La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo

This old man and the band are the tail of the procession. There goes Semana Santa 2008… we are at end of the Holy Week in La Antigua Guatemala. Just one more day!

To answer Sara’s question about where the money collected through the sale of the turns at carrying the float go? Almost one third goes to the band. I heard that the San Felipe Church brocessional Band charges Q150,000 (close to US$20,000) per procession and La Merced Church processional band about Q125,000. I imagine some of the money goes to the church who lends the saint figures for the processions. Some money goes to the organization, the creation of the scenes above the floats which are never the same and lastly for maintenance.

If you would like to see a video clip of a processional band playing, check out last year entry Weekend Procession in the Lent Season. Processional musician play sorrowful tunes is another entry where you can also see a processional band.

Literary Introspection Side Note: Much of what I am today and the decisions I made that took me to La Antigua Guatemala were inspired or influenced in part by Milan Kundera’s writings. Through the reading of several of Milan Kundera’s novels, especially Life is Elsewhere, Laughable Loves, The Farewell Party, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Immortality and Identity, I begun to question myself about life, lifestyles and what I wanted out of the day. Life is a jigsaw puzzle made up from moments (days) and where and with whom you spend those moments shapes the picture you see at the end. Honestly, I do not know if it is better to live in the ‘first world’ with a first-world salary, first-world commodities and such or to live here in the south or third world with all the complications and dangers that decision entails. I don’t know about the first/third world euphemisms either. However, I do know that a different life or lifestyle is possible outside the safety net. There are other ways to be human and to experience unusual traditions and celebrations. There is a huge difference between Spring Break, Easter, Holy Week and Semana Santa as we live it in La Antigua Guatemala for sure. To each its own. For the moment, I’m just happy to be able to take ordinary snapshots from my daily comings-and-goings and to be able to share them with YOU! I hope you enjoy them too!?

The side note is dedicated to my dear epistolary friend Carmen.

That is right, Semana Santa in Guatemala is an equal opportunity celebration. Sure, cucuruchos take the majority of the clicks of cameras and most of the video recorded, but children, women and dogs have a place in the Holy Week celebrations. Women’s float or andas are a bit smaller and carry virgins or angels most of the time.

Right about now, you may be asking yourself, what are processions anyway and what do they represent? Well processions are representations of the the last days of Jesus Christ. Processions represent the funeral march of Jesus Christ. Processions in Guatemala also represent a penitent act.

Here is the background information about La Dolorosa Procession, taken from last year entry:

La Dolorosa or The Sorrowful Mother is the biblical figure of the sorrowful mother Mary which follows Jesus in his way to his crucifixion. This act is represented by a smaller anda (long carved wooden flatbed image-carrying float [*]) —carrying the effigy of sorrowful Mother Mary and other female biblical representations— which is hauled exclusively by women who mostly dress in black or white as this is the appropriate dress code for a funeral. Jesus’ funeral.

Gringos are now an integral part of La Antigua Guatemala and therefore many of them participate of the preparations of the world famous alfombras de Semana Santa (Holy Week carpets) made from colorful sawdust, flowers, fruits, and anything the imagination allows.

From this shot, I particularly like the framing of the tourist with his backpack before he pulled his camera to shoot the making of the carpet. The background is the San Francisco El Grande Church, home to the remains of Santo Hermano Pedro de Betancourt (Guatemala’s only ‘Oficial’ Saint).

I hope you are enjoying the behind the scenes series of the Semana Santa in La Antigua Guatemala. Remember that you can visit my friends Nelo’s web site EnAntigua.com for an overview of huge processions.

Just like the Christmas Season comes with its own set of smells, flavors and color palette, so does the Holy Week celebrations. I can bring to you still photos, slide shows, video clips and sounds. But I can not bring you the smells. Like I said back in the Virgin of Guadalupe Day, … the incredible power of the sense of smell can detonate nostalgic memories… if only the smells could be seized like Patrick Süskind suggested in his masterpiece Das Parfum (Perfume). How could one go about imprisoning the mixture of the smells of copal incense, corozo palms, fireworks, pine needles, moisten saw dust, fresh tropical fruits, palm flower arrangements and sweat into a digital format readily available to download onto your own computer?

Only in Star Trek that is possible… we must wait for the future to arrive. In the mean time, we wave good bye to Arthur C. Clarke as we thank him for allowing us to dream of the future. Until the future arrives, you must pack your bags and head down south where you can be free!

I did want to say a thing about it; just show the pictures and don’t even mention it; that was my plan. But no, Jerry T gave me away; sort of a behind the scenes of the Holy Week, he said. See the problem with showing pictures of Semana Santa year after year is that you tend to repeat yourself. I do not want to do that, not if I can help it. So if last year I presented the normal approach to the Holy Week in La Antigua Guatemala, this year it has to be different.

Find a new angle always; that is my goal for this site. This was my goal since day 1. What good would it be if I just take the same shots that everybody else is doing. Because of how I earn my living, I get to see thousands of images of La Antigua Guatemala. Furthermore, I follow several photo groups and La Antigua Guatemala is among the most often photographed places in Guatemala. It is virtually impossible not to take the same shot that somebody else already did. And that’s the challenge!

