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Sábado de Gloria is a quieter day with only small processions carried by women known as Las Dolorosas (The Grief or Suffering women) follwing the Vía Dolorosa. Sábado de Gloria is also the day when Judas’ Will (testament) is read, a sort of farcical speech or a neighborhood chisme speech. Kids and teenagers also play at getting each other wet with water balloons. Although I have not seen these two traditions in many years; I wonder if they still exist.

Today we take the opportunity to share various Holy Week vistas from La Antigua Guatemala.

Enjoy your weekend and set your timer for the 5-year anniversary of AntiguaDailyPhoto.com on May 1st. What should we do?

Also, remember that you can check out what is happening during Holy Week in XelaDailyPhoto and GuatemalaDailyPhoto.

All photos by Leonel [Nelo] Mijangos

Today the whole Church mourns the death of our Savior. This is traditionally a day of sadness, spent in fasting and prayer. The title for this day varies in different parts of the world: “Holy Friday” for Latin nations, Slavs and Hungarians call it “Great Friday,” in Germany it is “Friday of Mourning,” and in Norway, it is “Long Friday.” Some view the term “Good Friday” (used in English and Dutch) as a corruption of the term “God’s Friday.” ["Viernes Santo" or Holy Friday in Antigua Guatemala] (source: CatholicCulture.org)

Do not underestimate the power of catholic imagery. You see, the world-famous Antigua Guatemala processions are about showing the devoted images as a reminder and representation of the crucifixion of Jesus. Revue Magazine has an article by Dwight Wayne Coop that chronicles how the Jesús Nazareno de la Merced was taken to Guatemala City in 1778 in order to force people to abandon Santiago de Guatemala (La Antigua Guatemala) in favor of the new capital Guatemala de La Asunción (Guatemala City).

Here’s a fragment of the chronicle, make sure your read the entire article which is funny, historical and an eye opener:

The killer quake that rattled Panchoy Valley (La Antigua) in 1773 led to the founding of a new capital in Ermita Valley in 1776. But even then, most Santiagans refused to move. Similarly, after Hurricane Hattie ravaged Belize in 1965, the government of Belize founded Belmopán—only to see the population of Belize City stay put.

The job of moving La Antigua’s masons, maids, porters and wet nurses to Ciudad Real (Guatemala City) fell in 1778 to viceroy Martín de Mayorga. His biggest card was the bond that Santiagans felt to Jesús Nazareno and to another wooden statue, Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes. Move these images, Mayorga reasoned, and you move the people. (source: Revue Magazine)

Also, today all Stations of the Cross altars will be open and many if not all procession will pay a visit to El Calvario Church, which is located on the southern outskirts of La Antigua Guatemala. El Calvario or Calvary (Golgotha) is the name of the mount on the outskirts of Jerusalem where it’s believe Jesus Christ was crucified. This church with its three arches provides a symbolic representation of the crucifixion; with each arch representing each cross.

Here’s a panoramic view of the culmination of the Good Friday procession as it enters the Antigua Guatemala cathedral.

Also, remember that you can check out what is happening during Holy Week in XelaDailyPhoto and GuatemalaDailyPhoto.

All photos by Leonel [Nelo] Mijangos

Cucuruchos with their purple or violet cone-head rebes are another prominent element of Semana Santa in Antigua Guatemala. 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.

Not only Cucuruchos have to observe penitence during Lent (Cuaresma) and 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 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. You make the numbers…

Also, remember that you can check out what is happening during Holy Week in XelaDailyPhoto and GuatemalaDailyPhoto.

All photos by Leonel [Nelo] Mijangos

There’s nothing more impressive during the Holy Week in Antigua Guatemala than seen these massive floats, andas in Spanish, being carried by 80 to 100 cucuruchos. Click on any of the images to get a slide show started with larger versions of these images.

Needless to say we’re in debt with Nelo for sharing these incredible photographs, for going the extra mile to capture these unusual perspective and for spending over 12 hours per day to follow the processions through out their entire route. If you have anything to say to Nelo, please do so in the comments area.

Elsewhere in Guatemala, you can check the procession in XelaDailyPhoto and GuatemalaDailyPhoto as well.

All photos by Leonel [Nelo] Mijangos

The processional carpets are among the most creative and colorful elements of the Holy Week in La Antigua Guatemala.

As I’ve mentioned before, 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. The colorful processional carpet elaboration process involves the whole family, close friends, the neighborhood and the entire community. It does not matter if it’s just grandma throwing some corozo (corozo palms) and dried purple flowers to elaborate a humble alfombra in front of her home or it is a team of members of the cuadra (the block), or if a son lends a hand to a dad to put the final touches on the brightly-colored sawdust carpet, the devotion and the do-good spirit are present everywhere you look. This is the week of the year when Guatemalans stand as one people!

