There are tons of perks to getting older. You’re finally allowed to do all the things you couldn’t wait to do when growing up. You have more personal freedoms and — with every year — you get another opportunity to celebrate your birthday. As awesome as these events can be, they never quite live up to the birthday parties of our childhoods. 

The piñatas, the presents, the pastel — these celebrations were really one of a kind and have set the standard for all the merry-making of our lives. There’s really nothing like the gatherings of our early years and we have plenty of fond memories that prove that our childhood birthday parties really couldn’t be beat when it came to food, fun and family.

1. Getting to go all out with your birthday outfit.

Just like our parties nowadays, birthdays are an occasion to show out with our best looks. Back then it might have meant appearing in your prettiest princess dress or whatever outfit you had to grab everyone’s attention. Whatever it was, it needed to let the whole party know that they were there for your big day. 

2. Having your party be an excuse for a mini-family reunion. 

Your birthday party was basically an excuse for your parents to invite every adult they knew. That mostly meant an invite to family members you couldn’t really remember. This wasn’t a problem, though. After all, more guests means more presents. 

3. Getting cash slipped to you as you greet all your tias and tios.

Speaking of presents, remember when your older family members would causally slip you the best birthday present there is. We’re talking about cold, hard cash. Your birthday party was the one day of the year where your mom didn’t have to nag you about saying “hi” to everyone. You were already ready to get that green even if it meant letting all the tias pinch your cheeks. 

4. Going wild with your primos in the bounce house.

The bounce house is a staple at any birthday party but they really posed an opportunity for us to go wild as kids. This wasn’t meant to be a relaxing jump; most of the time we were honestly trying to tip this thing over.

5. Taking that same energy to the dance floor when your favorite song came on.

Another place that we were able to let loose was the dance floor. Back then, it didn’t matter if we didn’t know the dance moves or didn’t have the rhythm down. All that mattered was that we were tiring ourselves out and working up an appetite. 

6. The overwhelming amount of food your family prepared.

Speaking of being hungry, if there’s one thing that our culture appreciates, it’s food. Back in the day, we all had bottomless stomachs and didn’t have to worry about la dieta. Those were the days. 

7. Having more beer than kids at the party.

It didn’t seem strange when we were kids, but it definitely makes us laugh now. Growing up, there was always an excess of cerveza at every party we went to. Be it baby shower or christening, beer was always in supply but no time more than during our childhood birthday parties. Now we’re the one’s bring the six-packs into the parties.  

8. Whacking that piñata filled with all your favorite candy.

No party is complete without a piñata. Who among us doesn’t have a picture like this from one of our parties. While most of us are now on piñata duty, back then we got to take out our aggression by whacking the candy out of these party staples. 

9. Having all your drunken tios singing “Happy Birthday” to you.

Back during these childhood birthdays, we would have to sit through “Happy Birthday” in both English and Spanish. Sometimes, “Las Mañanitas” was also brought out depending how drunk the tios were. Now, when we suffer through that as adults, it’s usually our friends drunkenly singing to us. 

10. That one family member that just had to smash your face into the cake. 

Some things you never grow out of and this is one of them. We call this a birthday facial and the sooner you get it over with, the sooner we can eat some cake. 

11. Surviving a cascarones battle with all the other kids (and some of the adults).

Instagram / @vankoran

Cascarones are the colorful, confetti-filled eggs that Mexicans have during Easter and at birthday parties. You definitely don’t miss these if you were the kid all the other kids targeted. We’ve still got confetti in our hair from our last cascaron battle. 

12. Having tons of pictures taken of you all throughout the party.

Having a whole group of people yell at you to smile while blinding you with flashes doesn’t seem like it would be a fond memory but it is. Maybe that’s why we love taking selfies so much.

13. Planning next years party before your last guest even leaves the house.

One year down and, hopefully, many more to go. When we were kids, we never minded growing older. Catch us at the next children’s birthday party, reliving these memories as adults.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6x5jSCNE2w&t=3s

For almost 70 years, since Maria Sabina, also known as Santa Sabina, spread the culture around the ritualistic consumption of magic mushrooms in the Oaxaca highlands, the world has been fascinated by these special fungi. The region near Huautla de Jimenez, particularly places like San Jose del Pacifico, has since been swarmed with tourists in the months between July and October, both from inner Mexico and from overseas, who want to experienced the altered states of consciousness brought by one of nature’s most powerful secrets. 

