Guatemala, part 3

Friday, April 10
True to our plans from the previous day, we crawled out of bed around 4:30 to see as many alfombras as we could, and I’m certainly glad we did! The Good Friday morning procession is one of the biggest events that go on here, and the locals really come up with some amazing stuff for it. It’s a good thing we did get up so early, because there was an absolutely incredible amount of alfombras to see, and pretty much all of them were worth a few pictures. We ended up taking literally hundreds of pictures of these things, as they were so beautiful. It was really difficult to capture the detail and beauty of them in a picture, but we sure tried! One interesting part of the morning in that respect was that when we started off it was obviously completely dark outside, making it difficult to get good shots, but as the morning progressed the sunlight helped us out more and more until we were done, making an interesting progression of picture quality and style as we would look through the pictures we had taken later that day.
After about an hour and a half or so of wandering the streets (and even then we didn’t see all the alfombras we could have!), we found the procession making its way through town. Or rather, it found us. The alfombras basically mark the path of the processions, and it turned out we were simply following it backwards until suddenly we saw a bunch of roman soldiers on horses – a good indication that we should probably get to the side of the road. We actually were pretty lucky, as the street we happened to be on when the procession went by was not very crowded, and we had a comfortable, slightly elevated part of the sidewalk on which to spend the next hour or so as the flamboyant mix of biblical characters and scenes went by. Some stupid tourists who felt they were above municipal regulation and disrespecting processional custom decided to take some pictures from the middle of the street, in and among those involved in the procession. This angered the 99% of us who knew better, but eventually these either dispersed or were ordered off by officials in the procession.
The procession started with a crew of Roman soldiers, some of them on horseback, others on foot carrying banners or signs with messages in Latin. Behind the front crew and walking among the second wave of soldiers were what appeared to be the chief priests, along with a long line of children in the popular purple and white robes that seemingly half the population of Antigua was wearing that week. The children were holding up banners with names of Biblical characters on them with various quotations of what appeared to be dialogue from scripture, but I didn’t recognize very many of them so I’m not sure.
Following these was a small group of miniature platforms (relatively speaking) with different depictions of Good Friday events. The first of these depicted Jesus praying in the garden, literally holding a cup he doesn’t seem too thrilled to be holding. Following this were two smaller ones, one depicting an old man on his knees in prayer (I think it was St. Francis, but I’m not sure), and the other was Jesus again, this time with a crown of thorns but more or less tranquil, not yet beaten nor with cross. This relatively tender image was immediately replaced by a couple of depictions one could have taken right out of Mel Gibson’s Passion movie – Jesus wearing nothing but loincloth and beaten severely, bleeding profusely.
After a short gap of some random chief priest figures and the continuous march of men in purple robes lining the streets, Pilate showed up, an actual guy instead of another float depiction, accompanied by a servant boy holding a small pitcher and basin for Pilate to wash up at his leisure. Pilate himself was carrying around an enormous scroll which appeared to be a formal declaration of some sort, but the indecipherable Latin scrawling did not specify its exact purpose. Following these two were a few more “live-action” figures, most of whom I couldn’t identify, but I believe one of them was Herod and another was most certainly Barabbas.
After these was yet another group of Roman soldiers, this time including the massive (at times unbearable) amounts of incense that are used during almost all of these processions. Then came the main platform – Jesus carrying his cross. This scene is actually repeated in almost all the processionals of the week, but having the plethora of other Good Friday scenes preceding this particular one seemed to make it more significant. Jesus, clothed in both his crown of thorns and a red robe that matched the blood spotting any exposed skin, was portrayed in midstride, shouldering an enormous cross and looking very weak and miserable indeed. As always, Jesus was followed by a small marching band playing a grim but boisterous tune. Bringing up the rear was Mary, another constant in the processions of the week. The virgin was sobbing, a small cloth in one hand and a golden dagger apparently piercing her heart of its own accord. Bringing up the absolute rear of the procession was a collection of other women whom I couldn’t name for sure, but all appeared appropriately grief-stricken and/or futilely trying to console Mary.
After the procession a mixture of vendors preying on spectators and sweepers who clean up what’s left of the beautiful alfombras crowded the street. By this time Ashley and I were extremely hungry and tired, and so we headed back to the hostel. On our way back we ran into another bunch of alfombras, one which was in the process of being made so we took another couple shots of the process. Breakfast at the hostel was a very welcomed meal, followed by an even more welcomed couple hours of sleep.
We got up again around 11:45 to head over to central park where a crucifixion reenactment was scheduled for noon. When we arrived, the two men who were crucified on either side of Jesus were already up outside the church that hugs the east end of the park, and we had to wait for Jesus to show up. We did not get to see much of the entire event as it was actually inside the church, but finally we (and the other hundreds of tourists who had gathered outside) witnessed a stream of men march out of the church carrying the body of Christ, now even more severely bruised and bloodied. After literally nailing the body to a cross, they attached ropes to the part of the cross where Jesus’ hands were and heaved the whole thing to a vertical position. Nearby loudspeakers blared an extremely dark and dramatic piece of music the moment Jesus was completely upright, and hundreds of cameras (including mine) clicked away to capture the scene.
After taking some pictures we went back to the hostel to rest again (we were still very tired). Ashley took a nap while I went out to look for – get this – a Lutheran church. The day before our hostel owner had told me there was a Lutheran church just a few blocks from where we were, so I decided I definitely needed to go look for that to see if there would be a Good Friday and/or Easter Sunday service I could attend. I did find the place – it was huge! The actual chapel there was tiny, but the location is like some sort of retreat center where church groups and other organizations often stay while in Antigua. Turns out they did not have a Good Friday service, but they did have one Easter morning. More on that when I write about Sunday.
For dinner we went to a French crepe restaurant we had seen the day before, a place called Luna de Miel (literally, “honey moon” in Spanish). The crepes were absolutely delicious, and we would end up returning twice more before leaving Antigua. Over coffee and good food we had some long and deep conversations about religion, politics, and other hot subjects which we both seemed to enjoy talking about. Resisting the temptation to get a second round of crepes, we finally headed out in search of live music once again. We finally ran into a tiny place called JP’s RumBar. The music was basically just two guys on guitar, one of whom we had seen our first night in Antigua at another restaurant. Although the guys were fantastic and the ambiance of the place was great, there were very few people there, and for a while Ashley and I were only two of four people enjoying the music (minus the staff). We thought about leaving but the guitarists were just too fun to leave – some musicians get in their element when they have a fair amount of people in front of them cheering them on, while others simply are swept away by the sheer joy of the music they’re making. These two were clearly in the latter category, and the mood was contagious. Around midnight we finally headed back to the hostel, anxious to get a full night’s sleep after a very eventful and very satisfying Antiguan Good Friday.

