No. 2: Mexico, Botswana part II
Dia de los Muertos in charming San Miguel de Allende, and an elephant adventure in the Okavango Delta
In Pictures
Every year in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, something happens that is more fun than Halloween, more magical than Christmas, and more exciting than New Year’s Eve. The UNESCO World Heritage Site city comes vividly alive, pun intended, for Day of the Dead, known as Dia de los Muertos.
It’s common to conflate Halloween and Die de los Muertos: Their dates are close together, and both involve a lot of skulls. But unless you’ve seen Coco (if not, please do) or experienced it, many assume Day of the Dead is dark, both in tone and palette. But looks are deceiving. Mexico’s annual two-day celebration is actually a vibrant and exuberant reaffirmation of life. One of the best places in the country to experience it is San Miguel de Allende, a colonial city in the highlands with a fairytale of a pink neo-Gothic church (can you spot it above?), color-drenched cobblestone streets and lush gardens like these at Rosewood San Miguel de Allende.
Preparations for the UNESCO-recognized festivities—which occur on November 1 and 2, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day—are tedious and colorful as each doorway, fountain and corner of the city get a floral makeover. The green square by Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel is the heart of all activity.
The tradition of Dia de los Muertos goes back not only centuries but thousands of years to pre-Hispanic cultures that believed it disrespectful to mourn the dead. Instead they kept their memories and spirits alive and, once a year, celebrated a day they returned briefly to Earth.
On this occasion family members must bring flowers to their loved ones’ tombs, and vendors hawking saturated blooms line the path to the cemeteries. Marigold petals, especially, are believed to help guide the dead back to their resting places after their brief visit to Earth. In preparation for this return, family members clean the sites, bring water (the souls are thirsty after their long journey), decorate and even repaint.
Mariachi musicians linger in the cemetery all day and sometimes all night, playing for the living and the spirits as they spend time eating, drinking and singing together. As one local told me, “people celebrate in their own way. It’s a combination of happy and sad, but it’s a special day for everybody.”
It’s common to see children’s gravesites decorated with small toys and alfiñiques—figurines made from sugar paste in the form of a skull or lamb, for instance.
Alfiñiques are a ubiquitous part of Dia de los Muertos, sold at every market and an element of every ofrenda. They’re customized with the name written on the forehead in colored sugar, so the soul knows it’s for them.
The Catrina is this holiday’s most searing symbol, an image inspired by political cartoonist José Guadalupe Posada’s early 20th century etching that iconic painter Diego Rivera appropriated in his 1947 mural “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park.” He named his fancy hat–wearing skeleton Catrina, a slang term for “the rich,” and it caught on. In San Miguel’s square, local artists tediously paint elaborate masks on (patient!) tourists eager to get in on the glamorous fun (the Rosewood also offers this service to guests).
On November 1, Mexicans prepare ofrendas dedicated to the souls returning, in cemeteries, their private homes and around San Miguel’s main square. These offerings usually involve a hyper-personalized likeness of the person meticulously made of dried beans, rice, lentils or colored sand, alongside photos, candles, food and drinks, whether it’s pumpkin seeds they always snacked on or tequila they sipped religiously.
Artistic, elaborate ofrendas are meant to give family and friends a place to reconnect, but for outsiders they’re amazingly eye catching and expressive. I was told, “In Mexico, death is something really special. You never really die, you go to the other side, and you’re always in someone’s memory.” It’s a point of pride, and an important tradition that’s passed down to each generation—a wonderful piece of culture that seems solid in its legacy. After November 2, apparently, families may eat the food, drink the tequila or smoke the cigarettes left out but, a local told me, “it doesn’t taste like anything. It’s like the flavor was taken out.”
San Miguel de Allende’s annual Catrinas Parade multiplies in size each year, with more and more exotically costumed Catrinas—male and female—joining the march winding through the narrow, darkened streets toward the square in front of the church for interpretive dance, live music and plenty of merriment.
Odyssey in the Okavango, part II (Elephants!)
Several safaris in, I fully appreciate the gratifying privilege of observing wild animals in their native habitats—and all their sweet, silly, curious, strange and even frightful behaviors. They’re not behind glass, cordoned off in a cage, barred into enclosures or, in Botswana, at least, kept from going anywhere because of fences. Because of their exceptional size and strength this is especially true for elephants. They rule the savanna, and, to some extent, the villages, since a gate is nothing to a 12,000-pound creature with feet the size of pizzas and tusks as long as an adult man.
At Chitabe I learned this was quite a quandary. Botswana was trying to reconcile its overpopulation of elephants. When then-president Ian Khama banned trophy hunting in 2014, it was a win for both conservationists and these seemingly prehistoric beings whose population had been reduced severely over decades of poaching—down by at least 30 percent between 2007 and 2014, according to the Great Elephant Census. The safe haven thing worked. But, as Chitabe’s camp manager told me, humans are the only limiting factor for some animals, and taking hunters out of the equation meant elephants have overgrazed, destroyed crops, damaged property and, tragically, increasingly killed humans in villages.
Apparently the current tally of 240,000 elephants is several times more than the country’s carrying capacity, according to him. Of course, their range is consistently diminished by the ever-exploding human populations thirst for more space, too. (Other countries still have very low numbers of African elephants, an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 of which are killed for their tusks annually on the continent.) He said a committee was tasked with reevaluating the ban, with the National Rifle Association even apparently lobbying to reverse it. Many locals agreed with them. This was hard to hear. But my guide, Duke’s assessment differed. People blocked migration paths and encroached on their territory, so we’re to blame, he said, adding, “By nature they want to roam, and by taking all their land we’ve created the problem.” (In May the government reinstated hunting.)
