You would not be disappointed!

Adios Shayne & Yvonne ....our final day in Mexico City next.....