Saturday, April 11
We slept in a bit before having another good breakfast at the hostel. Saturday in Antigua is one of three official market days during the week, and since it lands nicely between Good Friday and Easter Sunday it’s the perfect opportunity for tourists to check out the goods available. Since Ashley and I had now seen a fair amount of the types of gifts and merchandise available, we headed over there too to find some things to fill our backpacks (and empty our wallets!).
A word about the things to buy in Guatemala. The country is known for its prevalent indigenous culture, and it shows in the items on sale in tourist areas. Everywhere you go, you are surrounded by an amazing kaleidoscope of goods in bright and brilliant colors. Everything is so colorful! Basically all of the shirts, bags, pillows, toys, and whatever else you might want to buy come in fabrics (many hand-stitched) that are absolutely beautiful and ridiculously vibrant. Ashley and I are both big fans of bright colors in large amounts and combinations, and as such we were both inclined to buy just about everything we saw. Being poor college students, this of course was not possible, but it did make choosing what we purchased pretty difficult. Every little shop we walked into was an explosion of color in various shades and designs, each item boasting an aesthetic liveliness that was difficult to ignore.
That having been said, and keeping in mind we’re poor college students, I wouldn’t want to give the impression that we didn’t get much. In fact, Ashley went a little crazy that morning and spent all of her remaining money and a good deal of mine (shortly thereafter we visited an ATM so we would be able to both settle debts…and eat). Much to my enjoyment, I had a couple of spirited conversations with vendors over the true value of some of the goods I wanted. After visiting the market both in the morning and early afternoon (split up by a lunch/ATM break), we headed back to the hostel where we planned out the rest of our time in Antigua, particularly in terms of getting food and other items for our return bus trip in a couple of days.
For dinner that night we went out a second time to Luna de Miel, where we had some excellent crepes yet again. That night we got into some even deeper conversations that lasted for hours, and even though we had planned on going out to find some more live music we eventually just decided to stay there. Every twenty minutes or so we ordered a coffee or something to justify our extended stay, but the staff didn’t seem to mind us. After figuring out the meaning of life, the nature of human relationship, and the idea of God vs god(s), among other things, we finally headed back to the hostel (we had been there for about four and a half hours at that point).

I’ll cut it there again for today. Hopefully I’ll be able to wrap up the last few days in just one more post. I’ve got some pictures up! Enjoy! Also, just for a more up-to-date notice about what I’m up to, I’ll be heading to Vara Blanca and Poasito this weekend, the areas where January’s massive earthquake hit the hardest, to build some temporary housing with other volunteers from both USAC and Ticos from our University. You’ll hear about it in a week or so! Until then, take care and God bless.