Semana Santa in Antigua

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With the ride on the chicken bus from Guatemala city to Chichi still fresh on my mind, I was a little apprehensive of going back most of the same route. I’d made sure I had breakfast (a nice omelette and 2 cups of coffee, of which the second was one too many) and met up with ‘the moles’ again. I nearly had my arm dislocated by the bus guy who wanted to put my backpack on top of the bus, but who had forgotten I was still attached to it, and Sarah was dragged along with her backpack as it got caught up in her clothes. That all happened at the speed of lightning with which these guys always seem to have to work. At first the bus wasn’t too full, but as it made its way through the mountains towards Chimaltenango where we had to change buses to Antigua, it kept getting fuller and fuller. Every inch possible was having some part of a human body stuffed in or on it. I was getting kinda sweaty but luckily it didn’t take too long before we were spewed out on the streets of ‘Chimal’. A cigarette and 10 minutes later we were on a second chicken bus to Antigua.
I checked in at a place opposite the San Augustin ruins and sorted my clothes to give them a bag of my dirty laundry. The room was big and with bathroom but at Q120 quite expensive. Not as much as the Q150 I paid for the hotel I was able to find for Thursday and Friday night, the days of Semana Santa though. I’d walked around and asked about 15 hotels and guesthouses but all were fully booked for those days and I had nearly given up and resorted to have to go to the capital, when at the El Jardin De Lolita hotel they had had a cancelation so I was able to get a single room. I used an ATM at the main park and sent a few postcards home. With that all done, I looked for a spot with Wi-Fi and worked on my blogs, which I hadn’t been able to do for a while.
I had booked myself in for the Pacaya volcano trip the previous day, and so I was ready to go, standing in front of my hotel at 6 sharp on day 2. I was joined by a couple from Caracas, Venezuela. The guy told me about his travel agency back home and so I asked him all about Angel falls etc. He told me about Hugo Chavez’s TV channel and so we were standing there chatting when the mini van stopped to pick us up. The ride took about one and a half hours. A local guy who lives right below the volcano gathered our bunch and guided us on the trail leading up the volcano. The first bit was paved, it then changed onto sand and later again, changed to a kind of gravel. The erupted only May, last year. The guide told us how there had been no time to escape, instead how they had all just ran for cover, taking shelter below tables, trucks and what not. It had rained rocks that day, on which remainder I was walking now. A brittle rock, coloured red-ish to black, easy to break in your hands or pulverise under your feet. The path lead up most of the way through trees and bushes. The green was a sharp contrast with the black. One guy and his horse was following us, and a few times I fell behind it. Dust!! In my mouth, ears, nose… So I quickly had to get ahead of the horse and its owner again. The first sight of the volcano is when you’ve reached the highest point of the climb. Once a perfect cone, I’m sure, now its top blown apart by the last eruption. We were going to go a little up the volcano itself, which meant first go down the hill we were now standing on and then make our way across a rocky, moon-like landscape to where we were going to be able to feel the heat of Pacaya. Our guide showed us exactly how we could get down the quickest; by running like a madman without brakes down the gravelly slope. I think I was number three, and it wasn’t until I was down when I heard a loud yelp coming from behind me. Number four, a girl from NYC who had lost her balance, and tumbled down the slope, face down into some shrubbery. The poor thing looked awful, completely blackened by the volcanic dust, a deep gash in her left knee and cuts and bruises all over her body and face. I felt sorry for her obviously, but it didn’t stop me from running down the rest of the slope, having my pictures taken by a friendly Canadian in the meantime.
The group was slowing down now, so I walked ahead and got to the base of the volcano first, holding my hands above the fissures in the rock from which the heat was coming. A few seconds, no more, you could hold your hands above it, such were the temperatures. Some other travellers had bought a bag of marshmallows and brought a stick to hold them above the heat. One part of this volcano slope was holed out, and so it had formed a kind of cave. Standing in it, looking at the light through the holes in the ceiling, the heat was really intense. Bearable, but HOT! The group had a rest at this spot, making sure nobody sat down in a ‘hot’ place and end up with molten underwear sticking to buttocks. You could see the hot air vibrating on its ascend from below the rock, all across this Mars-like landscape. Amazing! We walked back the same way, each in its own pace. Back down a small tip was given to the guide and then we were back on our way to Antigua. I think there was no one in our group who didn’t at least doze off once, we were all pretty knackered…