So much mumble jumble to present the underneath view of a Holy Week float in one of the villages of La Antigua Guatemala. Andas (floats) are not only the affair of cucuruchos, women also participate; and sometimes even chuchos (street dogs) get involved in the penitent act of carrying the heavy float!

Purple or violet is the color of Lent and the Holy Week. Cucuruchos wear their cone-head purple dress as a sign of penitence. Not only Cucuruchos have to observe penitence for the Lent (Cuaresma) and the Holy Week (Semana Santa), but they also have to pay if they want to get a chance to carry the enormous floats, known here as andas. According to my good friend Nelo, each turn costs around Q60 (around US$8), there are around 60 turns and each float has somewhere between 80 and 100 spaces for the Cucuruchos. That’s close to Q290,000 (US$38,000) per procession. Boy oh boy, there’s big money to be made with each procession. Now if only they didn’t have to spend the money… but that’s another day’s story!

By the way, you should visit my dear friend Nelo’s web site EnAntigua.com for all the photos of all the processions of Lent and the Holy Week since 2001. Be prepare, there are over a thousand images of Semana Santa and Cueresma at his web site.

You can also browse the Holy Week category for La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo for more background information and photos about the Semana Santa and Cuaresma in La Antigua.

Today’s Palm Sunday or Domingo de Ramos as today’s known in the Catholic Realm. Last year, Domingo de Ramos fell on April 1st and the photo of the day was the palm flower arrangements available in the La Antigua Guatemala’s market.

Today’s photo is very similar to last year’s, but this time the photo was captured in the atrium of San Francisco El Grande Church.

Today’s photo also marks the official beginning of the Holy Week or the Semana Santa. Stay tune we will be covering the big business of Semana Santa!

I have honestly tried not put as many Cuaresma/Lent and Semana Santa/Holy Week photos here. But sometimes it’s impossible not published photos like today’s. Talk about the idiosyncrasy of Guatemalans, have you ever seen a more convincing set of Roman Soldiers in your life?

Processions are majestic, huge and long in La Antigua Guatemala. You can browse the Processions category to get an idea of the size of the processions in La Antigua Guatemala. There are smaller and more humble processions in the villages and small communities surrounding La Antigua Guatemala. This year, I will try to focus more in the Holy Week celebrations and processions in the villages where you can still observe the fervor, regardless of the size, for all these Catholic rituals. The photo above was taken in the village of San Pedro Las Huertas, while the procession made a pit stop or parada as they are known in Spanish. Well, I think that is the name, maybe somebody more knowledgeable in Catholic rituals can provide the actual name for the stops the processions make every so often at specific spots.

Byron Ortiz made it possible to get a real sense of Semana Santa (Holy Week) through his photos —7 of the over 100 images in his Holy Week archives—. La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo is very grateful for allowing the usage of his photos here.

Churches serve as terminals from which processions depart or arrive. Churches also serve as home-base for all the brotherhoods of cucuruchos and sisterhoods. Churches also put their best face for the Holy Week and many get a paint job and/or restoration works in the weeks prior to Semana Santa.

With this photo we wave goodbye to Semana Santa and to Holy Week’s processions. I was told the last procession, the Resurrection (Resurección) procession comes out on Easter Sunday (today) a 6 a.m. and its back in the church by 10 in the morning. But, before we say our farewells, I bring to you the photo of a procession as it nears its entrance to the cathedral. You can see Antigua Guatemala’s Cathedral in the background with a procession and its followers in the foreground. If this is your first time around here you can click the following posts to get an idea of what this place looks like during the day. It is also a good idea to click in the photo above to see thousands of candles and the all the details.

1. Antigua’s Cathedral and Volcán de Agua
2. Antigua’s Cathedral at Sunset
3. Illuminated Antigua’s Cathedral at twilight
4. Requiem for the Rain
5. Antigua Guatemala’s Cathedral
6. Taxis at Antigua’s Cathedral

You can view all the photos of churches published in the Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo by clicking the link or by browsing the Atriums & Churches category on the sidebar.

Can somebody tell me how many church buildings are in Antigua Guatemala and how many of them are is use still as churches? Hint, the information is in the guts of this site.

Tags: Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo / Antigua / Guatemala / Holy Week Elements / procession / Semana Santa in Antigua

Thanks to Byron Ortiz for lending his photos of Semana Santa (Holy Week), so we can get window-view of the Holy Week Celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala.

La Dolorosa or The Sorrowful Mother is the biblical figure of sorrowful mother Mary which follows Jesus in his way to his crucifixion. This act is represented by a smaller anda (long carved wooden flatbed image-carrying float [*]) —carrying the effigy of sorrowful Mother Mary and other female biblical representations— which is hauled exclusively by women who mostly dress in black or white as this is the appropriate dress code for a funeral. Jesus’ funeral.

All this christian and catholic background information is meant to serve as means for the understanding of the religious and cultural manifestations that take place in Antigua Guatemala during Easter. So don’t worry, we will come back to a religion-free site by next Monday; stay tune!

