sacrifice what does that word mean to you the word sacrifice is taken on a whole new meaning in 2020
places we wanted to visit we couldn't go to occasions we wanted to celebrate we couldn't enjoy
dia de Muertos in mexico is no exception mexicans are accustomed to loud and colorful street parades
getting together as families to construct elaborate offlenders and visiting local cemeteries
with brightly colored cempasuchil to remember their loved ones but this is 2020. is it realistic
to expect the usual level of frivolity and community spirit coupled with the ever important
sombre feel or have mexicans needed to sacrifice the norm and make the best of a bad situation
today in zacatecas a gorgeous city i visited in 2019 we're going to discover exactly that a state
in which i scaled La Bufa went down the mines and visited the spectacular Jerez de garcia salinas
bleakness emptiness silence welcome to 2020 in mexico
hello everyone how are you doing i've got a question for you how do you film a dia de
muertos video in mexico in 2020 when there are alarms going when everything is either closed
or cancelled i guess we're going to find out right today is november the 1st 2020 which is
yes it is still 2020 when will this year of hell end apparently in two months but anyway as i said
at the end of the last video in cerro de san pedro i'm back in one of my golden destinations
in mexico the state of zacatecas specifically the city of zacatecas why is it golden quite simply
it's one of my favorite locations i was here last year and i did about four videos here plus one
that i did in jerez de garcia salinas and in those videos we went to a lot of the common tourist
places like we went up the telephotico to el bufa we went to a traditional mexican cantina and had
squirt and mezcal we also went down the mines at el eden obviously i don't want to repeat myself
from these videos we're going to try and find something relating to deirdre muertos and have
some food because i didn't have any food in the last video and i'm starving so let's get going
okay we're starting off a little bit out of the center of zacatecas and we're going to start
off with some food we're going to try and have something later that is typically mexican but i
want to start off with something that you may not think is mexican but after all this time in mexico
it kind of has become mexican you'll see why in a moment so here we are gigantic hamburgers you
can't go wrong with that yeah of course a burger is not necessarily mexican but it's something i've
been wanting to put in a video for so long because it is just divine the place is really dark inside
as many places are in mexico so i'm going to get the food and come outside and we'll eat out here
okay look at the actual size of this this humongous look at it absolutely massive so as
you can see from the shots i did get inside there are many different options like bacon and sausage
hawaiian with pineapple but i've got dynamite dinamita i'm assuming that's dynamite not
exactly sure what the um ingredients are but i guess we're gonna find out i
think you put like chili sauce in it ketchup mustard the usual lot um and there's also um
meat ham on there look at that have you ever seen a burger so big um the patties um obviously they
shrink a little bit from what you can see now when they're cooking it and um but still it's
ginormous gigantic i guess the name is accurate and then you know they work at such a pace and
then it's very busy um it's really cool to see them you know throwing the burgers around
things like that but um yeah it's enough talking more eating look at this it's packed full
of fillings oh my god there's cheese on the bottom too obviously
hey man what's dynamite about it i'm not sure but i guess we'll continue eating
absolutely heavenly the reason why i find mexican burgers quite unique is that you often have like
when they're preparing them they put like two slices of ham filled with like plastic american
cheese and also so when you bite into it obviously the cheese is melted in the middle of the ham and
it just it's just so different you know it might sound basic but it really makes a difference
i'm in love and it's you know this is massive it's cut up into four quarters
if you like i don't know how i'm going to eat all this but i guess we'll find out
who's talking about so i've dissected it a little bit look at that burger
it's nice and burnt and crispy on the bottom which i love with the um
there's the there's the ham with the cheese inside and it's like compacted against the burger
beautiful the pigeons are getting involved with the gigantic dynamite burger you okay hon yeah
i'll give you some meat in a minute there we go oh that's a bit i don't know what that is
or the lack of as it may be obviously it's 2020 we can't expect that to be destrilers parades and
you know people face painting on the street and offlanders everywhere obviously we've got kind
of one here but there's a marked difference in comparison to last year and the year before last
year i was in queen avoca amazing parade i kind of almost took part in there um but you know over
the last sort of month especially everywhere i've been in mexico there's kind of been an absence of
it and you know maybe that's from just my point of view i don't know if you're mexican perhaps
it's a different case because i'm sure you've got often enders at home remembering loved ones etc
let me know in the comments you know this is going to be in the past tense because this video will be
uploaded after hitting muertos what did you do for dd motors how did you make it you know as close as
normal as you could have done apologies for the terrible grammar there but you know what i mean
i was just speaking with that senior over there really nice guy and he was basically telling me
that despite the pandemic despite everything going on it's kind of the same view as me you've got to
do what you can do if you know what i mean so he was telling me that people are you know having
food at home having pan de muerto at home things like that and doing their offlenders very much
in the house which they would do anyway but um clearly you know you can't do that outside you