After lunch (at subway, again) I spent the rest of the day reading a book on the rooftop terrace of the hotel. Although the weather wasn’t fabulous, not much sun at all, it was warm enough. The wind did pick up though later on and that evening it even started raining! Which is unusual because the rainy season isn’t supposed to start until May, usually half May. When I asked some people, I heard it has to do with last year being the La Niña year. Anyhow, it spit water not for very long so I could walk the streets that evening without getting wet. I ate at the La Merced church, for the first of many occasions during my stay in Antigua. In front of the church, on the plaza, many food stalls sold their fried goods, with most of it stuffed in bread rolls covered in thick layers of avocado and sauces. For Q8 – 10 you could choose between beef, sausages or chicken. I ate three of them, which hit the spot.
A note: I wouldn’t recommend that first hotel I stayed at (Viajero) as they did a bad service with my laundry; The next day I was given back only part of my clothes back and upon asking where the rest was they weren’t even aware of the fact that clothes were missing. I was then told it ‘might’ be at another sister hotel. Somebody would go there with me later that evening. I said I wanted my clothes back that moment, so she drew me a map. I had to go through three bags of other travellers’ clothes. I did get my clothes back at the end, but never received a true apology…
That Wednesday I gave myself a walking tour of the city, including most of the ruins and churches, walking the cobbled streets most of the day with the heavy air of anticipation for Semana Santa in the air. You could see it everywhere; in peoples faces, their dress, the hordes of people with bags and trolleys checking into every hotel in town. Street sellers gone mad with the upcoming festival, selling little dolls wearing the lent-purple robes. I took shots of buildings, streets, people and tried to get a shot of the perfect cone-shaped Agua volcano through the Santa Catalina arch. Which did not prove easy with the sudden weather change. Most of my stay in Antigua the top was shrouded in clouds. Early mornings seemed best for that much wanted shot.
Great views were to be had from the hill of the cross (Cerro de la Cruz) though so against the outdated advice from a very well-known guidebook, I made my way up the hill alone. Halfway up are guards with long shotguns, so perfectly save! The views were great indeed, although the Agua volcano’s top was missing from the scene. On my way down I got talking to a group of young guys from the capital. Completely ignoring the guard up the stairs they sat there smoking a bong, asking if perhaps I wanted some? I said no thanks, and asked them instead how things work in Guatemala concerning ‘the golden grass’. They told me how, when caught with any amount, you just pay 200 – 400 Quetzals to that particular officer (or sometimes you pretend not to have anymore than say, fifty, and they’ll let you of the hook with just that) to supplement his (supposedly) meagre salary. Interesting… In fact, just the week previous, one of these guys was caught with (just) rolling papers. The cop gave him some weed, saying he had to pay up or would be taken to prison. The guy lost Q300 that way…! Upon asking about the safety situation in Guatemala city, and explaining what ‘average’ meant, they estimated the average murder rate in the capital to be around 15 a week.(!) Mostly drug related though, with Mexicans and El Salvadorians masking as Guatemalans. Wow……
On that evening I was supposed to meet up with the moles, but as I hadn’t expected them to actually be there (a case of not trusting the warm-hearted goodness and honesty of your average Australian citizen) I spent some time in the internet café working on my blogs. When I was chomping away on avocado and meat sandwiches at the La Merced church park later that evening though, a pad on my back and the turn of my body brought me in unexpected contact with two pairs of accusing eyes. After apologising profusely and promising I would never do such a horrible act again in my life, the ladies agreed on sharing the rest of the evening with me. A unfruitful search for a supposedly 2 for 1 wine café left us in a restaurant / café where I drank some beers and they slurped some wines. (bloody booze hags) Our talk was interrupted frequently as the male part of this feminine couple, left home to get drunk and sob having to miss their butterflies, called each of them numerous times through the marvellous technologies of today called Wi-Fi, mobile phones and Skype. In the meantime I was being entertained with stories on home fronts and relationships by what was left of these teenage girls in love, handkerchiefs in close proximity of the wine, of course.

