The burden of existence for a holiday is one person celebrating it once a year.

Mariachi Day is a holiday I celebrate annually with whomever I can convince to take the day off life and join me in a horse drawn carriage to meet a Mariachi band—Los Principes—In San Felipe, Guatemala.

Los Principes are the direct musical descendants of 18th and 19th Century Mexican folk farmers, who found an outlet for outlawed loves, longings, joys, and lamentations through the form of music today called Mariachi music.

Mariachi Day 2015

Like nights on a trusty fire-water, my semi-annual meetings with the Mariachi band tend to wobble into the unexpected. 

On Mariachi Day 2015, an Israeli in a Panamanian hat made two very brief, but unfortunately for overturning stereotypes, hilarious appearances.

At the bend at the North side of Antigua where the road diverges to Jocotenango and San Felipe, our horse stopped, refusing to pull his carriage any further. “This is outside his normal route,” the driver explained.

Mariachi Day 2015 started at the crack of 11am after a late night cooking session with Amy—a cooking session that the police disturbed at 2am when they knocked to inform me my window was open. The Punk T-shirt version of the conversation with the coppers that ensued would have read, “Opening your window is not a crime”.

Warning: Travel to Guatemala can Lead to Mariachis

So we set off; Nick, a script writer; April, a singer and humanitarian; and Twinkle, (yes, her name), a Jane of many artistic trades and teacher. Our carriage was manned by Manuel, who hailed from Guatemala’s South Pacific coast.

Manuel looked about twenty and smiled like he knew he had struck one of life’s jackpots in getting to pilot a carriage through Antigua’s cobblestone streets as a profession. He told us that he an apartment in Antigua, and a family and home on the Pacific coast, and according to him, women interested in him in both locales. Not bad Manuel.

For 100Q ($12), he took us to the town of San Felipe the way everyone used to arrive around here, by horse. Los Principes had assured me by phone that they would be present at noon and would bring their instrument man, who would see to the broken neck on Nick’s ukulele. For how would Nick be able to play in the band The Fallopian Dudes (a band with no songs, no fans, and only one song title, known only by the front man [and the back man], Patrick) with a broken Uke?

Ukulele means jumping flea in Hawaiian. Fleas were the reason I itched one June. Nick said that his broken ukulele was his own fault, how, he mused, could I have thought strapping it to the side of my backpack was a good idea? The first ukulele was made in 1879, the same year prophetically named Dull Knife, a Cheyenne warrior, thought it was a good idea to lead prisoners to revolt at Ft Robinson.

The Mariachi did not show up, so we got lunch.

At a cafeteria called The San Felipe Eatery, six women from the village served us up some local deliciousness–Mole, Lomito Adobado y Pepian so tasty it made a Southern girl sigh with satisfaction.

Midway through our feast, I called the Mariachi and asked them where they were.

“We will not be coming,” they told me, “We are very far away.”

Though the mariachi band did not show, the Latin Brothers, as they called themselves though they are not brothers, rolled up and played songs that made April ooo and ahhhh at romance that translated sang, “I will hold a moonbeam in my heart and let it guide my way to you.”

Alfonso of the Mariachis sent us to a carpentería just down from where we dined. The shop was manned by Edgar, who had been taught by his father, who had been instructed by Jésus.

For 50Q ($6) Edgar said he could fix the Uke.

“Can you fix it properly?” I asked.

“Me extraña Lucas,” he told me with a brilliant grin.

After chatting with Edgar about his art, we were off to fix my guitar case. My lifestyle and the airlines inhospitable treatment of baggage (Especially you, United Airlines) led to my guitar case falling apart. The wood connecting the sides had separated and a faithful line of different shades of duct tape held everything together. My plan was to drop the case off with “Tito” who had gleefully crafted me a belt in 2012.

What happened next, shocked us all. . .

When the client becomes the worker and the worker becomes the boss 

So, there we were, seated around a pile of leather boot scraps in Tito’s workshop. Tito was out to lunch, but he had trained us in the art of reupholstering my case. We spent, according to April, four hours in his shop rebuilding my guitar case into something marvelous. I’ll carry it everywhere I go and it will always remind me of this particular Mariachi Day. Our four hours in the shop caused me to miss my dentist appointment, and it couldn’t be rescheduled till after my class pictures. But how do you quantify time that passes so magically?

Twinkle cut the scraps, Nick designed outlandish leather patches, which Tito strengthened with his manual sewing machine, April glued the patches, we all got lightheaded (high) from the glue’s fumes, my guitar case emerged as I had never known it could ever be.

Somewhere around hour three, a man pushing his children in a wheelbarrow passed by. I asked him if I could take a family picture.

The guitar case that emerged. . .

Children . . . this is no ordinary guitar case. It was fashioned in the leather-strewn workshop of a fairytale where a man makes shoes with trained hands.

It takes Tito two days to craft a pair of shoes, for which he earns, “enough to buy the bread,” he told us when we asked.

We returned to Antigua in an overcrowded chicken bus. The locals eyed us because we were gringos. They eyed my guitar case because it looked like it was hewn the basement of a medieval blacksmith named Artificent.

The day led into late afternoon, which led to my night which continued to Cafe No Sé where Ishto Jueves reminded me he has one of the best live acts that, as far as I know, exists anywhere (Yes, I’m including all the planets).

This is web content after all, and I’ve been shooting for making these posts in less than 1,000 words. While this sentence just goes over, I’ll tell the rest of the story of Mariachi Day in photos. I’ll conclude with a thought from travel writer, Bruce Northam, whose book I’m just finishing. I’m paraphrasing, but he thinks we should create our own holidays. Mariachi Day is real because every year I make it real, and every year I get to share it with a crew of the sort of people you want to be cruising with in a horse-drawn carriage.

Check in at Travel Write Sing’s Facebook page for details on just what went down with the Israeli backpacker in the Panamanian hat.

Mariachi Day 2015 Photo Essay

“Señores y señoras, I need you to take the Reins!” -Manuel, Carriage Pilot.

In Mayan culture, humans sprouted from maize seeds, the staple of tortillas, the foundation of food.

This lady taught our ladies how to make their own tortillas:

And this blogger figured that if you’re still reading this far into his post, then this is a good place to shout out his book.

And Nick gazed at his broken Ukelele and the faucet of his heart’s regret could be heard running as far as his liver, no stranger of regret.

“I have have devised a plan to fix your Ukelele!” proclaimed Edgar the Carpenter.

“It will never work!” lamented Nick.

Then, as Nick took a selfie in the corner, Edgar the Carpenter laid out a second plan, a plan he knew could not fail.

Then, crammed four in a Tuc-tuc, it was off to the Boot-Makin’ village of Pastores, to re-upholster a guitar case that had fallen on busted up times. 
Tito the bootmaker said he could help us, but only if we could help ourselves. He was off to lunch, but after some breif training, left us in his workshop.

Slowly, something new emerged.

When I saw Nick’s cut-off pink jean shirts and great white shark T-shirt ensemble, I knew he was meant to celebrate Mariachi Day.

And then, my guitar case that once looked like this:

Suddenly looked like this:

And Tito was proud of his students:

And man, if half the world smiled half as much as this man . . .

It’d be a smiley world indeed.