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cucuruchos

Holy Week Elements: Cucuruchos

Purple or violet is the color of Lent and the Holy Week. Cucuruchos, bearers, wear their cone-head purple robes as a sign …

Cucurucho Handicrafts by Rudy Girón

Cucurucho Handicrafts

The fear of photography is real in Antigua Guatemala. More often I am finding signs which prohibit photography. That’s kind of ironic …

Antigua Holy Week Cucuruchos

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

Cucurucho Tsunami

I confess that you have to click on the image above to understand the title. I confess I have never in my …

Corozo Palms and its Smell are a Staple of the Holy Week

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?

Underneath a Holy Week Float in La Antigua Guatemala

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! 😉

Cucurucho Paying for His Turns at the Float

Each turn of the Holy Week Float 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.