Today started at 5:20 am when I woke up with a start in a grungy guesthouse in Antigua, unable to recall my alarm going off at 4:45 am, groggy, the drums that proceed Semana Santa processions beating nearby, the only thought in my head: I´m going to miss it all!
A friend and I pulled on some clothes and ran outside in the half-dark to join other sleepy procession devotees. We raced past five or six sawdust alfombras, or carpets (which we saw people just beginning to start making at 11 pm the night before) and quickly spotted the purple robes of the men who line the parade route in the hundreds, a honor guard of sorts for the Jesus and Mary statues that would pass by, the backup singers of the float-carrying band of Catholics. The float-bearers were dressed as Roman soldiers, complete with matching leather sandals and staffs with metal points, and they swayed from side to side as they struggled to heave the heavy float, with Jesus and his cross perched atop amid thorns and ferns. Women dressed in black with black mantillas on their heads followed, carrying an equally formidable float that held a statue of the Virgin Mary, beautifully dressed in a blue cloak and looking quite serene despite the hundreds of vueltas around the streets she was about to undergo. As the sun came up, the crowds dissapated, off to breakfast and to prep for the continued processions throughout the day.
At Bagel Barn I ate my first bagel since I´d been in the States in January and, enamored of the cream cheese, actually licked the last remaining bits out of the bowl in which it was served. Then my friends and I headed back to our room for a nap. When we woke we grabbed some lunch at a place that offered to let us screen a movie of our choice in a little back room. We watched ¨Chocolat.¨ It was an excellent break and we emerged rejuvenated and really in the mood for some good chocolate, which we later failed to find. However, the puffy fried balls of dough sold on the street--like munchkins but bigger and more deliciously glazed--sated our hunger for sweetness.
In the afternoon, I visited the ruins of the church on the main square, the destruction wrought by an earthquake in the 1700s. It was so peaceful--and free of people trying to sell me things, which is rare here. I´ve begun to think that all churches should have open ceilings. I suppose it´d be a bit inconvenient, but seeing the sky out of those large portholes in the desolate nave was really beautiful.
Walking back to the parque central to meet my friends, I cut through the present-day parish church, commonly referred to as a cathedral but evidently not actually one, and came upon crowds watching a statue of Jesus, formerly hung on a cross on the steps of the church, be incensed and blessed before being placed on an inclined bed on top of yet another huge float. A large group of men, dressed in black robes this time, hoisted it on their soldiers and left the church, beginning yet another procession through town. At that point, all of the alfombras had long been trampled, the colored mix of sawdust and pinebranches and fruits and flower petals shovled into dump trucks that follow the processions along their routes. But crowds still lined the sidewalks and street corners to see the statues go by.
Tonight the plan is for a relaxing dinner, drinks at the Irish pub here (we were there last night briefly but left shortly after the power went out), and then packing up for our bus ride back home, which begins at 3:30 am. I don´t think going to sleep is part of the plan. Blessed Good Friday, everybody.
