Chronicle
Twelfth of December: millions of steps towards Tepeyac
The pilgrimage to the Basilica of Guadalupe is one of the largest in the world. This is what the longest night of Mexico's religious year is like.
On the night of 11 December, the causeway leading to the Basilica of Guadalupe stops being an avenue. It becomes a river of people moving slowly, with backpacks, blankets, framed images of the Virgin and children asleep in their arms. Some have been walking for days; others arrived by bicycle, by truck or on their knees for the last few metres.
At midnight, Las Mañanitas is sung. Outside, the line never stops: groups of dancers wait their turn to enter the atrium, vendors offer coffee and tamales, and whole families sleep on the pavements wrapped in blankets.
Tonantzin and Guadalupe
Before the arrival of the Spanish, Tepeyac hill was a place dedicated to Tonantzin, «our revered mother» in Nahuatl. Devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe was built on that same ground, and both memories still live side by side in the festival: the concheros and dancers with feather headdresses dance in front of the modern Basilica as one dances before a temple.
Photographing without getting in the way
It is a celebration of faith, not a show. The best images come when you accompany a group for hours, when you ask permission and share the road. The Tonantzin to New Fire trip devotes these days to the pilgrimage, from the Paso de Cortés to the atrium.
