Travel News You Can Use
By Judy Newell December 26, 2008 San Miguel de Allende
Mexico Travel News
Christmas season in Mexico
| The Christmas season in Mexico begins with the first posada, held on December 16, as a re-enactment of the trek by Joseph and Mary toward Bethlehem and their nightly search for shelter (posada). Christmas dinner traditionally is served on Christmas Eve and the next day everyone who can leaves on vacation. Little business will get done until the new year. |
 |
Santa Claus reigns in shopping malls until Christmas Day, after which the Three Kings (Wise Men) take his place. Children can look forward to gifts from both.
The Epiphany is celebrated with King’s Cake (rosca de reyes), containing a tiny replica of the Child Jesus. Whoever receives the little doll in a slice of cake is obligated to invite everyone present for tamales and hot chocolate on February 2—which is not Ground Hog Day in Mexico. With that, the Christmas season ends and people focus on the upcoming carnaval, or Mardi Gras, which can be especially spectacular in Mazatlán and Veracruz.
Acapulco ignites 2009 with fireworks
The Acapulco Convention & Visitors Bureau announced plans for the Annual Fireworks Gala to illuminate the sky over Santa Lucia Bay on December 31, 2008. This much-beloved tradition features fireworks launched from 20 different points along the Bay, from Caleta to the Acapulco Navy Base. This year’s display consists of 14,000 shots of colorful fireworks (more than double the amount used in previous years) that will provide seven to eight minutes of continuous fireworks.
When it rains, it pours – DF tourism office
Alejando Rojas, who heads the Mexico City tourism office, has been nominated as ‘bumbler of the year’. Rojas sent a replica of the Independence Monument – the most famous of Mexico City landmarks – to Beijing for the Olympics. The replica, however, was held in Chinese Customs until the games were over. Apparently the papers were not in order. What all this cost has not been revealed.
Rojas then dispatched one of the last – they no longer are manufactured – of the city’s famous green VW taxis to Paris as a promotion gimmick. Tourists long have been warned not to use such vehicles, since some of their drivers are often thieves. Such was the case of the cab sent to Paris. It had been seized by the police as a pirate vehicle, which is how the city happened to have it. Rojas protested that nobody told him that.
Last year, Rojas named an aspiring racecar driver as his Ambassador of Tourism. Aspiring was as far as this guy ever got, failing to qualify at Indianapolis and coming in 14th in some lesser race. Last week – apparently ‘under the influence’ – he smashed into one car, tried to get away and banged into another. His ambassadorial title has been rescinded.
Rojas’ most recent problem involves selecting a logo for Mexico City tourism, something that will be combined with the city’s official tourism slogan, “Besame Mucho.” Some finalists had to be eliminated when it was shown that they had ‘borrowed’ their designs from the Internet. And now the heirs of the composer of “Besame Mucho” are demanding royalty payments.
International News
Winter solstice
“Tis the year’s midnight,” the poet John Donne wrote of these short December days. Donne refers to the feast of Santa Lucia on December 13 as being the shortest day, and in early seventeenth-century England it really was.
While some Catholic parts of Europe had already switched to the Gregorian calendar, England stuck tenaciously to the old Julian calendar, so the solstice fell on or around December 13. England, finding the new Gregorian calendar a bit too papist for its tastes, did not switch to “new time” until 1752.
Under the Gregorian calendar, the winter solstice (and thus the shortest day) typically falls on December 21, thus severing the historic link with Santa Lucia. But the various festivals of light that take place across Europe on the eve of Santa Lucia nicely anticipate the pre-Christmas solstice.
Santa Lucia is patron saint of Siracusa, the island fortress city on the Sicilian coast, where Lucia was born in the late third century and martyred there at the tender age of 20. Of course, Santa Lucia’s feast is marked in Siracusa, but northern Europe has the most emotive expressions of the cult of light associated with Santa Lucia.
