The people in Latin America seem to have a better attitude towards the dead. Every Nov 1st, All Saints Day, cemetery's come alive with family wanting to communicate with their dead relatives. They do this in many places by picnicking with the dead relatives. But what it really is, is the Latin American idea of perpetual care. The families come and celebrate the lives of their relatives by caring for their graves.
In the town of Sumpango, they go a bit further. Every November 1st they celebrate Day of the Dead by having a kite festival. This festival, supposedly has been going on for hundreds of years. They idea is that you attach notes to your kites and you can communicate with your ancestors. The kites are built out of paper and glue and some of them are truly huge. However the huge ones do not fly though they do put up some really big ones.
As one of my teachers said, this is the only day in the year when it is worth visiting Sumpango. It is also a day when thousands of visitors come to a sleepy town not far from Antigua. A town, ill equipped to handle the influx of people. However they do manage to put together the "festival de Sumpango". They have a lot of categories of competition form youths to the huge kite category. In addition to the kites, the town comes alive with vendors selling street food, Guatemalan handicrafts, beer and pretty much anything else they can sell. It seemed like every house opens itself up selling some typical food and charging to use their bathrooms.
Since the traffic was supposed to be oppressive and parking impossible, we rode the BMW up. As we were parking on a corner a man came up and said he had secure parking. For about 50 cents an hours we parked in his yard, next to a goldwing, and he also "checked" our helmets and allowed Diane to use his bathroom. (Which she said was immaculate) 
We walked up the hill into the cemetery and then up to the football pitch where the festival was being held. Frankly, the pictures do a better job of telling the story, so here they are.
