- Perhaps Mexico's most important holiday
of the year is Día de Independencia,
Mexican Independence day,
where it celebrates its independence from Spain.
So, let me show you what it looks like here, in Ajijic.
- Oh my gosh!
Oh this is gold.
How Cute!
- You guys ever had sugarcane?
- I don't think so.
- It's so freaking good.
Like with lime and salt on it,
it's the best, my favorite thing ever.
(conversing in Spanish)
- You can eat the whole thing?
- You spit out the husk,
you kind of suck all the juice.
- Chew it to the fibers or something?
- Yeah, and then you have to spit out the husk.
So it's kind of a messy snack,
but it's really, really good.
- I like messy snacks.
- So you take it, you wanna go with the grain
- With the grain? That's a big bite.
- You have to shove it all in your mouth.
- That's what he said.
- And you take it out, and you're left
with just the husk, then you just throw it away.
- So it just, it dissolves just like that.
Okay so... Yeah try it!
- So like wait, which way? This way?
- No, the other way. You wanna bite
down where you're like squeezing on that part.
You can try to take a bite of it,
like squeeze it apart.
- That's why you put it all in your mouth.
- It's very tasty
- That's what he said.
That's why you put all in your mouth. Okay.
- Here, you want to try?
- I don't know if I can.
Just the bit.
- So you take just this part
(incomprehensible speaking)
- This is really hard.
(background music playing)
- I'm kind of a pro, so
- You're, you're a pro at...
- I am. I'm a cane pro,
I've been doing this for years, folks.
- I think I got it.
- I've never, I've never tried this before,
but it's actually,
it's good.
- I'm not a pro yet.
- They're, they're very messy
- You kinda just like grind everything down
until you can't grind anymore.
- Now what?
- I try to keep it one chunk.
It's way easier if you can keep it in one chunk.
- Oh wise one, now what?
What do I do?
- Spit it out.
- It kinda has like a clean flavor, like a...
- It's good though.
I really like it.
And what was it? 30 pesos for this whole bag?
- Yep
- Solid. Solid.
So it turns out also for the Día de Independencia,
there's this huge festival on the Malecon right now
where there's all these vendors set up with crystals,
and artisanal products, clothing, jewelry,
everything you can imagine.
So, as you probably know, by now, this is paradise for me.
Look at how cute this ring
It's beaded.
For 30 pesitos.
It says down here, take a shot.
So I'm about to take a shot.
It has activated charcoal, plus Tequila.
Tastes like tequila.
I saw this necklace,
which reminded me of...does anybody remember Dragon Tales?
And then you, you...please, please,
please tell me what was the....
- So I wish, I wish with all my heart to fly
with dragons in a land of art.
- This is digging up memories I forgot I even had.
I have to get this necklace.
It's the Garza Blanca (White Heron)
(group laughing)
- Come full circle.
- Well, we decided to come to Cocinart for dinner
and we all have some extremely beautiful looking plates.
I am starving.
This Cobb salad is so good.
And now I'm here pre-game night with my good friend, Olivia.
This is an XYZ meetup, which means generation X, Y, and Z.
Because, believe it or not,
there are a good chunk of people here in Ajijic who aren't.
- Who aren't just retirees.
- Yes. Underneath the retirement age bracket.
So, I wanna say thank you, Olivia,
for helping host this type
of event, you and the co-creators.
- Yeah. Linda and Allie, we, this was a joint effort.
You know, our little baby that we put together
and we all met within like two weeks of moving here
and it was meant to be.
So, we started this group cause we saw a real need
and we've been going strong.
- You just told me 250 members in the group. What!
- We've grown our group like, very quickly
in the last, like maybe five, six weeks.
And we've had several people show up to our meetups
like all new people who I've never met before.
So it's been fantastic.
- Oh, I love it.
I'm excited for this game night.
Okay. So we've actually had a great turnout here.
We've got a table over here playing Spoons
and we are playing Telephone Pictionary.
Is that right?
So Tyler's going to read off his
to give an example of the hilarity that happens
with our Pictionary Telephone drawings.
Okay. Let's do this.
- Okay. Well I gave her a really ambitious one
but I know she would be up to it.
So my phrase, my phrase was K-pop Squid Game.
- You were so mean.
You're so mean.
- Yeah yeah yeah.
- Wait, wait, wait, hold on of, of everybody here,
who's seen that?
- I've seen it, but.
- You've seen it.
- I was struggling to remember that.
- Thank goodness I'm not after Tyler
because I haven't seen that show yet.
- Sometimes it's more funny though.
Cuz then you just, you think it's a game about squids.
- Then it's got to be literal
- Eating each other or something.
- Okay.
- All right so, Hsuan
drew this lovely drawing of,
can you explain this?
Because I
- I tried to put everything in one picture.
- Oh that's that's a giant squid! OK.
- And that's the dancing music.
- Dancing floor.
- The K-pop.
That's the K-pop star, right?
- Yeah.
- K-pop squid.
- We're having a great time. Okay.
And then Ayrton said
"load yoga flow."
(laughter at the table)
- Oh my gosh.
And I was next.
