Our Day in Antigua

Going to Antigua for the Semana Santa (Easter) was an interesting and beautiful experience. We left Guat City on a small bus at 6:30 am. We traveled with about 18 other Senior Missionaries. The drive took about 45 minutes getting us to the hotel ­­­­­­­­­­Santo Domingo in time for breakfast. The food was good but slow in the service… We had a tour guide with us for the day, that was good except when he decided to go off on his own?!? Its really interesting watching the people create the colorful carpets in the center of the roads. The most beautiful and colorful ones use colored sawdust. They set down forms and proceed to fill them in with various colors of sawdust. The end results are most beautiful, as you can see in the pictures.

The roads are all cobble stone, all hand created many hundreds of years ago. I love the effect but the walking takes some practice. The carpets are created on top of these stones, when completes the Catholic processions walk over them. They have many processions during the Holy week so many people are involved in making the carpets, over and over again. I was touched by their dedication and devotion to this form of honoring the Savior.

The processions are made up of people who pay a lot of money to participate in them. They carry these platforms that are made our of hard woods, they must weigh 100’s of pounds each. The people place them on their shoulders, the most we counted on each side was 80 men. The platforms have depictions of the Christ carrying his cross, Some have other depictions of Christ and Saints. The ones that have Mary are carried by women. They are beautiful, but they left me with a since of sadness because they were all about the darkness of Christ's death. We were told that on Easter Sunday they have a smaller procession celebrating the resurrection. I would love to see that part one day. Also the platforms are followed by men and young boys dressed in purple robes. The little ones are wonderful to watch, they are so cute. Some were so small they fell asleep on their papa’s shoulders.

Over all we had a great experience, we did have the loss of one wallet and a hand bag got slashed in the crush of people. If ever you get the opportunity to go Do Not carry valuables with you. Remove your watches, jewelry and split up your money putting it in different places on your body!

After lunch we loaded up onto the bus and headed home, all tuckered out but happyJ!