There were two absolutely must-experience events in Mexico for me, and they fell on consecutive weekends.

Four years ago I had arranged my round-the-world schedule to allow me to be in Mexico for Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead. On the day I had taken a road trip into Copper Canyon in the north, where we saw one kid trick-or-treating and a lot of heavily-armed police, and nothing more.

So as with Cervantino I was determined to do it right this time. No matter how many hours I had to spend in transit.

Day of the Dead is a millennia-old tradition in Mexico. It was adopted by the Aztecs and later mixed with Catholicism. The essential idea has always remained the same though; that on one day of the year the spirits of the dead can return to earth, and that they need to be welcomed, attracted and guided with offerings. Today November 1 is known as the Day of the Innocents, when the souls of children return to their families, and November 2 as Day of the Dead, when everyone else returns. The hours leading up to these days are the most active part of the festivities, as graves are cleaned and prepared in the hours before midnight, and the arrival of the spirits.

Although every region has its own approach to Day of the Dead (such as ignoring it in Copper Canyon), some images are ubiquitous. Mexico is festooned with (decorative) skulls at the best of the times, but in the lead up to Day of the Dead skulls and calaveras (skeleton figures) appear everywhere. Market stalls are stacked high with colourful chocolate or sugar skulls. Pan de Muerto, or sugar-coated bread is everywhere (and is sorely missed as soon as Day of the Dead passes).

One of the best known Day of the Dead celebrations takes place on Janitzio, an island which might seem kind of Mediterranean, with its mess of twisting alleys and slope-hugging houses, if it wasn’t isolated in a reedy lake in highland Mexico. This entire region (Michoacan state) was at the heart of colonial Mexico, and is strewn with enormous churches brooding over tiny villages. The people of this region were never subdued by the Aztecs, preserving their own language and traditions, which are still remembered and practiced today.

Arrived in the village of Uruapan just after rain had doused the prepared altars, preventing candles from lighting and drenching the flower arrangements, leaving the town square awash in limp Marigold petals. By morning though, new altars were being assembled. I had assumed this was a tradition most keenly observed by the venerable old folk of the town, but the town plaza was full of teams of teenagers, arranging flowers, laying out food and drink offerings, colouring and sculpting sand, lighting candles, rigging the wooden lattices that serve as portals for the dead. Marigolds are the flower of choice for Day of the Dead, good for luring wayward souls. Petals were heaped and scattered over the altars. The flowers are infectiously bright; how can anyone not be cheerful when surrounded by so much colour?

Moved on to Patzcuaro, towards the heart of Day of the Dead. Previously a the heart of the Tarascan state and later an important colonial centre, Patzcuaro today seems to serve no other purpose than as a jumble of well-preserved and restored colonial buildings, studded with churches and plazas. The entire town had been taken over by street markets, food stalls and alfresco cafes. The hippies had descended in force, mingling with the local artisans to sell their wares. The fancy gringos reclined at shaded outdoor seating. The earnest photographers stopped traffic, capturing every angles, nook and corner of the city. Merchandise and paraphernalia were everywhere, hokey t-shirts and elaborate calavera figures, wrought crucifixes and candied skulls.

It was all just a prelude to Janitzio though, or whatever I had built Janitzio up into. Brochures and guide books spoke of traditional butterfly boats and candlelit processions across the water to the island, but these would have been hopelessly ineffective. This was a serious tourist event, and the lake resembled a multi-lane highway of boats, overtaking one another as they shuttled the endless stream of people to and from the island.

Undoubtedly something has been lost in the popularisation of Day of the Dead. The island itself was flooded with people. Every house and building had become a restaurant or souvenir shop. Alongside the relevant souvenirs were the ubiquitous tit-shaped mugs, the naked elf pin-ups, the bongs and psychedelic mushrooms. Like much in the region, Janitzio stays afloat through tourism. This was not a once-a-year market; this is Janitzio. Enough souvenirs to last for decades were accumulated in the narrow alleys and passageways.

Still, there was something about the island. The restaurants festooned with flowers and colours, the steep, crooked streets, the reedy waterways, the men paddling their boats, bringing their nets home as a full moon turned the lake to silver.

The hordes of people pitched leaning tents all over the island and began demolishing its ample beer supplies. They bought wooly hats to ward off the famous cold of the lake and hunkered over fried fish stalls. And then they – we – all descended on the cemetery.

