Semana Santa -- The biggest baddest Holy Week in Antigua

 

Invasion of the purple people!



Last time I partook in Semana Santa was a year ago and it was really just a fluke that we happened to be here at that particular time. I had no idea what I was in for. And since I'm not Catholic, I really didn't understand much of what I was seeing.  



This year, I'm still not Catholic, but I was a little better prepared. Well, at least I knew what to expect. CROWDS of people. Traffic stopped to allow the processions to sloooowly go by. Really cool man-made street carpets (called alfombras). Hoards of men and boys (called cucuruchos) dressed in purple robes. Ladies (called cargadoras) dressed in black and white with veils over their heads. And about 900 million gazillion camera-wielding idiots called Tourons -- part Tourist, part Moron. (I used to be one of them, so I'm allowed to poke fun. These days I am a reformed Touron.) (Or so I think.)



A big cucurucho carrying
a baby cucurucho.



I still have no clue about what's going on much of the time, but I'm pretty good at looking like I know what's happening. Basically, here's how it works... 

 Semana Santa is Antigua's Holy Week. It's not just Easter, but The Big Mac-Daddy, No Marshmallow Peeps Allowed, MEGA-Easter. The celebration in Antigua is huge and second in THE WORLD only to Spain. There are a lot of very big, very old, very Catholic churches in Antigua and each church sponsors it's own procession. Not only that, but each church also has its own Jesus and Mary. For example, one of the biggest and grandest churches is called La Merced. Their Jesus is Jesus Nazareno. Hermano Pedro Church's is Jesus Resucitado. Jesus Sepultado belongs to Cristo Church... and so on. So with each procession you will get one Jesus and one Mary float. Oh wait -- I used to call them floats -- as in parade floats -- but was told yesterday that I could be struck down by lightning for referring to them as such. They are called andas, not floats. (Get it right...or die by lightning.)



I scream, you scream,
we all scream for ice cream!



I've also learned that the people carrying the flo-- ooops, I mean ANDAS pay to do so. Yes, they pay to carry a very heavy anda around. Each anda is carried by anywhere from 60-132 people, depending on its size. The bigger the church, the more impressive the anda, the more cucuruchos needed... Yes, the andas are BIG, wooden, decorative and heeeaaavy. And if you want to carry the anda on a very public street where you will be seen by lots of your peers -- like around the park or near the church -- you pay MORE. Each procession lasts for 12 hours. People carry the andas in shifts and if you look at the pictures, you'll see little cards pinned to the front of their outfits. These cards tell each person when they are carrying the anda and what their place is. (Each spot along the sides of the anda has a number associated with it.) When a cucurucho isn't carrying the anda, he's free to roam the streets, so you'll often see these guys in their purple outfits hanging out in the park, eating an ice cream cone, puffing on a cigarette... Many of them choose to follow the procession route, which is why you see HUNDREDS of cucuruchos whenever there's a procession. Same with the cargadoras -- when they aren't carrying their smaller Virgin Mary anda, they are free to roam and do as they please.

Now, about these man-made street carpets called "alfombras." These are really cool. The biggest and most colorful ones are generally near the church sponsoring the procession. People put a lot of pride in making theirs the longest, most intricate, most colorful alfombra possible. It takes hours to create an alfombra and they can vary in size, but the biggies are somewhere around 35 feet long and 8 feet wide. Give or take. They are made using large wooden templates and are made entirely out of natural elements -- sawdust, sand, flowers, etc. Their sole purpose is to be lovingly and painstakingly created, looked upon in awe by the spectators (and the damn Tourons), then walked all over by the people carrying the andas. And 45 seconds after the procession is finished, the remnants are swept, scooped and shoveled into the bulldozers following behind the cucuruchos and cargadoras.

Here are a few pictures of an alfombra being born...

The guy on the far right is spraying water on the sawdust to keep it from blowing away...

Kneeling on a piece of cardboard on a cobblestone street... OUCH!  

Boards are placed across the alfombras so the workers can create the center designs.

It's slowly but surely coming along...

Stiiiiiill working...



Whatever you do... DON'T sneeze!

And drumroll, please... The finished alfombra!



Ta-daaa! Isn't it incredible? Hard to believe it's mostly sawdust, huh?
And see the smoke at the end of the street? That's the incense
from the approaching procession. The smell of that incense gets into
your nose and clings to your nose hairs for HOURS. Ugh.



