Semana Santa

We arrived in Antigua at the height of Semana Santa, Holy Week, which brings in throngs of tourists from Guatemala City and around the world. Having heard so many safety tips about traveling in Guatemala (Leave your jewelry! Hide your camera! Hold on to your purse!), it was confusing to see so many people on the streets dressed to the nines and yielding iPhones. But then again, security was notably stepped up for the occasion (police, security guards and military with big guns on hand).

During Semana Santa, members of the churches around Antigua (and there are many) don somber black lace or bright purple hooded robes and process through the streets carrying large floats on their shoulders. The floats, called andas, depict dramatic Biblical scenes and make the rounds for hours on end, sometimes marching throughout the night before returning to the church from which they departed. They're accompanied by live music, usually a marching band heavy on horns and boisterous drums, (ask Irene and Sherman about the drums that passed by their hotel window around 1:00 a.m.) and other followers dispersing choking clouds of incense.

Along the procession route, people create elaborate alfombras (carpets) made of colored sawdust, sand and flowers in the streets. As the procession comes through, they trample the beautiful carpets (in fact, they seem to do a special back-and-forth on top of the alfombras just to make sure it's good and mussed). Most of the alfombras we saw were on display for only a matter of 10-20 minutes before being ground into the cracks among cobblestones.

Wikipedia will do a better job than I of explaining the significance and history of the processiones (and I encourage you to do a quick YouTube search for Semana Santa Antigua 2013 to see them in action); here are some of my own personal observations and things that caught my my attention:
- Some floats (andas) are carried by men and some by women. I was impressed that many of the ladies carrying floats wore wedges and kitten heels for the occasion. Heels on cobblestones, in 80^ heat, draped in black lace with a 50 lb share of a float on one shoulder? That is dedication to fashion, my friends. It's a choice that makes it easy to appear appropriately sad and miserable.

- The gentlemen wore flats but in their defense, they multi-tasked: many of them carried a float on one shoulder and un hijo (a kid) on the other (the kids wore kid-sized purple hooded robes). There are also special floats just for kids to carry.
- Also, if you are among those who walk for many hours, you can take a break from solemnly reflecting upon the death of Jesus to send a text message on your cell phone while processing.
- An important job is to carry a tall decorative pole alongside the float. At first I thought these people were representing shepherds, but then I realized that the andas are quite tall, while the power lines in Antigua tend to hang low over the streets. The poles are to move power lines out of the way while the andas go beneath. (This must be a relatively new role).
- Unlike the marching bands I've seen, the drummers in the procesiones don't wear their drums; they have an assistant who laboriously pushes it along on a rickety cart with small wheels (again remember: cobblestone streets).

One night, Johnny and I got stuck in a procession on our way home. It was probably 11:30 p.m. when we found ourselves in the midst of a grid-locked crowd. Those participating in the procession were carrying a rope to distinguish the boundary of their group (which was a big one) and no one was allowed to cross the street until the entire procession had passed. So we watched and enjoyed the spectacle of the glowing float approaching. And, then came the poor lad behind it, pushing another rickety cart with a generator on it.

I'm so glad we came in time to see Semana Santa, the alfombras and the processiones. In spite of the crowds, I liked getting caught up in the festivities (and sometimes literally caught in the festivities), hearing the beat of the drums and blare of the horns, watching people carefully sprinkling red and yellow sawdust in floral spirals onto their alfombras, and standing by as the dedicated penitents marched through Antigua.

We topped off the week by attending Easter service at La Catedral, the 16th century cathedral at the center of town, after which the city quickly cleared out. (My favorite part of the service was the singer, who was seated --almost hidden--at the very back of the cathedral in a plastic chair, belting out the day's tunes into a microphone. He looked like he could've been at a karaoke bar).

Happy Easter and muchos besos,
Cara y Johnny