That Thursday morning I got my stuff together and walked the 500 meters or so to the second of my Antigua hotels. At El Jardin de Lolita, the friendly and helpful owner was very informative and I learned a lot from him on the history of Antigua, Semana Santa and anything else I asked for. The garden between the residential house (been in the family for 8 generations) and the guest accommodations was filled with cages. Inside were toucans, parrots and even a squirrel found as a pink little abandoned baby-squirrel and fed with drops of milk. I loved the place, the big tree in the back with the wind swishing through the leaves every afternoon, the big clean communal bathrooms and its location too. I liked my little cosy room as well, with its orange painted walls and the door only half the width of a normal sized door. Anyway, Thursday… Processions! They had already started actually but these two days were the most important. Loads of the local men and boys, all dressed in purple robes and white hoods roamed the streets. Inside the La Merced church I saw many of the statues resembling the ones I would see later marched around the streets; Jesus statues bearing large crosses, weeping statues of women and around the length of the church, glass boxes with statues of Jesus in them in various stages of pain and suffering, scarred, bloody and wounded. All very surreal in this church full of people on sandals and summery outfits taking pictures with their smart phones and cameras.
The night of Thursday leading to Friday was the most important event; at 00:00 the reading of the verdict in front of the church, which I missed, and the laying of the , intricate patterns, paintings almost, of dyed sawdust in preparation of the 04:00 procession, lasting most of Friday. Unfortunately the rain delayed some of this so it wasn’t until I woke at four o’clock that morning and got out, that most of the people were busy filling the streets with these colourful carpets, only to be walked upon by the coming procession and then immediately cleaned up by trucks and cleaners following. These carpets, I heard from my hotel owner, are all paid for and arranged by the residents of Antigua, the ones that live in the houses where they are laid. In one small town outside of Antigua so he told me, lives a very affluent family who, each year, spent Q50.000 on a variety of coloured roses that are used on laying just such a carpet. Wow…
I walked the streets, amazed by the carpets and following the drums and music that accompanied each procession, taking pictures here and there and feeling sorry for the boys and girls carrying these heavy constructions bearing statues, bent through their knees in what must be a very uncomfortable position. I stayed up until after dawn, with the beginning of Holy Friday starting with a (finally) full view of the Agua volcano.
Later that Friday the purple had made way for black, a sign of mourning. Processions continued throughout the day, with more carpets of colourful sawdust laid ahead of the oncoming parade of drummers, trumpet players and of course the carriers of the large platforms with on top the statues. I saw a purple tree on one of them, with a …… dangling from it(?) As pre-arranged, I was meeting up with ‘the moles’ for some decadent ‘cheese and wine’ that last evening, as our ways were going to split the next day. I had to make my way through a busy street and a procession to get to their hotel. We played some shithead and chatted in low voices so as not to awake other guests around the inner courtyard. We were sort of sent to their room later on though, as lights were being subtly turned off. After the wine bottles had been emptied of their contents I said my goodbyes and promised to stay in touch. (Thank you for your company, Sarah and Debrah, I enjoyed my time with you lot)
The next morning, slightly dehydrated, I walked over to the bus station adjoining the market (which I immediately regretted not having visited) and got on a chicken bus to Chimaltenango again, to change buses to Lago de Atitlan.

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Photos

Early morning on Good Friday
Volcan Agua just visible after a night of rain

Procession
At 4 a.m. on Good Friday

Comments

[liliram]

those sawdust carpets are really something. thanks for sharing this. the religious processions on good fridays are so familiar to us. we hold the same catholic rituals here too.

[Natasha Dave]

Amazing photo
Fantastic composition!