A Cemetery in San Miguel de Allende

We visited a cemetery in San Miguel de Allende one sunny afternoon two weeks ago.  It was quite different than those I had visited in Paris earlier this year but no less beautiful.  There is a lot of white, for example.  The statues:

the majority of the tombstones

and even the bottom half of the tree trunks were painted white (the colour of purity and hope) for some reason:

Do you see the little man in the centre of the cut in the trunk of this tree?

But there was lots of colour to be found as well.

It was a few weeks past the Day of the Dead celebrations of November 1st and 2nd but there were signs of those festivities about, most notably the marigolds (known as the "flowers of the dead") which are frequently used to decorate the graves.  It is said that the smell of these flowers leads the departed spirits back to Earth.

I saw what I believe is a great-tailed grackle as I was walking about and clearly, he saw me too.

There were a lot of dead flowers, still beautiful in their decaying glory.

The cemetery staff were busy collecting and disposing of them.

Some of the headstones were quite unusual, unlike anything I've ever seen before.

The economic struggles endured by many of the Mexican population was something we were very aware of during our week in San Miguel de Allende.  The use of food tins to hold the flowers in the cemetery was both poignant and practical.

The beauty of some of the simpler, more rustic displays was appealing.

I even found a bone as I was walking about.

I can tell you where it might have come from:

but I can't be entirely sure how it got there!

I hope to visit this place again on my next visit and explore farther into the cemetery grounds.  Its beauty calls to me.