Day of the Dead!! Today Jesica and I are off to her parents house in the mountains to celebrate Day of the Dead. Jesica's parents live in San Juan Batista about an hour outside of Oaxaca city and by 10am we had arrived. Her parents are lovely and as expected speak no English so a good chance for me to practice my Spanish. We had a very delicious breakfast of Emole: soft hand made tortilla with Chicken Mole - one of the best things I have eaten here in Mexico. Jesica's Mum had made the mole which consists of about 50 ingredients including chocolate, banana, apples, Raisens and other strange ingredients - making for a thick, sweet but also savory salsa that the tortilla absorbs. After breakfast we drove out to the nearby village where Jessica's parents are from and visited the cemetery to put flowers on Jessica's Grandmas grave. There were many people at the cemetery placing flowers on their dead relative graves and setting up alters - it was a very family affair and reminded me of my family and how much I miss them. On the way back from the cemetery we stopped in at a little shop where an old man grinder up the fresh corn Jesicas Mum had brought with her; in order to form the base of the tamales we were about to start making. The rest of the day (literally) we spent making the very traditional Mole Tamales. Basically corn flower, pig fat, salt and a heap of hand mixing made up the doughy part; next (on banana leafs) we layed thin layers of the corn flour dough and in the centre we layered shredded chicken and covered in the mole salsa. It was really fun at first but very slow going and after making 50 odd we were all tired and getting hungry. Jesica and I had a repeat of breakfast with some more delicious Emoles whilst Jesicas Mum continued slaving away. The 100 or so tamales were then placed in a huge pot where they were to be steamed for about 3 hours. As night approached Jesica and I took a taxi back to the village and to the house of her Aunties. Jessica's Aunty and husband welcomed us into their big beautiful home and brought out the bottle of Mescal to welcome me - I couldn't say know to the delicious liquor and it worked wonders warming my blood up. We chatted for a while before once again being invited to join for another meal (its all I seem to be doing here: eating). For dinner Jesicas Aunty had also made Mole but a slightly different one 'Red Mole' which was sweeter then the black one. I did my best to eat it but was quite stuffed and more inclined to drink some more mescal. For dessert there was a sweet corn and milk jelly thing but luckily it contained milk and so I could avoid having to try it. The rest of the evening we all chatted, made up a bed for me and Jessica's uncle kindly leant me a bunch of clothes so that I could stay warm in the night. And by God did I need the extra clothes with the cold temperatures in the middle of the night.