Semana Santa is certainly a week for the religious, but it’s also a week where the Antiguan community comes together and all of the residents are on the same team. The same goal. There is a single minded purpose to many of the activities and a devotion within the community that makes this week unlike anything I’ve ever previously experienced – it’s one of the richest holiday experiences I have had abroad.
Let’s take just one last look at the people and highlights from Semana Santa …

Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is perhaps one of the best times to be traveling in a Catholic country. Just as the Buddhist, Hindus and other religions have their colorful celebrations of devotion, sacrifice, and religious fervor, that’s Semana Santa week for the vast majority of Catholic Guatemalans – and the fantastic part of Semana Santa is that you don’t have to be religious at all to enjoy it, you just need an appreciation for other cultures and liking festivals would be a plus.
I’ve already talked about the decadently …

Construction on a Semana Santa carpet, or alfombra, starts in the wee hours of the morning when the cool Antigua air is still chilly on the skin and spotlights light up portions of the street where the alfombras will lie for mere minutes sometimes before the parades slowly shuffle along the cobbled streets, destroying the more than 12 hours worth of careful work and construction.
This video takes a look at the full life cycle of a Semana Santa carpet – from life until sad death:

Conception of a Semana Santa …

The buzz throughout the city of Antigua is infectious on the Wednesday before Easter; although the Semana Santa celebrations (Holy Week) don’t “officially” kick off until the morning of Holy Thursday, the colorfully picturesque town of Antigua, Guatemala has been milking this holiday for the past two weeks with early Semana Santa processions and mini-carpets of offerings. And though the Antiguans start the celebrations early, Wednesday is when actual true madness starts to descend once the tourists flood into Antigua.

Antigua is like a city taken right out of Disney …

The sounds of the wildlife at Tikal are what sold me on the experience.
I follow suit and listen for the sounds.
In the distance I hear a deep growling sound – it almost sounds like hogs…but only magnified times ten in both volume and intensity.
It’s the howler monkeys.
The ruins of Tikal, a pre-Columbian Mayan site, sit nestled still well within the Guatemalan jungle and although archeologists have uncovered numerous ruins all over the area, the forests are left in tact…and in fact they’re still hiding secrets as yet uncovered.
As we …

The ruins of Chichén Itzá were my first stop on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. As my first set of Maya ruins of this trip, I have to say, they’re quite a bit different from the temples architecture of Asia – and a good thing too because I got really “templed out” by the end of my time in SEA and India.
The Maya ruins are a whole different ball game though; the history behind the temples and the sacrifices and religious ceremonies held at Chichén Itzá are incredibly different …

The train landed in Florence, Italy and the city looked as indistinct as any other…but that was just the train station – hefting my backpack and setting out into the city had me quickly surrounded by a low-built city with gorgeous buildings and a impossibly small-town vibe.
Somehow I missed Florence on my first trip through Italy so this time the  fabled art and architecture and all around beauty were mine to consume for a week (and by beauty I mean the sheer and inexplicable exquisiteness that is Michelangelo’s …