On the other hand, please let me know what is your opinion or feelings regarding the coverage of this yearly event? Am I doing a good balance between the photographs and background information or am I over doing it? I really would appreciate your feedback.

Tags: Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo / Antigua / Guatemala / Holy Week Elements / procession / Semana Santa in Antigua

Thanks to Byron Ortiz for lending his photos of Semana Santa (Holy Week), so we can get a room with a view of the Holy Week Celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala.

This week we are running a mini-series: Elements of the Holy Week Celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala and its world-famous Semana Santa.

Holy Thursday and Good Friday? Where do these names come from? Maybe from the Borat film.

Nevertheless, Good Friday is the culmination of the Holy Week Celebrations and the processions end at the Calvario Church (Calvario is the Spanish word for Calvary or Golgotha). The entrance of the Calvario Church in La Antigua Guatemala is a yellow façade with three arches, topped by three bells and three crosses —one larger than the other two— with a very large concrete cross in front. Can you see the obvious architectonic reference to Jesus’ crucifixion?

Just before we close the window to the Holy Week Celebrations, I found this fabulous, detail-rich description, spiced with insider’s information, about the whole ritual of Semana Santa by Lito Galvan. Here are a couple sample paragraphs to entice you to follow the link and read the entire piece.

A Lenten celebration spent in Guatemala is beyond doubt exhilarating. True to seasoned travelers’ tale, Holy Week or Semana Santa exceeds everyone’s wildest spiritual expectation.

The event kicks off on Palm Sunday with the blessing of the palms then starts a climactic crescendo leading to Good Friday crucifixion, retreating into a hiatus on Black Saturday - in theory, and finally bursting into a culminating finale on Easter Sunday.

The Guatemalan stunning flashes of tradition and pageantry can be observed in: (1) palm blessing and display; (2) window dressing on homes and churches; (3) spectacular street carpet decorating along the processional route; (4) and the passionate procession of grand ecclesiastical images.

… read the entire piece at

Lito Galvan’s Dressing-Up for Semana Santa - Antigua, Guatemala

It is an interesting and funny surprise to have somebody list some of the elements of the Holy Week Celebration in Antigua Guatemala two years ago, along with the most complete description of the Semana Santa I’ve seen online. Certainly, there is nothing new under the sun. I take my hat off to Lito.

Tags: Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo / Antigua / Guatemala / Holy Week Elements / procession / Semana Santa in Antigua

Thanks to Byron Ortiz for lending his photos of Semana Santa (Holy Week), so we can get a better picture of the Holy Week Celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala.

This week we are running a mini-series: Elements of the Holy Week Celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala and its world-famous Semana Santa.

With the holidays of Semana Santa La Antigua Guatemala goes from a tiny peaceful, colorful colonial town to a maddening craze-driven-crowds city like New York City or Tokyo where you can barely walk.

It is not a light statement when Santiago Durham says: the whole Semana Santa is a penitent act, especially for those of us who live here. Nonetheless, it is the most spectacular yearly event in Antigua Guatemala.

By the way, the original name of the town is Santiago (Saint James) de los Caballeros de Guatemala. Soon I will have a post about the disambiguation of the La Antigua Guatemala name and the reasons for it. Stay tune!

Tags: Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo / Antigua / Guatemala / Holy Week Elements / procession / Semana Santa in Antigua

I want to thank Byron Ortiz for allowing me to use his photos of Semana Santa (Holy Week), so we can better understand the Holy Week Celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala.

This week we are running a mini-series: Elements of the Holy Week Celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala and its world-famous Semana Santa.

Cucuruchos with their purple or violet cone-head dress are another prominent element of Semana Santa in Antigua Guatemala. Last week, Santiago Durham asked what its the significance of the color purple or violet in the dress and banners during Semana Santa, well it took a lot of digging to find out (I turned around and asked my office coworker), but I can now tell you the purple is worn as a sign of penitence. As a matter of fact, processions are a sign of penitence as well, heck the whole Semana Santa is a penitent act.

Tags: Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo / Antigua / Guatemala / Holy Week Elements / procession / Semana Santa in Antigua

I want to thank Byron Ortiz for allowing me to use his photos of Semana Santa (Holy Week), so we can better understand the Holy Week Celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala.

This week we are running a mini-series: Elements of the Holy Week Celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala and its world-famous Semana Santa.

The making of carpets from sawdust, pine-needles, flowers, vegetables is a community-forming tradition. People get together by block or near-by neighbors to create the carpets on which the processions will pass by. Sometimes the making of the carpets is done at night, all night so they are ready for next day’s procession.

You can check LD’s Holy Week Survival Guide for other details and relevant information regarding Semana Santa in Guatemala, including the trips to the beach. Didn’t I tell you the beach is very close to Antigua? About 1 hour’s driving time. Heck I even showed you a satellite map view of Southern Guatemala (check below the caption for the volcanoes).

Tags: Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo / Antigua / Guatemala / Holy Week Elements / sawdust carpets / Semana Santa in Antigua