Semana Santa is the Easter week celebration. It’s a biiiiig thing here in Antigua, Guatemala. Every year, over a million people descend on this very cool, historic town at the foot of Volcan de Agua to see the Semana Santa processions at Antigua Easter. So what’s our outsiders’ insight into the world’s largest Easter celebrations? And how do we end up doing a post-Easter overlanding rocket-blast all the way north through Guatemala, through Mexico, to Texas?
Easter Parades
First… confession time… we not really religious. Generally, we don’t partake in Easter celebrations (other than the glutenous ritual of eating too many chocolate eggs, obvs!). But we love checking out cultural events, big or small, as we travel. With this many people in one town, it’s got to be worth a bit of time. So we drag ourselves away from the spectacular views of Lake Atitlan and head to down-town Antigua. We spent a while here last time we were in Guatemala and it’s our favourite town in Central America.
Scroll through… Scenes around Antigua Easter
We arrived in Antigua the weekend before the big event and there were already daily processions, snaking for many miles around the streets. Some of the processions take up to 12-14 hours continuing through the night. The atmosphere in town was really buzzing in a lovely way. Not solemn, but also not loud ‘party-partay’ exhuberance. There was a joyful but calm ambience with families and all ages gathering and taking part.
Scroll through… The many, many Easter Antigua processions
Purple is the sponsor colour of the week. Windows, doors and balconies around town are artfully draped in purple fabrics and flowers, and many men are dressed in purple robes. We learned that apparently, purple symbolizes penance, humility, and sorrow for Jesus’ suffering and is the traditional colour for Lent in the run-up to Easter. Interesting, eh! And all quite a sight to behold.
Bit surprising was that the town was actually pretty well prepared and organised for the whole thing! Information booths around town… staff in purple shirts answering questions, directing traffic and crowds. Forgive us, Latin America… but this just doesn’t tally with our experience of the usual endearingly chaotic Latino way of event organisation.
One added Brucie Bonus to the unfolding events, is that many streets are closed to traffic. Antigua’s narrow cobbled streets can sometimes be clogged-up with cars. Now, instead of the usual vehicles getting in the way, we have uninterrupted views of beautiful colonial houses backdropped by a gob-smacking volcano. Also the lack of traffic allows lots of food stalls and traders selling colourful toys, trinkets, snacks, popcorn, souvenirs… everything! And the customary exhaust fumes of cars with uncontrolled emission standards are replaced by dense clouds of smoky incense from the processioners swinging the burners.
The Antigua Easter street ‘carpets’ – flowers, sawdust and sand stencilled into patterns
At procession time, the crowds make it very hard to see it at its start-point emerging from the relevant church. But getting to see a procession somewhere along its long route is easy. Mr Google has good and reliable info on the routes/timings. The processions shuffle along at a very slow pace and you can hear the bands coming a mile away. Then there’s the beautiful street ‘carpets’ of brightly coloured flower, sand and saw-dust carefully placed by local residents. These are a the biggest clue that you’re in the right place to wait for a procession to pass shortly. And if all else fails, just follow your nose to the strong smell of incense and you’ll find a procession or two!
Sparing you our extended ramblings on the extraordinary experience of Semana Santa in Antigua, we’ll revert to the old adage that ‘a picture tells 1000 words’ and give you a few thousand words in a photo gallery:
Rocket-blast through Mexico
As the Easter celebrations of Antigua start winding-up, we’re thinking about slowly heading back north through Mexico towards USA. But as we’re about to leave Antigua, news comes in of an imminent SpaceX Starship rocket launch some 3,000 km away at Boca Chica, Texas in just one weeks’ time.
Meeting good friends, taking a break from the toll-roads, and Huasteca Potosina sightseeing
Now… 430km per day for 7 days on Mexican toll-roads might not sound like mucho for your average speedy-car-cruiser. But our Cuthbert isn’t a speedy-car-cruiser. He isn’t built for cruising highways. He cruises on good roads at around 80kph, so that’s at least 38 hrs solid driving, around 6 hrs per day. And Cuthbert’s not the most comfortable cab for 6 hrs per day. Ideally, we stick to max 3-4 hrs per day. But if there is anything that is going to persuade Marcus to drive the drive, it’s a live rocket launch. And not just any old rocket launch, this is the first launch of SpaceX’s Starship, the world’s biggest ever space rocket! The drive-hardship to get there is, as they say, a First World Problem!
End of day one, we’ve cleared the Guatemala/Mexico border. We’re sooooo chuffed to cross paths and spend a lovely evening with our overlanding friends Heather, Jon and Ivan. It would’ve been great to spend a bit more time together, but Elon’s not going to put Starship on hold for us. Got to ‘step on the gas’.
Most of the route through Mexico we took the cuotas (toll roads) which avoid a trillion… correction… a gazillion topes (speed bumps). Topes are the bane of every overlanders journey through the country. At a few points we took a break from the cuotas and took short-cuts through the countryside. Despite the inevitable topes, it was a nice break from the highways.
Tamaulipas to Texas
The most direct route to SpaceX, Boca Chica would have been up the Gulf coast through the State of Tamauplipas. We pondered this for a while but hesitated due to the security situation there. We decided to take a bit longer route around Tamaulipas to the west.
Now… hear us out before you shout at your screen that all the ‘warnings’ about safety in Mexico are over-hyped and excessively cautious. We know… we agree. We’re not really personally bothered about the supposed ‘risk’ in Mexico of kidnappings and car-jackings etc (we’d like to see them make a quick getaway in Cuthbert anyway 🤣). We’ve driven extensively around most of the country for over 18 months in total with not a hint of a problem. But if we choose to go to a UKFCO ‘orange’ area, then there are adverse affects on our travel insurance.
If there weren’t an easy way around the State, we’d go through it. But Tamaulipas isn’t famous for any spectacular scenery, it’s totally do-able to go around it. And by going around we get the lovely scenery of Huasteca Potosina on the way!
Finally, after five days driving far more than the planned six hours, we’re welcomed into Texas by friendly US guards. Onwards to the SpaceX’s Starbase launch site.
Tune in next time for our news from Elon’s pad… SpaceX’s Starbase Starship launch!