Mexico Day of the Dead

Incredible but true, our journey begins with a flight that takes us to Mexico City. Even more incredible is the fact that we land toward the evening*, thanks to the magic of time zones. Exhausted from the journey, we eat and then head straight to bed to recharge our batteries for tomorrow.

*or we land tomorrow—it depends on the flight!

Super happy and full of excitement, we head out to explore the city, but still take it easy (we’re at 2,240 meters, and our bodies need a little time to adjust). We wander through the historic center, try our first tacos, and visit the Palacio de Bellas Artes and then the Templo Mayor.

For those who want to venture a little farther, there are two optional extra activities. One is a trip to Teotihuacán, the “City of the Gods” (take a look at the extra activities section). Basically, it’s a plain dotted with ancient pyramids where the Aztecs once went about their business. The other optional activity is heading down to Xochimilco, where the canals fill with floating altars decorated with cempasúchil flowers, colorful arches, and calaveras de azúcar (yes, sugar skulls—and yes, you can eat them).

And then? Then we all meet back in the city for dinner together, and spend the night nearby to see whether we make it through our initiation into Mexican cuisine without a hitch.

Today is October 31st, and here in Mexico one of the wildest parades of the year takes over the streets: the “Parade Between the Living and the Dead”, winding through Puebla’s historic center like a river of costumes, calaveras, mariachi, and cempasúchil flowers.

We wake up in Mexico City, hop into our minivans, and in just over two hours we’re right in the middle of this Great Celebration. Puebla is a stunning colonial city. Its façades are covered in talavera, the blue-and-white ceramic made only here, and everything looks like one giant piece of porcelain. We visit the Cathedral, stroll through El Parián market to shamelessly stock up on souvenirs, and wander into Callejón de los Sapos (the “Alley of the Toads”), where among antique dealers and impromptu singers we find beautiful things and very ugly things—both absolutely unmissable.

Tonight we stay out to watch the parade and head back to the hotel whenever we feel like it. The celebration has only just begun!

Rise and shine — we’re not in Mexico to sleep! We get up early and hit the road: today we’ve got five hours of driving ahead through insanely beautiful mountain scenery. Well, maybe we can take the chance to catch a little nap in the van, because tonight we’ll be on our feet.

We arrive in Oaxaca in the middle of the afternoon. Oaxaca is called “the jade city” because of its local green stone, and it is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Everything here smells like chocolate — Oaxaca is considered the birthplace of Mexican chocolate. We visit the Church of Santo Domingo (one of Mexico’s Baroque gems, gold everywhere, the kind of place that leaves you wide-eyed and speechless), the Cathedral, and Juárez Market. This market has been standing since 1893, and you’ll find some of the country’s finest handicrafts here.

Anyone who wants can add the optional activity to visit the archaeological site of Monte Albán, the ancient Zapotec capital set on a plateau 2,000 meters above sea level. A UNESCO World Heritage Site too, of course (take a look at the optional activity details).

Tonight is November 1st. The celebration comes alive! Muerteadas fill every square, and cemeteries shine as bright as day with thousands of candles. And in Mexico, people don’t go to the cemetery only to mourn — they go to celebrate; here, grandmothers don’t bring flowers to their late husbands, they bring them a guitar and mezcal. It’s tradition to stay around the grave for hours and hours, laughing and making noise, just as if the departed were still there with everyone.

Tonight too, we can stay out late if we feel like it — we don’t want this celebration to end!

We wake up, rub the sleep from our eyes, and get ready for another day in Mexico. Free morning in Oaxaca to enjoy the last day of celebrations. It’s November 2nd, the most sacred day, the one when the souls of the dead truly return (or so they swear).

There are mojigangas parades! Giant papier-mâché figures, sometimes over two meters tall, known in Oaxaca as Monos de Calenda. They parade alongside the Chinas Oaxaqueñas, who wear wide, colorful satin skirts embroidered with flowers, with a basket of real flowers balanced on their heads.

In the afternoon we leave for Tehuantepec, heading straight for the coast. Five hours on the road through a landscape that changes constantly. By the time we arrive, it’s dark, so it’s straight to a shower, dinner, and bed. Today, yes, we’ve earned our sleep. Good night!