OH! I forgot to mention the bands. Imagine the most depressing music you've ever heard. Now imagine it playing almost non-stop for 12 hours. I realize the whole idea of these processions is to demonstrate Jesus' suffering, and I also realize they can't play something lively and upbeat like the Charleston, but duuuuuude. Seriously. It's the most droning, depressing music ever played. It was surely written by someone who forgot to take their Prozac and was having a really bad day.

I taped one of the processions just so y'all could get a feel for the the passion, the dedication and the sheer volume of PEOPLE who come to and participate in this event. I cut this video waaay down (believe me, it was a lot longer) but if 3:12 minutes is too long for you, feel free to skip it and get on with your life. 

 



You thought I was kidding about the
Hello Kitty balloons, didn't you? Hmmm?
The bulldozer behind me is cleaning up the
alfombra that took all day to create. *sigh*

And after each procession, what should follow? VENDORS. Yes, vendors selling an amusing assortment of everything from Semana Santa puppets, to pinwheels, to sunglasses, to cotton candy, to balls, to foam lizards, to Hello Kitty balloons. And what could possibly represent Jesus' suffering better than a Hello Kitty balloon? Noooothiiiing. Right? (Stand back... I might get hit by that lightning after all...)

So there you have it -- Semana Santa in Antigua Guatemala. Like I said, it's a VERY big deal here. And we're all very eager for the Tourons to go home. (Except the pickpockets -- the Tourons are easy targets.)

So until we meet again, Happy Easter -- and stay thirsty my friends! And please save some of those Reese's Peanut Butter eggs for me -- yummmm!  

Introducing: The Nightmare Bug! ((barrrf!))

"Barf?" you ask.

Yes, BARF. Barfity-barf-barrrrf.

This is the story of The Nightmare Bug.

This image was taken from the blog of a woman who
lives in Antigua. (Not me.) She, too, has experienced
The Nightmare Bug. I feel her pain.

I had seen one of these before, when the gas man mistakenly removed the cover to the water tank, thinking it was where the gas tank goes... He opened the cement lid and there it was -- a Nightmare Bug, clinging to the side of the water tank, just hanging out. It was the scariest bug I had ever seen. It had a flat body, long legs and even longer antennae. It was the stuff nightmares are made of. Children of the world need not be afraid of the Boogeyman any longer -- I've found something MUCH more scary.

The gas man and I exchanged an "EeeEEEEeeeEEeeeew" (by the way, "eeeew" does not need to be translated -- it is universal) and he picked up a broken branch and started whacking at The Nightmare Bug. The bug, startled from his sleep, scampered away, moving further down the hole. I told the gas man, it's ok, no need to kill it, just put the cover back on and I won't have to ever see it again.

But I was wrong. Oh, so very, very wrong.



This man is obviously high on crack.
There is no other explanation for his behavior.

 A couple days ago, I was getting ready for bed and saw something on the floor. I got closer and -- HOLY $#!* -- it was The Nightmare Bug! Lola, the rescue dog we're fostering, was with me and even she was afraid of it. (She's small -- easy prey for this bug.) Lola looked and me and said, "You're on your own -- I'm outta here," and left the room. I went to grab a magazine, afraid to leave the bug alone for too long (I mean, how freaked out would YOU be if you left the room, came back 15 seconds later and it was GONE?) and was relieved to see it was still there, slowly walking around... This thing was even scarier than I remembered it. It's antennae alone are HUGE -- I mean at least 4 inches long. It had 6 legs and it was unlike anything I'd ever seen before, which made it even scarier. I can handle beetles, spiders and flying bugs no problem. But freaky alien bugs from hell? No way. Noooo waaaay.

My plan was to coax The Nightmare Bug on to the magazine then toss that bad boy outside, then lock and barricade the door. (In case it knows how to pick locks.)

But things did not go according to plan.

The Nightmare Bug got away.

Hard as I tried to get that bug to climb on the magazine, it figured out my devious plan and scampered quickly toward the back wall, where there is a built-in bookcase. It managed to scoot it's giant body between the wall and the bookcase -- where I couldn't reach it.



I found this picture online. This poor kid is going to need
some serious therapy after this ordeal.