know like in central squares and parks and also going to cemeteries you know a lot of cemeteries
are closed that's of course a very somber special occasion event every dear de muertos
here of course is the cathedral in the middle of zacatecas is one of the most beautiful ones in the
whole of mexico just look at the design on the front there the sun is shining on it it's about
half plus four there's very loud cars going past it's a taxi but yeah it's uh it's spectacular then
look at that dome up there you've got like the yellow on it which is beautiful and it's amazing
at night as well now i've got to admit we did do this in one of the other zacatecas videos
i should really be doing this in salaries but i'm going to go to Costanzos because i really need
some chocolate okay i'm just going to get the old classic fresa princesa the legend that is princesa
look at the costanzos okay despite the wind i've gotta wait this quick because it's melting
very rich chocolate
strawberry
so right now we've got a little kid riding around a little bike and a girl going into a tent which
is there for some reason um but a year and a half ago there was tamborazo there were bands playing
here and people dancing into the night even at this time of the day there would be uh tamborazo
and you know they would walk from here up the hill with their drums and trombones and everything
what a difference a year makes i did a video i filmed a bit
down here there was a food place i went to i started a video right over there i ate
food over here somewhere where there were pigeons attacking me pigeons are still here
um and obviously look you can't even get into this area with all the prohibido el paso tape that's my
phrase of the year i think so i sat on this exact step a year and a half ago doing exactly this
might do a little comparison shot over there it might have been that step but who knows
anyway you might be wondering why have i come back to somewhere that i've been before because i'm not
going to do the things i did before quite simply because i wanted to but i did have mind of my own
and that this whole mexico series has purposely been about new places but i was going to go to
other places in san luis like uh axtla terrazas and things i don't know how to pronounce it
um you know for dd motors but you know i just can't justify spending the time and money on buses
to go to places where nothing's happening honestly there's a silence that permeates wherever i go in
mexico this year a distance not only physical distance but mental distance i'll touch on that
in episode 10 the mexico finale anyway i'm going to wait for this bus let's do it why not it's 70
pesos 70 pesos the same cost as the one in san luis i don't know how i remember these things but
apparently i do so yeah we're doing something new even though it's somewhere old it's like
a wedding we need something blue um yeah let's see zacatecas from above
okay hi everyone we've got a bit of noise in the background dogs barking that's mexico for you
but it's a couple of days later again just like the last one uh because when i got back from that
bus trip which was very informative by the way um it was dark so i couldn't film um but the thing i
wanted to say about this video obviously it was originally intended to be a dia de muentos video
the thing is as i've kind of said during this is that this isn't a normal year so dia de muertos
isn't really being celebrated this year by the time you see this again past tense it's happened
and the thing that kind of came into my head during this video was around the fact what's
more important in life a celebration or survival in terms of a pandemic and the reason i say this
is because by the time you see this the uk will be back in lockdown again i'm going back to the
uk for one day next week and there's a lot of talk i've seen you know even boris johnson saying
things about you know we want to go into lockdown for four weeks so that to ensure people can have
a nice christmas a normal christmas and i think really is that the important thing christmas some
festival obviously you know people want to have a good christmas i understand that this year's
been a nightmare i appreciate that but we have to consider what's more important in life so you
know when i think about world war one and world war ii i know that on christmas day there were
stories of you know opposing sides meeting on the battleground in no man's land and greeting each
other and not fighting and having a day off but in reality you know the war was still happening
just like now is happening the pandemic is still happening so should we be so concerned about some
festival regardless of where we're from in the world or our background or religion you know
we have christmas easter eid um ramadan diwali chinese new year you name it and dear di muertos
so i think we do have to consider you know what's important in life um and if we have to take a
year off christmas or dia di muertos then that's what we have to do unfortunately it's the bleak
reality of 2020. and i've got to say you know one thing i haven't seen in mexico the whole
time i've been here or heard obviously i know a lot of mexicans i speak to a lot of you every day
not one of you has been complaining about the fact that you can't necessarily go to a cemetery to
commemorate the lives of your lost loved ones no one has been complaining about you can't go to a
parade or have an ofrenda on the street you know it's just one of those things about mexico that i
feel like the rest of the world could learn from you know we we don't need to complain
about not having a celebration because there are more important things in life let me know
what you think in the comments maybe i'm being a bit bleak i don't know but anyway i'm about to go
and film the next one which is part number nine we're back in yet another golden location wait
for it we're back in jerez de garcia salinas i'm excited i'll see you next time catch you later
i'm very happy right now how often does that happen
ah this senor has just invited me in
we don't treasure places like this treasure days like this moments like this amazing times
that we might not have again i'm gonna cry again why do i keep crying in jerez