Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala

In Guatemala we decided to go to Antigua, a city that was a 90 minute bus ride inland.

We totally lucked out on this stop! Our one day stop here happened to fall on the biggest celebrated day of the year in Antigua. There is a huge Holy Week celebration called Semana Santa held in Antigua and on this day, Good Friday, there is a grand procession. People travel from all around for days and days to attend this celebratory week.



We got there before the procession started and saw a few of the floats lined up at the beginning of the procession route and snapped a few shots.



People make these elaborate sawdust rugs in the street for the procession to walk through. These take hours to create and are is so many different shapes and patterns.




There is a large jade mine in Guatemala and we spent a lot of time in the shop/factory/museum, Jades S.A, of the woman who discovered the mine years ago. She is very passionate about the entire process and oversees everything. This big 'rock' Rob is touching is pure jade and is her 'retirement rock', worth quite a chunk of change. This was a really interesting shop...our bags were much heavier and our pockets were quite a bit lighter after we left!



I loved all the architecture...especially all of the old churches. This is the Church of San Francisco.



Iglesia de las Capuchinas. Even though it's a crumbling mess, I think it was my favorite.

The Cathedral de Santiago



Sure, the place was old...but naturally, they have a Dominos! They deliver too...on bicycles



Now isn't this the cutest little taxi you've ever seen!?! They aren't very fast though...you'd get around quicker by walking.



This little city is surrounded by huge volcanoes (which we had to drive over to get there), but somehow I managed not to get a picture of a single one! You can see the base of a couple of them in a few of these pictures though. Go here to view a couple online shots, they are definitely worth glancing at.

I didn't get any procession pictures either, but Rob says that is just a reason to go back...I don't disagree! This would have been an amazing visit any day, but it was extra-super-incredibly amazing that our visit happened to fall in the middle of such a special celebration.