Oh damn. Damn damn damn damn DAAAMN. Needless to say, every night I turn on the lights and check over near the bookcase to see if The Nightmare Bug has made an appearance.

From what I've read online, these are called Giant Tailless Whipscorpions and according to one website, "They have a gentle disposition. Though they are harmless, these bizarre-looking creatures are fast and agile and somewhat delicate. They can pinch with their claws but rarely do, choosing to run away instead."

Oooh goodie! So I have a friendly, harmless creature with claws -- but chooses not to use them -- living about 6 feet from where I sleep. Yaaay for me! And guess what? A lot of the websites out there give hints on how to keep these as PETS. This thing? A pet? The Nightmare Bug as a PET? You have got to be kidding me. The world is full of crazy people.

Ok, so who wants to come visit? Anyone? Anyone?

Until we meet again, be on the lookout for creepy bugs and stay thirsty, my friends!

Bad bad bad and BADDER... Or "Why I am doing the Ten-Toe-Trek nowadays"


 

Well, crap.



The Von Trapp Children, singing the bad news to me



And I mean it. What I am about to tell you can only be summarized as "WELL, CRAP."  

Our car was stolen about a week ago. Yep. STOOOO-LEN. From the street right outside the Puppy Palace. Yep. My friend Amber and I went out to eat and then to listen to a band play, and when we got back to where the car was, all that was left were the Von Trapp Children singing, "So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu... Adieu, adieu, to your green Su-ba-ruuuuu..." 

Damn those smug Von Trapp Children!

As if we have the money to replace it. As if we can afford to be carless. As if we had insurance on it. Let's put it this way -- most people (95% or more) don't have car insurance here. Why? Because it's an extra expense that most people can't (and won't) afford AND because most of the cars are pieces of crap held together only with duct tape, twine, and occasionally, bungee cords. So really, why insure a bungee-corded-duct-taped hunk of crap on wheels?


But not our car. Our car was not a crapmobile. Iggy, our 1998 Subaru station  

We could fit everything we owned inside Iggy. And yes,
we realize this makes us look like the Clampett's from
"The Beverly Hillbillies." But that's ok.

wagon, was a nice car. Other than being a gas-guzzling monster, it was the perfect car for here. Four-wheel drive, with a few dings and dents (but you can't avoid having dings and dents and besides, the dings and dents help your car blend in better) and a perrrrfect interior. Yes, Iggy was just right for Guatemala. And he was GREEN. Green is a good color for a car. It ain't easy being green, but Iggy pulled it off with style.

(insert hillbilly banjo music here)

So, now I'm left walking to town every day. It's not a terrible walk and I won't bitch too much about it because there are plenty of people who have it far worse than me. It takes about 25-30 minutes but the road I have to take is a winding, dusty, pot-holed 2-lane street lacking sidewalks in some areas, and in others, the sidewalks are about 2 feet off the ground so you have to jump UP to get on the sidewalk and when it ends you have to jump back DOWN. It's like a step aerobics workout AND a walk all rolled into one. Richard Simmons would be yelling to me, "You go girl!" if he could see me on this walk. Work it! Work it!

The municipality is attempting to repave sections of the road before Semana Santa (when a gazillion tourists will descend upon Antigua for numerous religious processions -- more on that later) so while they're out there working, I have to literally walk INTO traffic to go around their cones and equipment. Does the fun ever end? Oh no, it doesn't.

It's like a real-life version of the video game "Frogger" -- but this time I am the frog. Ribbit-ribbit.

And with every step I take on that walk to town, it only reminds me how mad I am that someone decided to steal what wasn't theirs. 

I want to find who did this and tie them up, coat them in bacon grease, pour hot cheese on them, then roll them in hamburger meat and offer them up to the dogs from the Puppy Palace as a human snack. I would just stand back and laaaaaugh and laaaugh... Heck, I'd probably take pictures, too.

And what's worse is that I had just purchased -- and lugged -- two giant 5-gallon containers of water into the back seat of the car. So, whoever stole the car is well hydrated, too. I wish I could go pack in time, pop open the lids of those water jugs and pee in both of them, just as a tiny form of revenge. You want to drink my stolen water? Fine. But I'm leaving you a little gift inside...

Until we meet again, stay thirsty (for non-stolen pee-laced water) my friends...