All photos by Leonel [Nelo] Mijangos

Okay, the 365-day wait is over. The world-famous Holy Week in La Antigua Guatemala is here. Get your cameras ready and join the hundreds if not thousands of photographers and cucuruchos populating the 10-block colonial town of Antigua Guatemala. If under normal circumstances there are plenty of photographers capturing every conceivable vista from La Antigua Guatemala, in Semana Santa photographers are found in every street, many chasing one or more Holy Week processions. You can also find news casting crews and documentary crews from corner of the world. Some photographer even carry more than one camera to catch all the fleeting moments.

Of course, this is easy to understand, after all the Holy Week in Antigua Guatemala is the most colorful and surreal cultural and religious event in Guatemala. Make sure you put it down in your things to do and places to visit at least once in my life list; you won’t regret it!

In the meantime, follow the white rabbit to the Holy Week Elements series to get an overview of the elements of Semana Santa. Just remember, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

All photos by Leonel [Nelo] Mijangos

Slowly, but surely the love, devotion and passion for the world famous Holy Week in Antigua Guatemala are being passed on to the new generations. I am glad to know that there will be Semana Santa in La Antigua Guatemala for another 500 years.

I believe that Semana Santa is so much more than a yearly religious commemoration; in Antigua Guatemala Semana Santa is also a cultural and artistic manifestation. What do you think?

At 3:30 in the morning and by the light of the full moon as the rooster crowed a couple times, my husband and I threw on our sweaters and jeans, stumbled out into the quiet streets of El Calvario and into our car. We knew we were taking a chance by driving into La Antigua Guatemala on Viernes Santo, Good Friday, we might even have to walk home, but not knowing what to expect our car was our life raft. We were, however, determined to catch a glimpse of the Romans in their full armor and horses at the entrance to the city and retrace Jesus’ march along the Way of the Cross and through the Twelve Stations. It was Holy Friday, Black Friday, Great Friday and as we drove past Río Pensativo, with a few random shadows ducking into side streets, we had our doubts about whether we’d see even one Guatemalan upright and sober, much less dressed as a Roman. I thought about stopping and asking the next person, “¿Disculpeme, pero dónde están los romanos?” “Excuse me, but where are the Romans?” In our sleep deprivation—unlike other more knowing souls, we had only taken a 30 minute power nap—we just pushed ahead like late nights in San Francisco when we’d go searching for a rave or warehouse party in the most unlikely of urban places. We were not prepared for the full–scale production we were about to witness.

We turned left into Antigua Guatemala and the city was all ours with not a single car or bus cruising in from Guatemala City only to be funneled into cobble-stone streets and a bee-line string of cars into the heart of the crowded town. It’d been like that the entire week and so we’d become embedded on the other side of town, sequestered really, until this morning when space to drive was like fresh air. We drove north towards La Merced Church and as we approached, the cars began to pile up on the side of the south side of the streets [video], parked in random directions with crowds poring in from La Calle del Arco to the food stalls which had now become permanant fixtures right next to La Merced. They brimmed with churros, chuchitos, quesadillas, fried platanos, ponche, coffee, big rafts of thick smoke broken by lights that illuminated the crowds sauntering towards the entrance of the Church, the purple-caped men carrying sharp spears in one hand and a tamale in the other, the tents pitched between the stalls and the church, and the alfombras, colorful, intricate and immense.

The car pushed us ahead towards Alameda Santa Lucía, one of the main streets of La Antigua that leads you south into Ciudad Vieja and Escuintla, and on most days reminds you of a miniature version of rush hour on the Santa Monica Freeway or the San Francisco Bay Bridge if you were sharing the street with zigzagging pedestrians, stray dogs, tuk-tuks, cyclicts, motorcyles, venders, looming buses and broken down cars. But today it was silence, with the crouching bodies of people, young and old, laying down their alfombras by the light of one lightbulb and together creating a path that lit the entire street as far as the eye could see. We parked along this street and began our walk towards the church, staring in awe at one alfombra after the next [video], some long and sprawling for blocks, some depicting entire scenes of Jesus Christ, while others were laden with melons, mangos, split open papayas, egg shells, candles, fluttering butterflies, architectural buttresses, straw crosses.

My mouth agape as I stood by the First Station of the Cross where Jesus Is Condemned To Death by Pontius Pilate I heard hooves and galloping and turned towards La Merced to see the Romans on their white horses riding into town [video] with their full armor and swords. “The Romans are here, look,” I told Brad, my husband, and we got out of the way for the dark, short Romans on their white steeds. As so it was the beginning of the procession which was scheduled to leave La Merced Church at 5 a.m. much to the anticipation of the bodies piled up with their hot coffees and banana bread by the entrance of the church. Thinking ahead, Brad took a place at the front of the gathering crowd at the first bend of the procession. I went towards the church, crawling underneath Romans, food stalls, legs, and ladders to see the beginning of the procession.