Janitzio’s cemetery, cut into the side of one of the cliffs, and looking out over the waters towards the lights of Patzcuaro, is genuinely tiny. An arch at each end admitted the constant stream of visitors, and between the arches the graves were arranged in a ragged patchwork which left no space for walking, or setting up your monster lens on its tripod. It was very apparent for very early on that no matter how grand the island’s reputation, it was going to be swamped by visitors, and that there would be no hiding from this.

Reading accounts of years past, it sounded like people pilgrimed in from far and wide to attend to the graves of departed family members. It sounded like a vigil was kept by every grave, and that the festivities were foremost for those remembering the dead and only afterwards for the tourists. This certainly has changed. There must be those of the island community that feel imprisoned by Day of the Dead. During the festivity that become cooks and waiters and bar staff, salespeople and hustlers. Children carry jack-o-lanterns through the crowds, asking for money and posing obediently while photographers position them correctly. Those that can come to the cemetery must jostle to reach their plots. They must ask people to stop using their flashes and must ward off the drunk and the clumsy. Once they have arranged their altars they must sit silently and be photographed, or try to pray and sing over all the clamour.

Still still still, there is something extraordinary about Day of the Dead on Janitzio. I spent hours in the cemetery, arriving while it was still empty enough to feel alone in, and staying until it was impossible to move without bustling through other people and disrupting carefully arranged photos.

Some of those that arrived to clean up the graves and prepare altars arrived as a clan, bringing their marigolded scaffolds with them, and their many offerings and candles and their incense and their blankets. Others arrived silently and were barely seen, and planted re-used candles around tiny graves, sweeping away the grit and disappearing quickly. Some arrived in mid-conversation and were jovial and casual. Some arrived with solemnity. Some arrived and left alone.

When I arrived there were flowers upon graves and a few candles already lit against the darkening sky. By the time I left there were covered baskets of bread, and tall candles flickering throughout the cemetery, and many huddled forms crouched around graves keeping their vigils through the night. When cameras flashed the white light made the cemetery look ghoulish, but when they stopped the warmth of the candles and the flowers enriched the darkness but also brought an intimacy to the graves.

I spent a long time alone with three candles. They were each surrounded by a pile of stones and set over unmarked graves. When the candles guttered out they were not re-lit. They made me cry. Each dignified candle lit to help a lost soul find its way home, each flame lit by hands that needed to express that life without you was so much harder, each tiny light a yearning to be with you again, a prayer for togetherness.

The poignancy of the night, and of the candles that multiplied into the darkness, so that as the night grew deeper the cemetery grew brighter, was enhanced in a twisted way by the crowds. There was something beautiful in the old ladies sitting alone by the graves, in the old man singing tunelessly over the chatter. While these took place within the clamour, and among the camera flashes though, they assumed a greater gravity. There were thousands of people in the tiny cemetery, but these ladies wrapped in their blankets still sat utterly alone by cold, blue graves, lighting candles and remembering. To be alone in a crowd of such volume is not easy. Especially when the crowd is taking your photo again and again. That the rituals and vigils continue, that it is worth rebuilding toppled rock walls and sweeping away the bootprints, that it is worth scattering petals that will be trampled, and lighting candles that will be lost in the pallor of flash photography, says something of the faith and desire at the heart of Day of the Dead. That these people can still muster their dignity while drunks stumble over century-old graves and piss in the dark corners of the cemetery speaks of resilience, and slow-burning passion.

It was strange to me, to surround myself with a festival essentially about missing people. I choose to miss everyone by moving on and being always-leaving. I decide, every time I change location, that it is worthwhile to miss people if it means finding something new. I don’t have much concept of real yearning, of missing something unrecoverable. I choose to miss the people that matter. Those that light candles in the cemetery remember people that are irreplaceable, that they would never choose to live without. How can I explain how I choose to live? How can I ever feel lonely when I have chosen to be so? I have never been the one left behind, to keep vigil over a trampled grave.

So finally, despite what Day of the Dead has become, there is something profound here, something that swallows up the absurd crowds. As more candles were lit and the old man raised his tuneless song over the cemetery, and as the bell shuddered into the night, there was hush over the cemetery, or as much hush as a crowd of thousands can muster. Whatever communing with the dead takes place, and whatever need to commune with the dead drives this whole tradition, they are bigger and older and more patient than whatever crowds might quickly come and quickly go.