Guess what? Early wake-up call! Come on, come on, come on—today we tackle the longest transfer of Sto Gran Viaggio: about six hours to San Cristóbal de las Casas, the jewel city of Chiapas. Here too, the scenery changes in a flash: from the sweltering coast we climb up into the mountains to 2,200 meters, practically into another dimension.

San Cristóbal is a colorful, peaceful city, with ochre, pink, and indigo walls. We visit the Cathedral, the Santo Domingo Church with its pink stone façade carved like lace, and the indigenous market where Tzotzil and Tzeltal women sell their goods in traditional dress. There’s also a section dedicated to mystical and medicinal plants. Intriguing…

For those who can resist the mysticism, today’s optional activity is an excursion to the Sumidero Canyon (take a look at the optional activities section). It’s a canyon 1,000 meters deep, explored by speedboat along the Grijalva River. Crocodiles included in the price!

Back in town, dinner and straight to bed with larvae in our stomachs: we’re more exhausted than ever and disgustingly happy about it.

By now we’ve realized there’s nothing to worry about, especially thanks to our saintly Tour Leader, who’s taking care of everything. Including today’s awesome plan: this morning, one last dive into the streets of San Cristóbal before heading toward... well, another paradise!

We descend toward the plains and make our way to Villahermosa. It’s a four-and-a-half-hour drive, but the destination is worth the whole day. We’re off to the La Venta Museum, a museum park in the middle of the jungle, on the shores of a lagoon. Incredible. Here you’ll find the colossal Olmec heads: three-meter-high stone sculptures carved 3,000 years ago, looking as if they had just seen a ghost and stayed frozen in amazement forever. All around, jaguars, crocodiles, spider monkeys, and other amazing local creatures roam free. After all, we are in the jungle!

Having survived and made it back to Villahermosa, it’s time for dinner. No acrobatics tonight—we’ve got more road ahead tomorrow.

Hi there! Today we’re heading to Catemaco on the Gulf coast, famous for its witches. Real ones.

It’s one of the very few places in the world where shamans, healers, brujos, and fortune tellers still practice seriously, and where traditions are passed down from generation to generation. There are limpias (ritual cleansing ceremonies with herbs and smoke), people who read your future, others who can remove the evil eye if you’ve got it, and plenty of locals who take it very, very seriously.

Those who want to can give it a try; everyone else can simply enjoy the Catemaco lagoon, which is a beautiful place regardless of the witches. For dinner, local fish, and then off to sleep. Maybe with one eye open.

After three and a half hours on the road, we arrive in Veracruz, the first city founded by the Spanish on the American mainland. The Plaza de Armas is a colonial ensemble of buildings: there is the Town Hall from 1609, there is the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, and there are the 18th-century portales where people still sip mojitos at sunset (so thirsty).

You’ll also find one of the oldest hotels in the Americas here, the Hotel Imperial, where Maximilian of Habsburg, Porfirio Díaz, and half of Mexico’s history have spent the night. We don’t stay there because it costs a fortune, but we do take a little ride in its luxurious 19th-century elevator and feel incredibly stylish.

At the end of the day, we head back to the square, where Veracruz’s retirees dance the bomba better than anyone else in the history of the universe, and we enjoy a drink with our feet almost in the ocean. What a life this is!

Want to know what we’re doing today? We’re hitting the road again in our minivans. Heading west, to Cholula. This is where you’ll find the largest pyramid in the world by volume! Yes, larger than the Great Pyramid of Khufu. The only difference is that it’s covered in grass, so it looks like a hill, and on top (because, well, whenever the Spanish arrived somewhere, this is what they tended to do) they built a Catholic church: the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Remedies.

We head up, and the view from here is incredible: the Puebla Valley, the Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl volcanoes smoking faintly in the distance, and Puebla stretching out below. What?! Puebla?! Come on, let’s go! Back down and off we speed to Puebla.

Tonight we’ll have dinner here and enjoy these last moments together as a group. Tomorrow comes the saddest day of the whole trip. And maybe you’ve already guessed why. Sigh.

The night passed far too quickly, and here we are: a slow breakfast morning, then off to Mexico City and the airport. We say our goodbyes at boarding, shedding tears of both sadness and joy, and take that flying contraption that brings us back to Italy.

We all pinch ourselves to make sure it’s real, but it really is. We’ve landed in Italy: we’re home. It’s still too soon to fully take in how incredible this experience has been.

It was the trip you imagined — and then some.