Beginning of the Feria de Cholula

The Feria de Cholula is a religious festival that lasts for about two weeks and more than 250,000 people from around Mexico and the world come here the first two weeks of September and celebrate the Virgen de los Remedios. The church (not pictured here-this is the church of St. Gregorio I think) that the Spaniards built up on top of the Great Pyramid of Cholula is named after Cholula's patron saint, La Virgen de los Remedios (Our Lady of the Remedies). Anyways, this year my friends Paloma and Jorge and I were invited by our friend and professor Timothy Knab to come and observe the opening night of the feria. For someone like me who isn't religious, it's always interesting to observe the rituals and beliefs in action of religious people. I usually don't take pictures inside the churches here in Mexico but this was a special occasion and I wanted to be able to put up a few pics of the Virgin. People kept going up to her (to me, of course, she's just a doll-but not to these people- she is much more than that) and touching her, holding her dress up to their faces, kissing her and talking to her. It was an interesting night and I was glad to be able to have something to do that night other than work on my final project!

So we waited around the church for the 10 different barrios of Cholula to arrive with their patron saint in tow. At one point, it was quite funny because almost each barrio arrived carrying their lanterns and their patron saint AND each barrio had their own marching band. So needless to say, it was extremely loud with the church bells ringing and each barrio's band playing their own songs. It was quite crazy, but once all of the barrios showed up, we were all able to take to the streets.

And then the procession went out into the streets to begin the walk around Cholula, carrying the Virgen de los Remedios in the truck pictured here. Paloma and I didn't want to spend two and a half hours walking around Cholula; so after a few blocks, we went home. Cholula is so interesting because of its people and their religious devotion (if one finds all of that interesting- frankly, I don't quite understand it, but obviously, I wanted to observe this whole procession thing in order to maybe get a glimpse of comprehension). It was an interesting night and something to do and observe (from an anthropological perspective).