Semana Santa

I know what you might be thinking... Semana Santa? Christmas was four months ago.

Well, down here in Central America Semana Santa is the biggest religious celebration of the year. It starts on Palm Sunday and lasts through Easter.

Antigua, Guatemala is known throughout Latin America for it's huge processions. We were able to see the big kick-off procession this last Sunday and, let me tell you, it was impressive. The procession started at 8 am and continued until well after 10 pm. People from all over came to Antigua to be a part of this procession...the city was packed.

As you can see in the picture, there were men in purple robes all over the city. The women dressed in white blouses with black skirts and covered their hair with black shawls. The streets were also decorated with intricate art work made of either colored saw dust or leaves and flowers. There was also no lack of incense in the streets.

The most impressive sights were the big wood platforms bearing scenes from the bible being carried (yes, I said carried) throughout the city. These structures looked like they weighed a couple tons and were carried by about 100 men. There were also smaller bible story platforms carried by only women. Apparently, it's a very big honor to be able to carry these platforms and people pay a good sum of money to be a part of the procession.

The platforms were followed by a street filled with people and live bands playing unique, half tempo music. The square in front of the church was packed with food stands and onlookers. We found the best churros we've ever tasted in the square...made completely from scratch. Brandon and I were able to see the procession at many points throughout the day...they covered every square inch of Antigua.

These catholics don't mess around.

Passing Through Nicaragua

Here's a picture of the van parked in front of Isla Ometepe in the middle of Lago Nicaragua. And, yes, there are two volcanoes on the island.

Hot Times

From El Salvador we headed north to Antigua, Guatemala. You might have heard of this place at your local Starbucks. For those of you who a fans of the bean, this place has amazing coffee. It's a great little colonial city that's been overrun by tourist in the last few years. Therefore, it has a strange authentic yet manufactured feel. Hence, great food, cool shops, tons of spanish schools and higher than normal prices...but we'd totally recommend a visit to anybody.

This city is nestled between three different volcanoes. Believe it or not we took the opportunity to climb one of them...Volcan Pacaya. Well, given our last two run-ins with robbery, we had to cough up the money for two new pairs of shoes, but it was completely worth it.

The initial part of the hike up was super steep. Brandon and I think that these Guatemaltecos are smarter than many give them credit for. While we were hiking up this steep section, men were following us with horses taunting, "Taxi, nececita un taxi? Horse is bueno." Let me tell you, hiking at altitude when you've been at sea level for the last couple months isn't so easy on the lungs. We toughed through the really steep section and made it to the more reasonably inclined trail without caving in for a "taxi"...but there were plenty of others who took the men up on their offers.

After about an hour and a half of hiking we arrived to the lava crusted section of the volcano. Our guide informed us that this volcano had been oozing lava regularly since April of 2006. We walked over some hardened rivers that had been running hot just the day before...Pretty cool (or should I say hot?)

Finally, we made it up to hot magma. We were able to get about ten feet away until we felt like a marshmallow on the fourth of July :)

As the sun started to set, the lava started to look more and more impressive. The darker it got, the brighter the lava looked. At points the situation seemed kind of sketchy because pieces of hot lava rocks would break from the river and topple down the volcano...in our direction. Luckily, nobody was hit, but our guide did inform us that if we found ourselves in the path of one of these hot boulders we should run...sounded like a fail proof plan to us.

We stayed at the lava rivers until night fall and then hiked down the volcano in the dark. Mind you there were horses (taxis) on this trail earlier...hence we stepped in lots of horse crap on the way down. Horse crap aside, it truly was a great experience to be able to experience the power of the earth in such close range.