Mexico City, MEXICO -- Time to leave...

The Festival of the Day-of-the-Dead in Oaxaca City was celebrated with music and dance in the Zocalo (central city square), street parades, and most interesting was the night vigils at the cemetery where tons of flowers decorated the freshly cleaned graves, further decorated with all of the favourite foods and drinks of the deceased. Coke and Pepsi are very popular as the burping helps to bring out the bad spirits!

The 6.5 hour bus ride from Oaxaca City was amazing to say the least. The most spectacular mountains, covered for miles by huge cacti.

Had a close view of Popo´s smoke clouds as this active volcano huffs and puffs 24 hours a day.
Popocatepetl (popularly known as Popo), the second highest volcano in Mexico, is a giant stratovolcano, 70 km (45 miles) southeast of downtown Mexico City. Popo is one of the most active volcanoes in Mexico, having had 15 eruptions since the arrival of the Spanish in 1519 AD. Not far from Popo we passed his sister volcano (can't recall the name) covered with a blanket of snow.

The Festival of the Day-of-the-Dead was celebrated all over Mexico City. I spent all morning at the Zoo (probably the best Zoo I have ever seen -- and I have seen many zoos around the world). I attended the festivities at the Mexico City Zocalo this afternoon -- a huge crowd, many traditional Indians (spiritual leaders) performing cleansing ceremonies on the locals who stood in long lines for the 5 minute cleansing act of smoke, soft chanting, and surrounded by the necessary religious embellishments which includes bones, dried pieces of animals, lots of flowers, food for the dead souls, etc.

This is my last night in Mexico...I vow to be back here ASAP as I fell in love with this wonderful country. Tomorrow morning at 7am its time to lift off for Honolulu, Hawaii, with a brief stop-over in San Francisco -- the fairest city of them all!