Mobs and Religious Processions

The mob

The cow truck we got stuck behind-makes you want a burger-yuck!

Antigua Procession

Volcano

Antigua old churches

Antigua at night

Sunday, March 25 2012

This morning we left Coban to drive to Antigua.  It was a long drive that took us around six hours and should have taken around four hours.  We don’t have the best map in the world for Guatemala and we didn’t know if we were on the right road for most of the day.  We also were waylaid by several acts of man. 

Our first delay was on a hill before Ciudad de Guatemala.  This road was under construction and it seemed that we were still moving at an acceptable pace until we came upon a large mob.  This mob was carrying flags and banners and wearing lots of red capes.  These individuals were peaceable enough but they were taking up a whole lane of the mountain road.  This caused us to wait in line for about an hour before we were able to pass one lane, then the other.  The entire time this mob took up a whole lane!  I don’t understand what they expected to achieve by this protest except to cause a lot of people to be inconvenienced. 

Our second delay was when we drove through Guatemala City.  We did not have a good map and the GPS isn’t completely accurate in cities.  Jon followed the dashboard compass and eventually got us going in the right direction after coming to several dead ends. Guatemala City was bad but not as bad as all the hype has made it out to be.

Our third and final delay came when we entered Antigua.  We should have known as soon as we pulled up and there were many individuals standing in the street asking us for money.  We pretended not to know what they were talking about and they waved us on through.  The roads were blocked off and we were not able to get to the area of town where we wanted to look for a hotel.  We still didn’t know what was going on but eventually realized that there was another religious procession in town.  This could go on for hours!  We tried several different ways but eventually got stuck behind the actual procession.  So we parked the truck and I walked up to take some pictures while Jon waited in case we moved.  We were probably stuck here for about an hour.  When we were finally able to move we realized we couldn’t get around town very easily by truck so we parked and walked to find a place to stay.  The first place told us they were booked and we wouldn’t find anything because of the procession and all the prices would be much higher.  Luckily we didn’t stop after that because we found a place that was everything we needed at a reasonable price on our 4th try.  We are considering staying another night in Antigua to hike up one of the volcanoes before we head onward.

*A little bit about Semana Santa:  considered Holy Week in Christianity is the last week of Lent and the week before Easter. It includes the religious holidays of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday), Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. It does not include Easter Sunday.  Today’s activity was a procession with music provided by a marching band type, scents provided by flowers and incense, and bearers of a large coffin like object with depictions of Jesus and a cross.  It was quite a spectacle and I am glad to have seen Antigua’s famous Semana Santa processional but as always when we go somewhere people stare at us because we are also a spectacle.