Throughout the entire 40 days of lent, Antigua begins to gear up for Semana Santa.  Semana Santa is the last week of lent and the week right before Easter.  From what I have heard, this is the time of the biggest celebrations in Guatemala.  Antigua is famous for their processions and alfombras (carpets made of sawdust, fruit, flowers, stone dust, bread, etc).  The alfombras are meant to represent a very transitory existence because they last for only a night or so.  People stay up all night constructing the alfombras only to have them walked over by the people carrying massive floats representing scenes from the bible.  Stella has told me that during Semana Santa, there are so many alfombras in the street that they are nearly continuous.

There are other places that have celebrations for Semana Santa but Antigua is by far the most famous in all of Central America.  Stella`s house is a perfect place to be staying during this time because the cost of a hotel (if you can find one) is about 3x the cost…

This is a procession of Via Crucis (way of the cross / stations of the cross). This is a very small float. There are only 6 people carrying it. During the week of semana santa there are floats with over 100 people carrying them.

The procession would stop every 2 blocks or so to say a prayer. After the prayer, the guitarristas and niños would begin singing again...

This procession of Via Crucis was last Friday.  The procession was made up of probably 400 – 500 people.  There were guitars, children singing, and candles in everybody`s hands.    At the tail end of the procession there were huge drums that would set a sort of marching beat.

I was completely amazed throughout the entire night.  I`m pretty sure I had a huge smile on my face the entire time.  At one point I said to Stella “esto es increible (this is incredible)” to which she replied, “esto no es nada (this is nothing)”.  I can`t wait to see the bigger processions.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5Fyskkl9LQ[/youtube]

Every procession is put on by a different church.  This one happened to be one of La Merced`s.  After walking for about an hour and a half or so, we walked through the gigantic open doors of the church to hear a few last songs and a closing ceremony from the priest.

Alfombra in the church of La Merced. Keep in mind that this is made of only sawdust and stone dust...