WE SPENT two nights in San Miguel de Allende that, by pure chance, sat in Semana Santa, Easter Week.
We drove there to visit an old friend who had flown down from Texas with a couple who had invited him to share a few days in a vacation rental in the Gringo-infested town.
The old friend and I had planned this get-together months ago, neither realizing it was Semana Santa. It just dawned on me about two weeks ago.
Semana Santa, to Mexicans, is Spring Break with Jesus Christ. We have a multitude of religious ceremonies and Easter parades here on the mountaintop and tons of tourists, but I figured it would be calmer in San Miguel.
I could not have been more mistaken.
It was almost like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Downtown was mobbed with people. Lines waited outside restaurants.
Streets were blocked.
We arrived Thursday for two nights and one full day — Good Friday — in a downtown hotel, and we left yesterday.
We had a great visit with the friend, and we came away with these two faces — photos — of Semana Santa.
A third photo shows another face, a sad one, a man who passed on the street in the best way he could. Every few feet he would stop, squat upright on the street, and jiggle his coin can.
What struck me most about him, apart from his disability, was that his hair was trimmed and slicked back very neatly.
Everyone has pride.
Mexican Catholicism is unique (based on what I’ve read): a strange mix of various ideas and practices.
Great photos. Love black and white photography.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ray: Spanish Catholicism was altered over much of Latin America by the beliefs already in place among the locals, of course.
Thanks for the photo feedback. Sometimes people just pose for me intentionally, or so it seems.
LikeLike
Morelia Semana Santa traffic reached the levels of everyday traffic of the 1970s. Nice and quiet. And up on the hill, it was like living in a ghost town.
LikeLike
Ms. Shoes: The Morelia situation is no mystery. They all went to San Miguel. I have no clue why I thought San Miguel would be rather low-key, but now I know better. Never again. I’m not a crowd man.
LikeLike
Out here on el Rancho, Sunday was like Death Valley. The big action was the weekly carnitas stand on the main street. (I bought a medio kilo.)
Saludos,
Don Cuevas
LikeLike
Don Cuevas: It was like Death Valley on el Rancho because everybody was in San Miguel de Allende.
LikeLike
Before Antigua, Guatemala, became an expat haven we had discovered it and its ritualistic Easter week practices. At that time you couldn’t find a place to stay anywhere close, so we chose to go the day after Easter and it was a good decision. Some of the streets were still decorated with the colored sand paintings and the huge polished, processional platforms bearing different saints carried on the shoulders of men dressed in purple were displayed in the churches (of which there are many in the 10 square blocks of Centro Historico) for us to see up close. That was a good trip, before Antigua became overrun.
LikeLike
Carole: I’ve never set foot in Guatemala, and likely never will. Other spots are higher on my priority list.
LikeLike
Hmmm … we may have passed each other in the street. I’ve been in SMA almost a month. The guy with the coin can didn’t especially seem to appreciate the coins I dropped in his can. You should have stayed for today’s burning and blowing up of the Judases. Such fun to see Trump blown to smithereens.
LikeLike
Angeline: Well, I’m be darned. I did not know you were there now. I would have treated you to a cafecito.
Yes, the Mexicans are universally opposed to The Donald. They take considerable umbrage at his saying they don’t have the right to enter the U.S. illegally. Sure they do, they universally contend.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m sorry we couldn’t have shared a cafecito. At the Judas event I was surrounded by chance by a group of American expats…it’s not just the Mexicans here taking umbrage with the Donald.
LikeLike
Angeline: You were surrounded by a gaggle of Gringos in San Miguel. Now, there’s a dog-bites-man yarn. Of course, you were. And, of course, they don’t like The Donald. All the Gringos in San Miguel are collectivists and card-carrying ACLU members.
LikeLike