Easter Sunday, April 6, 2007
Tijax Marina, Fronteras, Rio Dulce
A Gringa (Partially)
Does Holy Week in Antigua
If we Americans are guilty of pageantry
and associated gluttony at Christmas, we are only outdone by
the magnitude of Holy Week (Semana Santa) in Guatemala in
general, Antigua in particular.
Monday I took a shuttle van with our
boat buddies Rosie and Don from Chickcharnie for the 6-hour
trip to Antigua. The drive was amazing, and relaxing in
that someone else had to be responsible for negotiating the
potholed mountain road and building holiday traffic. We
arrived in Antigua at about 2:30 in the afternoon, and
checked into a triple room at a private, restored 17th
century colonial house run by the charming, outgoing Karla,
who spoke no English but greeted us like long lost family.
The home was completely nondescript
from the street – just a yellow plaster building with a big
heavy black door. But once through the door, we found
a typical Spanish home, complete with interior courtyard and
wildly flowering three-story garden. Don, Rosie and I
shared a triple room on the second floor, and just steps
outside our door was a comfortable outdoor parlor and garden
terrace that continued up to the roof, where there was a
spectacular view of one of Antigua’s three volcanoes.
The cost of the room was an outrageous $20 per person per
night, and included afternoon coffee and kitchen privileges!
Her home is two cobblestone blocks from the signature church
in Antigua, Nuestra Senora de la Merced (Our Lady of Mercy),
a large yellow church with a white plaster lace façade. In
the church square, food vendors were crowded together with
boiling pots of oil for deep frying churros, grills for
hand-making tortillas, mangoes carved into beautiful orange
flowers on sticks, and riotous displays of sweets.
 After a stroll through town and some
preliminary shop scouting, we returned to the church to tour
the inside with the other Holy Week pilgrims and were
treated to a concert featuring solemn funeral music from a
full on concert orchestra with a marimba section, and hymns
sung by a children’s choir. We were pressed along by the
crowd toward the church’s ritual “alfombra,” a mosaic
“carpet” made with flower petals, colored sawdust, fruits,
vegetables, and plants.
Opting for dinner among the masses, we
chose do-it-yourself tacos from a Mayan family stand,
complete with gyro-like beef, homemade guacamole and salsa,
and beans – and ate sitting on the steps as we watched the
hundreds of faithful chow down. – unlike the other tourists
who seemed wary of street food. Heck – at less than $2.00
apiece for dinner, what was there to be wary about? We
finished dinner off with a stop at the sweets stand for
“angel tongues” (literal translation of the Spanish,
actually marshmallows) and some candy made from condensed
milk that felt like reeeeeaaaaaaly sweet squishy caramel or
penuche. Tuesday was reserved for heavy shopping
that included visits to the National Geographic Mayan jade
store and to the House of Weaving, an independent museum
completely run by Mayans – actually one of the only
Mayan-run businesses in Antigua (http://casadeltejido.org/index.html).
I have looked at Guatemalan weaving many times, dismissing
it as cheap and gaudy – but that’s what we do with our
uneducated eyes. The museum taught me great respect for
Guatemalan fabrics, as well as traditional Mayan costuming
entirely woven by hand using a back strap loom, each garment
taking at minimum weeks, at maximum six months to complete.
Like in many indigenous cultures, the educated eye can look
at a piece of weaving or an element of costuming and
identify the exact region and village of the wearer. I’m
not yet educated.
 Tuesday evening, I opted to taste the local rum – Botran –
the 12-year-old sipping rum is every bit as good as Havana
Club Reposada – and at $7.50 per bottle, may replace the
Bombay Sapphire martinis at cocktail hour chez Emma Jo.
Hey, family, guess what you’re getting for souvenirs…
Wednesday morning, while Rosie and Don
negotiated brass and pewter conchas for the door to the
house they are building, I wandered toward the central
square and the Church of San Ignacio, where there was
another alfombra, and a helpful walking tour guide who
ingratiated himself enough to escort me through the ruins of
San Ignacio, then further into the city to the Cathedral of
San Francisco for yet another alfombra and the staging area
for the Good Friday procession. Two city blocks were taped
off to gather the icons and relics, and the Stations of the
Cross were arranged in ghoulishly realistic order, ready to
be hoisted onto the shoulders of purple-clad bearers for the
big deal on Good Friday. The Mayans were moving their food
streets to this staging area and the square outside San
Francisco, where I guess the really crowded stuff goes on
for the rest of the week. Here's some of what I saw:
I had read in an
English-language magazine about a new shop in Antigua
featuring the artistry of the area’s only chocolatier, so I
had the tour guide drop me off for rosemary-infused dark
chocolate and the remaining 3 chocolate bunnies in the store
(might have been the only chocolate bunnies in Guatemala,
for all I know!) A short visit to a dress shop earned me
two sundresses made of hand-woven cotton for $20 apiece (you
can go broke saving money here), then it was back to the van
for the long trek back to Fronteras and the Rio.
We caught some holiday traffic in Guatemala City (not a
place I care to see much of – traffic, pollution, crime) and
our 5-1/2 hour trip back ended up taking 8-1/2 hours. We
found a roadside eatery (comedor, as opposed to restaurante)
with a couple of police vans out front and a dozen cops
inside, and counting on the donut syndrome, ordered up the
special of the day, cheerfully cooked by mom and auntie, and
served by daughter or niece. I’ll give it a week – if I
don’t get Montezuma’s by then, I probably never will.
I arrived back at Tijax to find the
place jammed full of holidaymakers from all over the world,
and quickly reconsidered a quiet afternoon by the pool when
I discovered about 20 kids squealing and playing with
inflatables (including a blow-up 747) that took up half the
space in the water. Back on the boat, it wasn’t much
better, as several of the city folk had towed their jet skis
and speedboats with them on vacation, and the stern of Emma
Jo only about 100 feet away, was not the most stable of
relaxing spots.
Part of the Easter celebration here
also included a procession of relics and statuary, complete
with palm fronds and funeral music – but on boats that
cruised both sides of the river. I didn’t quite get the
penance involved in loading Jesus and his friends up onto
Cayucos with 25-horse Yamahas on the back, but hey – I never
was too Catholic.
Easter Sunday came and went quietly –
with most of the vacationers from Tijax. Spent the evening
with friends enjoying barbecue at Bruno’s across the river.
Tomorrow holds the possibility of a cold, quiet beer by the
pool and some reflection about holiday excess.
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