Wendy In Mexico: Baptism in Culiacan

A few days before New Years, the family travelled to Culiacan for the triple baptism of two of Alex's nieces and nephew. Culiacan is a beautiful city five hours to the north of Tepic. We arrived early in the evening to a hotel, unpacked and then went to visit Alex's uncle. It quickly turned into an impromptu family barbecue as more and more relatives showed up. There was a huge spread of food, and all the cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents (and me) had a great time visiting with each other. They even put on some Banda music, making it a classic Mexican fiesta.

The next day we went to Panama, this huge breakfast restaurant and bakery. I wish it was in Tepic, but sadly only in Mazatlan and Culiacan. (On the other hand, perhaps it's best to stay away from enormous, decadent breakfasts most of the time.) For the baptism, we went first to the church for mass. The babies were sprinkled with holy water and given candles to blow out by their godparents, and after some prayers we moved on to a salon de eventos for the comida.

The proud parents and their adorable babies

The family all dressed up for the baptism

As usual, there was so much food! We were seated right next to the caterers, so I entertained myself watching them expertly make tortillas and the other dishes. There were also these adorable little cupcakes and cookies decorated for the baptism. We stayed there from 3 in the afternoon until 11 at night- there was live banda, followed by an acoustic guitarist, forever accompanied with more food. Seriously. There was the main meal. Then they brought out snacks. Then people started bringing out nuts and chips to go with the whiskey and tequila they presented at about 9 pm. And at 10, they brought out this soup called menudo. (This was an interesting new dish, consisting of posole (corn) and the stomach lining of a cow. The soup and corn part was great, but I just couldn't get into the stomach lining- it was like chewing on rubber, with no flavour! I must admit that unfortunately menudo will not be ranked among my favourite Mexican dishes. However, it was certainly interesting to try!)

The dessert table :)

Not the most aesthetically pleasing plate of food, but trust me, it was stellar.

Live Banda, accompanying the first four hours of the meal

My host great-aunt and uncle getting their groove on early in the evening

Yum yumm menudo. Apparently, sucking the marrow out of the bones fragments is quite delicious as well

The next day we had breakfast tacos at this sketchy downtown market and then checked out two cathedrals (one situated at the highest point in the city). Finally after a very large, final family lunch at a Chinese restaurant (There were more than 40 of us seated at one very long table), we set off for Mazatlan!