Lucia Day in Sweden brings some mid-winter light to an otherwise dark time of the year. Lucia and her bridesmaids go in procession through cities, visiting kindergartens and churches. As the dark day settles into night, there are often fireworks. Food is part of any festival and in Sweden the defining tidbits are saffron cakes called lussekatter (Lucy’s cats).
Dark it may be, yet by some marvelous astronomical alchemy, the sun will return. Meanwhile, let us enjoy the deep midnight of a fading year.
World’s strangest New Year’s traditions
Quick question: What will your wardrobe be on New Year’s Eve? Nice dress? Black tie? How about your, ahem, underwear? If you lived in parts of South America, it wouldn’t even be a question. In São Paulo, La Paz and other spots, people don brightly colored underpants to ring in the New Year—red if they’re looking for love and yellow for money.
No matter what we wear, though, New Year signifies a new beginning. Flipping open a fresh calendar, with its 12 pristine, as-yet-unmarked months, is perhaps one of the most hopeful acts we perform: finally, a chance to shrug off a year’s worth of worries, conflicts and mistakes; finally, a chance to start over.
It’s no wonder we all welcome the holiday with such enthusiasm. In the US (and in lots of other countries), the event is celebrated with fireworks and parades, carousing and toasts. Some cultures, though, have more unusual ways of ushering in the New Year.
Many countries share a belief that specific actions taken on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day can influence the fate of the months ahead. In the Philippines, for example, wearing polka dots and eating round fruits is supposed to ensure a prosperous new year.
In Spain, wolfing down 12 grapes as the clock strikes 12 is said to have the same effect. Each grape signifies good luck for one month of the coming year. In Madrid, Barcelona and other Spanish cities, revelers congregate in the main squares to gobble their grapes together and pass around bottles of cava.
It’s a long-time Finnish tradition to predict the coming year by casting molten tin into a container of water and then interpreting the shape the metal takes after hardening. A heart or ring shape means a wedding in the New Year, a ship forecasts travel and a pig shape signifies plenty of food.
In other countries, New Year’s customs are about driving away the bad spirits of the past year, so the new one can arrive unsullied and uncorrupted. Ceremonies often use the purifying power of fire.
During the New Year’s Eve celebration of Hogmanay, the Scots hold bonfire ceremonies, most notably in the small fishing village of Stonehaven, where townspeople parade while swinging giant fireballs on poles overhead (supposedly symbols of the sun, to purify the coming year). The custom of “first-footing” is also practiced all over Scotland and dictates that the first person to cross the threshold of a home in the New Year should carry a gift for luck (whiskey is the most common).
In Panama and Ecuador, effigies of popular celebrities and political figures (muñecos) are burned on bonfires. The effigies represent the old year; immolating them is meant to drive off evil spirits for a fresh New Year’s start.
Other bad-spirit-banishing customs are less fiery and more fun—like the Danish tradition of jumping off chairs at midnight. Leaping into January is supposed to banish bad spirits and bring good luck (now that gives new meaning to the term “leap year”).
No matter how odd they may seem to us, these customs share an optimism that’s hard not to appreciate. Out with the old, in with the new.
Airline News
Expect crowded skies with fewer holiday seats
The Air Transport Association (ATA) predicts that 43 million people will fly during the 21-day winter holiday travel season (December 18–January 7). The number of available seats has declined nine percent from the same period a year ago, resulting in full or near-full flights throughout the holiday.
US airlines will carry approximately two million passengers per day over that period, with the busiest days expected to be Friday, December 19 and Saturday, December 27. On these days, ATA estimates that planes will average 90 percent full.
Sources: Mexico Tourism News, Hidden Europe, Travel and Leisure, Travel Agent Central
Judy Newell heads the travel company Perfect Journeys that specializes discounted rates for airfare, hotels, tours and cruises worldwide, as well as luxury and adventure travel. Contact her with comments or suggestions at
JudyNewell_03@msn.com or go to her website
www.PerfectJourneys.net.
|