Why?

So, if you are a dedicated Mississippi Raw Footage reader you already know that my lovely bride and I are in sunny Mexico for Cinco de Mayo. Woohoo! I won a contest through work and the payoff was four nights, five days all expenses paid at the Vallarta Palace on the ocean with the following view from our room.


Ignore the chubby guy in the middle of the view and suffice it to say that you have plenty of sunshine, plenty of warmth and plenty of friendly people. Oh yes and that is the Pacific Ocean and some mountains in the background.

Oh and a tap in the entertainment center including Cuervo, Dewars, Bacardi and Smirnoff.

Not mention the fact that we are here on no less than Cinco de Mayo. Sounds like a barrel of laughs, right? But wait, the Mexicans do not celebrate Cinco de Mayo. "What's this?" you say "That's impossible...shouldn't they be eating a bean burrito with some chips and salsa and a frozen margarita or Corona? At least that is what I expected." Silly ethnocentric American!

So, my inquisitive nature leads me to question a friendly young Mexican waiter at lunch.

"You guys don't celebrate Cinco de Mayo here? In the U.S. we celebrate it in a big way."

His response, a simple one..."Why?"

Nice... Oh, and he didn't really elaborate...beyond asking how we celebrate. He's like, "Do you eat tamales?" Sure, tamales, burritos, tacos carne asada, corona, margaritas...all the stuff you are supposed to do on Cinco de Mayo.

Apparently Cinco de Mayo, while it does commemorate the Battle of Puebla where the Mexicans demolished a larger Frenchie army, it is not a significant Mexican Holiday. My impression is that it ranks with the Mexicans somewhere around Flag Day and Arbor Day in the U.S. Maybe it is similar to the Grenada Day, the day the U.S. had about a 45 minute "war" with the island nation of Grenada.

The real Mexican Independence Day is September 16th with a full fledged parade, party, ringing of bells. It is the Grito de Dolores. Who knew? I guess we have to come back down here in four months to really get our party on South of the Border style.

More later from the beach!