Guatemalan city rolls out the carpet for Easter
ANTIGUA, Guatemala — The rising sun hasn’t lit up the cobblestone streets of this colonial city yet, but people of all ages are busy covering them with brightly colored sawdust mosaics and carpets made of flowers and fruits.
Many have worked overnight on these elaborate masterpieces that will disappear in a couple of minutes under the feet of dozens of men carrying a 3-ton religious float.
Whether shouldering massive sacred images or decorating the streets on which they will pass, the people of Antigua Guatemala create one of the world’s most dazzling and moving displays of Easter devotion.
That makes early spring an ideal time to visit this volcano-ringed city that looks remarkably as it did 500 years ago, when it was the capital of Spain’s Central American empire.
Easter festivities kick off the fifth Sunday of Lent — April 2 this year — with the first procession revering Jesus’ passion. A group of 90 “cucuruchos,” purplerobed and hooded volunteers, shoulders a blocklong wooden float at the parish of San Bartolome Becerra at 6 a.m.
Every 100 yards on the 7.5-mile route, a new group will step in until the antique sculpture of Jesus falling under the weight of the cross has made its way through the city center.
It will be 1 a.m. the next day before the last group deposits the float back at San Bartolome, said Hiram Salazar, spokesman for the Catholic confraternity in charge of this procession that was first recorded in 1902.
By Easter Sunday, these scenes are repeated as a dozen other processions carry sacred images through the city. Most happen during Holy Week (for 2017, April 9-16). Local newspapers publish detailed guides.