Taxco, like Madison, is considered by outsiders to be a party town. Perhaps that has something to do with the frequent celebrations often including marching bands, parades, and fireworks.

At least once a week, if not more often, a parade goes by my house, filling the main street in town with children, balloons, queens, kings, costumed characters, and of course, marching bands, bringing traffic to a screeching halt and pedestrians, trying to get to their destination, weaving in and out of marchers, dancers, and balloon waving participants.

Today is December 11th, the night before the Festival of Guadalupe (the Mexican Virgin) and official kick-off of the holiday season in Mexico. So far, at least 4 drum and bugle corps have marched by. The streets are filled with processions carrying icons of the virgin followed by the reverent often carrying candles and smaller icons of their own (click here for pictures). The drums echo through the streets and off the mountains. Every so often, “air works” (fireworks without the fire, only the boom) add to the cacophony.

I think this is one of those nights when “there is no rest for the wicked.”