On my tip-toes, I saw the bus-long float carrying a red-robed Christ and his wooden cross surrounded by dozens of orchids and flowers [video] hoisted on the shoulders of at least a hundred purple-clothed men. There was clouds of incense and the prayers by the priests were almost sung in rhythm. I could not make the words out, but I knew the journey well, I’d grown up with it as a Catholic. We were embarking upon The Passion of Christ—all the events and suffering of Jesus in the hours before and including his trial and execution by crucifixion. We had been preparing for it the entire duration of Lent and now we had arrived and were faced with, albeit in an allegorical sense, the suffering of one human being. I turned back to be with Brad for the First Station and to see how far we could make it along the all-day march. We were surrounded by thousands witnessing the procession and as it made its way towards Alameda Santa Lucía, we marched with it, flanked on our left by believers paying their respect, making the cross along their forehead and across their chests. Small candles were lit one by one and then the dark pierced their multitude like pearls or fireflies along the path. We all moved as one unit as the procession made it past The First and then the Second Station, and by the third station Brad sat by the curb of the road by Alameda Santa Lucía and said, “I had no idea.”

Neither did I, I thought to myself as we drove home to the blue light of dusk over the volcanoes. I remember as a child we would go to the beach during Semana Santa (my family are coastal people after all) and then when we moved to Guatemala City. There is where I remember standing next to my grandmother, surrounded by people crying as they held small candles when this looming figure of Christ passed. That figure instilled me fear and awe. It created a narrative in my mind. Standing there my grandmother taught me to make the cross with her and to remember how one person’s suffering can impact so many of us. Even today, she reminded me, we remember together. It’s a lesson that transcends Catholicism and which I’ve taken with me into my Buddhism—how we have to be mindful of how we help to reduce suffering in the world, not perpetuate it.

Additional Links:

• Viernes Santo Flickr Slideshow
• Jueves Santos Photos Slideshow
• An Easter Slap-down in Lago Atitlán
• Associated Press’ Holy Week in Guatemala Photos

text by Kara Andrade and photo by Brad Eller

Kara Andrade is a multimedia producer and photojournalist, She is a Fulbright fellow based out of Guatemala where she is implementing a citizen journalism Web site called www.hablaguate.com

The making of sawdust carpets, alfombras de aserrín, with its vivid colors and eye-catching patterns are among the most prominent elements of the Holy Week celebrations.

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. The colorful processional carpet elaboration process involves the whole family, close friends, the neighborhood and the entire community. It does not matter if it’s just grandma throwing some corozo (corozo palms) and dried purple flowers to elaborate a humble alfombra in front of her home or it is a team of members of the cuadra (the block), or if a son lends a hand to a dad to put the final touches on the brightly-colored sawdust carpet, the devotion and the do-good spirit are present everywhere you look. This is the week of the year when Guatemalans stand as one people!

Also, since 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.

Like many firsts of the month, AntiguaDailyPhoto is participating in the theme day of the City Daily Photo community around the world. To see how others in the City Daily Photo community have interpreted today’s theme please click here to view thumbnails for all participants around the planet.

P.S. in 30 days AntiguaDailyPhoto will be four years old. What should we do? My first thought is that’s enough… I should go on and do something else.

You think Antigua Guatemala is just processions for the Semana Santa? Wrong. There is more… there are also plays, like this one. This play was being performed parallel to the procession of La Merced this past Sunday.

Can you tell what’s the play all about?

text and photos by Arturo Godoy. Check out Arturo’s portfolio to purchase photos from his massive photographic bank.

Okay, we have a new dialogue game. Those of you who have followed AntiguaDailyPhoto for a while know the rules. This simple image will allow us to play a creative game. Taking the two men as our characters we will write up one of many conceivable dialogues as the interaction between them. To get ideas or inspiration check out these previous entries: Arch-framed Women in Jocotenango and Opposite ends of life #2. The best dialogue will receive this photo as 4″x6″ post card.

Good luck to all the participants!

I confess that you have to click on the image above to understand the title. I confess I have never in my life seen so many cucuruchos together. I confess I never been surrounded by so many violet or purple robes. I confess that I should have waited another 10 minutes to take photographs of the thousands of cucuruchos. I confess…

As Semana Santa, the Holy Week before Easter, approaches, the historic colonial town of Antigua sees almost daily processions. These processions include music, colors. . . and most importantly floats. . . that don’t really float, but are heavy wooden depictions of the life of Christ. Because of how heavy these floats are, they often need to be carried by more than 60 men, women and/or children. The processions wind themselves through the cobblestone streets. And people pay for the honor to carry them.

One quirk to the payment, is that according to my friend Nelo, each person pays Q60 per turn. Each procession includes on average 60 turns and each float needs 80-100 carriers. So this adds up fast, about Q290,000 (US$38,000) per procession. So where does all this money go?

Almost one third goes to the band. I heard that the San Felipe Church processional 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.

Literary Introspection Aside: 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 unmistakable thumping that accompanies the processions comes from percussionists beating huge drums with this hummer-like sticks. Do you know the name of the big drums and the piece that serves to bang them?

I can bring to you the colors, the imagery, the sounds and even video clips, but I can’t transmit or transfer you the smells and aromas of the Holy Week. The pungent scents of corozo palms and copal insence you will have to imagine them. Let’s hope that today’s photo can trigger or precipitate forth the buried memories in your unconsciousness; please, let us know if you can smell the incense; can you taste it too?