Día deMuertos will be different this year in PuertoVallarta
Tucked inside the mountains of Banderas Bay on Mexico’s Pacific Coast, Puerto Vallarta has evaded the party-town reputation of Cancún while attracting tourists beyond its beaches. Over the years, the city has become popular for its vibrant celebrations and festivals during holidays such as Día de Muertos.
In a town full of expats, Halloween folklore is often fused with Day of the Dead traditions during the town’s weeklong celebrations. When the rainy season, which starts in June and creeps into October, slowly recedes across the coast, sugar skulls and pan demuerto — a sweet bread staple of Día de Muertos — begin to appear on supermarket shelves. They sit alongside jacko’-lantern memorabilia and massive pumpkins. It’s an emblematic sight that speaks to the city’s large expat population and the parallels often drawn between the two holidays.
This year, however, COVID-19 has scaled back festivities while bringing into sharper focus the longstanding traditions of Día de Muertos.
While Día de Muertos begins a day after Halloween and equally devotes itself to death, supernatural forces and chilling costumes, the two events are distinct. The vibrant festivities that the Day of the Dead is known for often disguise the occasion’s heavy tone.
For locals of Puerto Vallarta, the holiday is as much a proud cultural touchstone as it is an intimate family occasion. In the context of COVID-19, which has takenmore than 85,000 lives across Mexico, commemorating lost loved ones gains a new significance.
In previous years, a key feature of the town’s celebrations has been the striking procession of calaveras and Catrinas. Men and women draped in traditional clothes and headdress, their complexions painted into skulls, emerged from the Panteón 5 de Diciembre — the city’s largest cemetery. They made their way across town to Parque Lázaro Cárdenas off shore from the aptly named Playa de Muertos, or Beach of the Dead.
This year, the Panteón looms over the city as a reminder of the pandemic’s death toll. On the first day of Día de Muertos, Nov. 1, it will be visited by families holding vigils to honor those lost.
Although the city’s street festivities have been canceled to ensure social distancing, the intricate altars and soaring Catrinas — the holiday’s emblematic figures with sewn lips and skeletal complexions — will remain.
The Municipal Tourism Board plans to have ofrendas, or offerings, lining the Presidencia, or town hall, and all around the Malecón, or boardwalk. Visitors in town for the holiday will still witness many of the traditions of Día de Muertos.
A fusion of ancient Mesoamerican, Catholic and Spanish spiritual beliefs, the Day of the Dead marks the opening of a gateway between the world of the spirits and the living. The souls of lost loved ones return to visit and are welcomed with their favorite foods and music.
“Last year it was a giant party; we’d have concerts and dancing, but we also make ofrendas for
those who died. It’s a celebration of the lives that were lost,” says José Luis Espitia, of La Rosita, one of the oldest hotels in the heart of town.
“The whole stretch of the Malecón is filled with altares,” Espitia says, refering to the intricate altars that are a focal point of the holiday. Adorned with photos, candles and Cempasuchitl — the marigold that is considered the flower of the dead — the altars become one of the celebration’s most impressive sights at night. Trains of orange candlelight emanate from winding rows, as tourists and locals alike come to pay respects.
“We eat and drink with those who died, we cook the dishes that they loved, and we listen to their music,” says Maria Isabel Zavalza, a Puerto Vallarta local.
Unlike Halloween, which indulges in fright and gore, Día de Muertos upends the relationship between fear and death. It invites a celebration of life where fearsome costumes and colorful calaveras — the painted skulls that the holiday is famous for — are designed to welcome the dead rather than to scare the living.
In past years, however, the two holidays have been celebrated in succession across the port city. Vibrant street parties and parades fill the town from Oct. 28 to Nov. 3. The city center would light up in a carnival. Arrangements of Cempasuchitl filled the boardwalk, as musical performances and art exhibits honored the dead.
This year, the cobbled plazas surrounding the looming Parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe are reserved for the customs of Día de Muertos. “We want the focus to be on the altares, the calaveras and Catrinas designed by our artists and which symbolize Mexican culture,” the Municipal Tourism Board says in a statement.
The beaches, cobbled streets and looming churches of the port city have recently come back to life since lockdown ended in
June. The tourism industry has gradually begun to regain its momentum as hotels raised their capacity to 50 percent last month.
Still, locals and businesses are expecting a more intimate celebration of Día de Muertos, one that will be oriented around the family.
“We’re going to visit the panteón (cemetery), spend time with our children and family and make pozole or birria,” says Jose Ibarra, a local business owner. He describes the region’s staple dishes for the holiday — refering to the two types of colorful stews that combine slow-cooked meats, chiles and spices.
In the narrow streets that branch off the city’s central beach, the suspended papel picados — colorful paper streamers used in Mexican holidays — gesture at the possibility of a smaller celebration.
The holiday that usually draws crowds of tourists will be scaled down to its more traditional elements. Nov. 1-3, visitors to Puerto Vallarta can see vibrant calaveras and Catrinas along the Malecón and taste staple dishes such as pozole at one of the outdoor patios of Playa de Muertos. At night, stunning altars will be candlelit along the moonlit plazas beneath Puerto Vallarta’s iconic Our Lady of Guadalupe parish.