I had no idea
- Like loud, like a yoga
music party, you know like a yoga flow
- OK.
- Loud yoga flow.
- And then Maddie drew this.
- So, I read, I read load.
So this is like the rainbow wheel of death,
and then a yoga flow.
So this is this lady's like doing her like yoga
- Alignment. And then you got
karma comes for us all.
Which is actually pretty perfect.
- Solid, it's really solid.
- And then we got,
I think you're gonna have to explain this one too.
This is like a box with a dude.
It looks like he's trying to trap like
- HAHA.
- An ant.
And then a giant witnesses it
and says, haha.
And then.
Is that like an anvil
dropping on this guy?
- Yeah
- That's a really hard one.
- This is the final.
I wrote, "animal cruelty is not the answer to teenage angst"
- You're so creative. Props.
Props for creativity to all of us
- We're back here in Centro and everybody is covered
in this confetti, including you.
Can you tell me your story?
And also, can you tell me
why are you covered in all of this colorful confetti?
- Confetti? Hi, good afternoon.
My name's Lee Hopper
and I'm a resident of Ajijic since 1960.
Today was the day of independence in Mexico.
And they celebrate it here in Ajijic
with what we call Combate de Flores
which is like the flower combat.
However, they have moved from flowers to confetti
which is like, I don't know.
- Little pieces of colorful paper.
- Get a hole punch and punch a bunch of paper,
put it in eggshells or put it, you know, loose.
And the town queen, and their princesses walk
around the Plaza and they start throwing it at people.
And you know, the more you get, it's like a badge of honor.
The more confetti you have on you, the better it is.
And it, and it gets in your t-shirt, gets in your underwear.
You have to go home and take a shower.
- Oh, it's in your hair.
- Yeah. It's in your hair everywhere.
- And then there's a couple of the, the local neighborhoods
which there's six in Ajijic and each one of 'em has
a little table where they'll give you free,
either guava punch or pomegranate punch,
or hibiscus punch
They're all spiked with alcohol, sugarcane alcohol.
- Oh.
- That makes the fun part. And they'll give you confetti.
Some of 'em have sweet breads
and that's how they celebrate today.
So this is kind of the culmination of a two-day event.
And on top of that, we also have out at the bull ring,
there's bull riding and lassoing and stuff like that.
- Thank you so much.
- You're welcome. Have fun. Enjoy yourself.
And if, if you wanna know anything about this town,
like I told Maddie, I've been here since 1960.
I can tell you the good, the bad, the ugly.
The stuff that nobody talks about.
- Oh.
- That nobody knows about.
- Okay.
- Because they don't wanna talk about it, but it's there
- So that that's maybe coming up at a future episode.
- Yes.
- Yes the good, the bad, and the ugly of Ajijic
- The bad and the ugly.
And not the tourist point of view,
but the local point of view.
- The real.
- Don't believe all those tourist videos that you
see. Like, (clears throat)
- No, no.
- Behind me they're doing performances, live music
and you can see a huge, huge crowd,
which we're gonna try to get into
and see what else is going on.
I'm excited! For such a small town,
I think literally everybody's here.
So I actually saw this behind me being set up
when I got here. Kids rides, trampolines.
I'm surprised, like for such a small town,
they set up wherever they could.
And this is on the main road that goes down
to the Malecon.
I lived in Ajijic in 2018 for four months.
I have never, ever seen the Plaza this busy.
I've actually never seen Ajijic this busy ever.
I love seeing so many people here, whether they're
from Guadalajara, or Ajijic or anywhere else.
What a fun celebration.
Well we saw sign for churros.
We waited a long time, but it is our time.
(speaking in Spanish)
Okay. Was it worth the wait? Was it worth the wait?
- I give it like a five
- Out of 10?
- Yeah.
- Or five outta five.
- Ive had really, really good churros.
- That's fair, that's fair.
Guess what time it is? Guess what time it is.
Finally. It's actually free in here.
It's "El Centro del Centro."
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- Fingers crossed.
- We think, fingers crossed, El Grito is happening
in like 15 minutes, but it is starting to rain.
It's picking up a little bit
but we're going over to the stage right now.
(music playing)
- It's actually so loud.
We got up kinda close to the stage
and it's almost stopped raining,
so we're gonna wait it out here
and try to see El Grito.
(announcer speaks in Spanish)
(crowd singing Mexican National Anthem)
(crowd chanting)
(fireworks going off)
(patriotic music playing)
- So, a lot of people cleared out for sure after El Grito.
Which, by the way, I don't even know
that I actually saw El Grito.
I kind of said it like (screams)
And I think I missed it.
But still lots of festivities happening,
still lots of people here and a live band.
Apparently, there's also bull riding here.
It only costs 10 pesos
and we're both doing it. Laura and I, we are both doing it.
Oh, she just got thrown off, I'm scared.
We'll see, we'll see how this goes. Oh my gosh.
OK, it turns out that was more fun than it was scary.
Did you have fun?
- Very much fun.
- Yeah. That was awesome, actually.
Experiences like this are exactly
why I love living in Mexico.
If you wanna see more click on the video
that's on the screen right now.
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