The land of Volcanoes and Churches

To travel through Central America without knowing Spanish is a bit of a wasted opportunity. This year is supposed to be about really experiencing new things. For this reason we decided to enrol into Zamora Academia in Antigua for one month and learn Spanish. At$200 a week including all classes, food and accommodation, this is a pretty sweet deal.

Antigua is a picturesque city of cobbled streets, bright houses, old, colonial ruins, many beautiful churches, cafes and bars surrounded by volcanoes. It’s amazing; you forget they’re there but when you look up they tower over everything. It is a very cool city, a cultural hub.

4am Dulce Tipico

Our first week there was the best time to be there. Not only did it cross over with Bernie and her sister Anni’s trip letting us all study together, but it was Semana Santa. Semana Santa is the week before Easter, a week of religion and celebration of Christ. Each church(and there are a lot of them) makes a giant pedestal the size of a bus with a scene from the life of Christ on top. Families and friends work for hours in the day or through the night to make Alfombras, the most beautiful, intricate and bright carpets in the streets. The carpets are made of sawdust, coloured sand, flowers, leaves and any other offerings. It is a source of pride for each group and they spend months designing the carpets and making stencils. After hours of work and the creation of art which is truly beautiful, hundreds of people from the church carry the pedestal in ‘La Procession’ through the streets and over the carpets, destroying them. There is no prize for the best carpet and no incentive to do this, the people do it for a love of god and to embrace their tradition. It is amazing and so different to anything in Australia.

The whole week had a festival vibe with markets, food stalls and even people carrying fairy floss and balloons following the processions. 

A Procession

Friday morning was the big processions and the five of us stayed up till 5 am, drinking in chic little bars and going for a 1am latte so we could walk the streets to see the most beautiful of the carpets get made. 

An evening drink before the festivities

A Snack at the most beautiful burger king in the world

A 1 am Latte to keep us going

I would pay a lot of money for some of the carpets I saw that night(if they were permanent).  At 4 am the procession came out of the church and destroyed everything.

My Favourite

An interesting aspect of this celebration is that Easter means nothing here. There is no giving of chocolate, no easter bunny and just the usual church service. We had our own celebration of easter: chocolate gifts, the most amazing hotcross buns and banana bread I’ve ever had from Dona Louisa and nachos and guacamole in the beautiful setting of the lovers park where a couple can be found making out at any time in the day. 

Easter picnic with the crew: we had a few curious onlookers to take our photo

Mayan chocolate gifts- an awesome easter