As I climb aboard a puddle-jumper to Abu I’m confused and struggling to square these harsh realities with my personal beliefs—maybe Botswana could relocate a couple dozen thousand to where they’re endangered, I brainstorm. But I’m also eagerly anticipating what’s to come, since this intimate camp revolves around its own herd of rescued elephants that interact with guests!
The Okavango Delta must be magic—it’s mere minutes after stepping out of the diminutive aircraft that my face aches from smiling, my euphoria tangible. The cause of this serotonin tsunami? Eight filthy elephants who immediately embrace me, muddy trunks feeling my legs and wrapping around my arm like a boa constrictor. I’ve entered another world and stand in total disbelief, gazing into a gargantuan eye fringed with thick lashes, noticing the deep, comforting creases in this expanse of ruddy, half-wet skin.
The friendly gang hangs beneath a towering baobab tree as I’m introduced to each one starting with the towering matriarch, Cathy, born in Uganda in 1960. She was captured as a baby and taken to a Canadian safari park, but later returned to her continent and was recruited in 1994 for Abu’s elephant-back safari experiences that were discontinued (thankfully) two years ago. There’s Naledi, her name means “star” in Setswana; Lorato, meaning “love,” and her silly 11-month-old firstborn, Motlotlo (“proud”), who passes gas then, when we laugh, swings his trunk around with such force he almost falls over. I’m in heaven. I’d love to play in the dirt with nine-month-old Shamiso, adorably struggling to his feet, but he already weighs about 450 pounds, I’m told.
It’s impossible to stand in the shadow of a being as monumental, intelligent and emotionally connected as an elephant and not feel dwarfed, not only physically but mentally. Their brains are the largest of any land mammal, and they have three times the neurons of us homo sapiens. I’m awed by how reassured I feel in their presence each time we’re together, whether it’s on morning or afternoon walks—they appear to move in slow motion, but I practically jog, panting, to keep up with 7,700-pound Cathy’s lengthy strides, lest I’m knocked out by her ever-swinging tail—or while overhand throwing brown pellets into their gaping maws, the largest tongues I’ve ever witnessed wet in anticipation and undulating as they disappear the food so quickly David Copperfield would be impressed.
Maybe it sounds silly but when I’m with Cathy, especially, I feel seen. It’s as if she’s peering into my soul, reading me like a book and healing me silently, energetically. I imagine she’d have ancient wisdom to impart if only we spoke the same language. Instead, her caress is medicinal, the best therapy imaginable. Standing between Cathy and doting Sirheni for a photo I feel like a child trying to make sense of their lumpy mountainous heads; long, tarnished tusks; and deep brown inquisitive eyes. A staffer asks me how I’m doing and the dam bursts. Salty tears flow as I gasp for breath in the most cathartic cry I’ve had in years. I’m crying for personal reasons I myself am not sure of, for the deep connection I inexplicably share with these foreign creatures, and for their uncertain futures. It’s so difficult to see anything negative in their radiant light.
I keep it together when heading off with my well-spoken guide, BT, into flaming sunsets to track down luxuriant leopards and hunting lions. (This is the only camp in the vicinity with scouts who track the most exciting game each day so we don’t waste time that could be spent with the herd.) I even stay cool when sleeping on stilts above their boma one night, in the plush Star Bed, cocooned in mosquito netting, lulled by chirps, squawks, burps, snorts, splashes and even elephant farts, and bathed in starlight from the Milky Way. When I awake before dawn luminous Pleiades has shifted north above my head and I can just make out silhouettes of my massive slumbering friends below.
Abu takes the safari tent concept and elevates it into sculpture, evoking an elephant’s ears with the raised structure that nestles up to the largest termite mound ever and brushes the banks of a palm-ringed lagoon that provides me with sunrises of a lifetime early each morning. In my airy momentary domicile—with a vast deck, plunge pool and luxurious freestanding bath—artifacts frame a desk with a small easel and a watercolor set I use to paint a rough portrait of Cathy. It’s here, submerged in the pulsing Delta, that I sleep to a soundtrack of splashing, groaning hippos one night, only to awake and, in the pink glow of the day’s first light, discover a noisy mama standing protectively over her newborn infant meters from my deck.
A flock of storks—“they bring the babies!” BT exclaims—fly overhead as we set off for our last gallivant with the herd, yet another awe-inspiring stroll on which I learn that elephants, who drink up to 210 liters of water a day, have footprints as distinctive as our fingerprints. Watching them eat is savage, and endless. (In fact, they chew through six sets of teeth in their lifetime, dying not because of old age but because after the last set they can no longer eat.) They’re constantly ripping out vegetation with dexterity even as the last bite is still dangling from their jaws. But interestingly BT says that while some blame elephants for killing trees—they strip trunks with their tusks, devour most everything green, and occasionally uproot them—he sees it as a public service, clearing thick foliage and thus lessening the danger of attack for other wildlife. The longer I’m in the savanna the more symbioses I see.
That afternoon we meet for afternoon tea under a brilliant blue sky streaked with wispy white paint strokes. Warona is sneakily attempting to drink Champagne through her inquisitive trunk (teenagers, they’re all the same), while Cathy seems to want to hold my hand with hers. Hanging with elephants, it turns out, is always a wonder. “You come out here and you realize they own the land,” a staffer named Kele comments as we admire the dynamic herd. “We’re just visitors here.” As I see it, they were here first and neither of us is superior.
They may no longer be protected, but to me elephants are the ones providing a sanctuary. The rest of the world drops away when I’m with them, and in our bubble of mutual respect there’s nothing but beauty.
(Botswana held presidential elections yesterday, and the tightest race in its history hasn’t yet been called. Depending on how it plays out I’m hopeful a friendlier solution might be reached in the future, helping clever wildlife and compassionate people live in harmony.)
Further reading