Las Alfombras- Semana Santa-Antigua... the first of many posts

Semana Santa is the holy week that leads up to Easter in Guatemala. In reality, Good Friday is the day that is celebrated with the most festivities and reverence. For this reason we trekked to Antigua, Guatemala to see what was happening. It was an incredible sight. Many streets were closed because the processions were taking place all day long. The first one began at 5 a.m. and the last one ended around 3 a.m. the next morning. I will post more about these processions. For now, I will focus on the carpets below.
The tradition is for people to make carpets (alfombras) out of sawdust. The sawdust is dyed to an assortment of colors and then people use the dust to create beautiful scenes. They are placed in the streets where the parades pass and are destroyed as soon as the are stepped on. The entire processional route is covered with these alfombras that were being completed up until the moment that the Roman Soldiers began marching. It really was an incredible sight. Below was my favorite alfombras in Antigua!

A work in progress

Here come the Roman Soldiers

I wanted to help!!

Check out how the people have to lay on boards to reach across.
Even fruit is used in some alfombras.


Very detailed!

The streets are left with just the remnants of saw dust!