Visiting my brother Edgardo and his family in Ixtepec!

Now it was time to visit Edgardo's family! We headed to Ixtepec to stay with his parents. His sister and her family were also staying there since Christmas. The next day they took us to visit a nice pool, Ojo de Agua.

After a nice and relaxing time at the pool Edgardo and I were invited to a wedding. I would get to experience some nice mexican traditions :)

Like dancing with the bottle!

I got to see a lot of nice traditional costumes.

And I even got to try a mexican dance with the bride.

After the wedding the party continued in Edgardo's house where his niece was celebrating her birthday!

The next day we went to Juchitan de Zaragoza to visit the market. This was a big market with two floors inside, and much more outside! Here they were selling lots of traditional costumes, shoes and foods.

On our way back we stopped by a pottery in Ixtaltepec.

This man had been working with pottery since he was a young boy. He explained the art and he even let me try ;) It was not as easy as he made it look!

The next morning we got up before 6 am to start preparing the dinner for New Years Eve. 

This pig became one of the best dinners I have ever tasted! It was prepared in this horno de leña for several hours, and the smell when we took it out was heavenly!

Everyone coming to the party brought a case of beer, and of course I wouldn't be any less mexican ;)

A tradition in Mexico for New Years is to make Viejo's. They make these dummies looking like old people and fill them with fireworks. At midnight they light them up to represent the end of the old year.

Of course we had some piñatas to try to hit! The kids get to start :)

After all the kids have tried it's the grown-up's turn!

The rest of the night was a lot of dancing and fun in the street :D

¡Feliz Año Nuevo! ¡Muchas gracias a todos!

Día de la independencia!

So today was the independence day of Costa Rica! Yesterday they had some entertainment and speeches in the park. A tradition for the day before the independence day is to make a farol, which is a box with a light in it.

There were many different farols, and they gave out prices for the best and most creative ones. 

Today it was possible to see the Costa Rican flag everywhere (they have actually been around for the whole month).

It is a tradition that all the schools participate in parades around the local churches and their parks.

There were many different outfits to see in the parades, but this is the most traditional outfit of Costa Rica.

One thing the parades are well known for are the marching bands! They have been practicing since school started in February, and I have been hearing them practicing the last few weeks. The most common instruments in the bands are drums and liras.

A lot of the bands also had some other instruments. I really don't know the name of this instrument, but it was cool ;)

Here is a video of the most popular performance in the parade.

And here is an example of the loud noise they can make with their drums!

After the parade in Moravia was finished I moved on to Coronado, known for its old gothic church. The parade was pretty much longer, and there were much more people than in Moravia.

Here is another traditional outfit used for Costa Rican dancing.

There were a lot of nice and different traditional Costa Rican dances to see today.

Some of the bands also had brass instruments.

And some of the musicians played on several drums ;)

 In addition to music and dancing there were some cheerleading teams that would have short performances :)

In front of the bands there would be more students dancing to the music. This was the last school in the parade in Coronado.

 I had a great day with a lot to hear and see! The sun was also shining, so I got a little sunburnt :P

¡Viva Costa Rica!