So any story about Oaxacan magic mushrooms has to start with the legendary Maria Sabina, the godmother of all things trippy.

Maria Sabina was a Mazatec curandera, or witchdoctor. She was well versed in the ancient arts of magic mushrooms and introduced the Western world to their consumption. She soon became a magnet for the rich and powerful who wanted to taste her psilocybin mushrooms. She was born in 1894 and died in 1985, so she saw the world change dramatically during her lifetime. 

She allowed foreigners into her healing evenings, known as veladas.

She became legendary, as City A.M. reported in 2018: “It was here that, in 1955, R Gordon Wasson, a vice-president of JP Morgan and amateur ethnomycologist, consumed psilocybin mushrooms in a ceremony presided over by the healer Maria Sabina. The article Wasson subsequently wrote up for Life magazine – ‘Seeking the Magic Mushroom’ – transformed Sabina into a reluctant icon and caught the attention of scientists including Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary”. What followed is an enduring cult following of the plant. 

Mushroom tourism got a boost in the 1960s due to the high profile of some of Sabina’s visitors, who included The Beatles.

As EFE News Service reported back in 2007: “In the 1960s, the ‘high priestess of the mushrooms’ popularized this corner of Mexico located between the capital and Oaxaca city, a place visited by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Jim Morrison and Bob Dylan at the height of the psychedelic era”. We mean, the place has basically been a Hall of Fame! 

Consuming magic mushrooms is an ancient, ritualistic indigenous tradition that remains officially illegal.

Spanish friars first reported the use of psychedelic mushrooms in the region. Though magic mushrooms are illegal today, the authorities tend to turn a blind eye. This is due to the centrality to the customs and traditions of the Zapotecs, the area’s dominant indigenous group. Children as young as six participate in the ritualistic ingestion of shrooms.

However, tourism disrupts this long lasting understanding and ritual has turned into business.

If you decide to try them for yourself, beware as the region is now swarmed with fake magic mushrooms offered by scammers. Anyway, San Jose del Pacifico is a natural joyita in itself, and you might get high just by taking in the landscape!

The state induced by the mushrooms is supposed to get you in touch with nature: with the soil below your feet and the celestial bodies above your head.

According to man named Andres Garcia, he was introduced to the ritual ingestion of mushrooms by his grandfather. Just outside of Huautla, the man experienced mushrooms several times. He told High Times: “The first time I tried mushrooms I was 7 years old. And each time after that was different; each time there were messages and messages. Communication with the earth, the universe, the moon, especially the energy of the moon. The mushroom shows you everything—about your errors, your problems, all the good you’ve done, all the bad you’ve done. It’s something personal.”

Even though mushrooms are widely available in Oaxaca they are not for everyone, specially not for those who disrespect the ritual and want to do mushrooms just for some mindless fun.

The magic mushroom tourism industry has brought an steady income to Huautla de Jimenez, the original stomping grounds of Maria Sabina. As reported by Juan Ramon Peña in EFE News Services, “visitors are greeted when they get off the bus by boys who offer to help them found the hallucinogenic fungi”. The wide availability of mushrooms is un secreto a voces. However, each person’s brain chemistry is different and you need to have an experienced guide to help you on a mushroom-induced trip. 

And tourism has put the sustainability of the species at stake.

The lack of regulation translates into indiscriminate picking. Of course, traditional owners of the land are affected and that is just not fair. 

Magic mushrooms have a good rep, but they are also unpredictable.

Several recent studies indicate that magic mushrooms could have medical benefits in people suffering from mental health issues. As reported by The Guardian earlier this year in relation to a study conducted at Imperial College London: “Magic mushrooms may effectively ‘reset’ the activity of key brain circuits known to play a role in depression, the latest study to highlight the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics suggests”. However, this study was done in a controlled environment. Doing mushrooms can have unpredictable effects that some people have described as a “bad trip”

Note: the consumptions of magic mushrooms is illegal throughout Mexico and only specific Indigenous groups can consume them for spiritual purposes. We do not condone the consumption of illegal substances. This article is for informational purposes only.