Easter (Semana Santa, the Holy Week) in Antigua, Guatemala.  The CARPETS are most amazing, some costing hundreds, even thousands of dollars.  They are made of coloured sawdust, flowers, even fruits and vegetables, many other materials, small statues eating the "Last Supper", or miniatures of the processions, etc.  Many carpets take teams of people all night to make, under floodlights.

I took so many photos, that this page now breaks all the rules on how many images to use and page size for websites ... but I hope that you enjoy seeing them.  The carpets that people make are amazing!  Behind each small photo, there is a larger photo ... click and see it ... some images are quite large.

This carpet on the Calle Ancha, "Broad Street", features Mayan themes, with a Maya head in the foreground, birds and other designs further out.  The carpet south of Santa Clara, on the left was a whole block long.  Another Calle Ancha carpet with a Mayan theme, the woman in the foreground is holding pineapples and fruits, and beyond her are guacamayas, or large macaws.  On the right, a little boy has just lit up another dose of incense and is waving it over a carpet, waiting for the coming procession. The carpet above was made of fresh flowers and had a picture of Jesus and the Last Supper.  In the carpet on the left, each angel was holding a different message.  A beautiful carpet in front of the Cathedral, in the main square of Antigua, made of a combination of sawdust, flower petals and fresh flowers.  On the left, by the Santa Clara convent, a team is building a "carpet" made of crates full of ripe mangoes ... let's hope the procession does not slip crossing them ... African daisies and other flower petals make this lovely carpet.  On the right, a family shares carpet-making about 6:30 a.m. wife and daughter hand the husband flowers to complete the job.  Families, friends, neighbours, all share Easter carpet-making.  Above, the Street of the Arch.  Here, people took it easy.  While the early morning carpets were being destroyed in other parts of town, here they only just started to make carpets for the evening procession.  On the left, one of the bigger carpets in Calle Ancha, "Broad Street", where many people worked all night on their carpets and were finishing them only just ahead of the procession. Calle Ancha, "Broad Street" ... a carpet in final stages of construction.  The blue border is being laid down and flowers installed on top.  On the right, the next carpet up is ready.  You see that the hills behind are very brown ... it has not rained since November.  They will turn green in May again. Viernes Santo, Easter Friday, 6 a.m. ... Roman soldiers in the streets of Antigua.  Behind them, Volcano Agua. Palm Sunday.  The block south of us has a long carpet, to which I contribute.  The cost of flowers has skyrocketed this week.  The house is to the right, was yellow at the time, now is white, beyond the tuk-tuk.  The block north of the house, above, had many carpets made of pine and fresh flowers.  The carpet on the right, in front of the Doña Louisa bakery, had a miniature procession going down the street.   The carpet above, made of sawdust and flowers, was in front of our house on Palm Sunday morning.  The carpet on the left, in front of the San Sebastian park, early on "Viernes Santo", is made of different vegetables.    Another view of the vegetable carpet, with carrots, peas, beans, turnips, hot peppers ... it must be difficult for the Easter float to walk over it.  After it's gone, people dive in to take some of the vegetables home.  On the right, yet another small procession is winding its way along the edge of the fountain in Hotel Antigua.   Two images of a carpet in the lobby of Hotel Antigua, which shows the arch of 5th Avenue in Antigua and featured some shiny sawdust. A little boy is finishing a carpet.  It shows an "anda", a float with Jesus, leaving the church of La Merced ... and we are only a block from the actual church.  This was at 6 a.m.  At 8, on the right, the finished carpet is awaiting a procession to come down the street.  This carpet of a butterfly is made of fresh flower petals.  The carpet on the left has flowers and birds, made of coloured sawdust.  You can see the spray can at the far end ... so that the sawdust does not fly away and destroy the carpet before the procession does, it has to be gently sprayed all the time with water. Here are two photos ... in this one, the carpet as the procession is just coming, at the top of the photo, and on the right, as it has gone over it and is disappearing in the distance.  All that work and now destroyed!  ... on the left, a destroyed carpet that now looks like an impressionist painting.  People took all night making it, the procession destroyed it.  Above, the town workmen who follow, sweep it up, and put the sawdust in municipal trucks, so a few minutes after a procession has passed, the street is clean.  On the page of processions (click), there is an animated sequence that shows the cleanup process. This carpet early in the morning on Palm Sunday on our street was two blocks long.  The carpet on the right was made of "birds of paradise" flowers. A team busy making another carpet    Some of the finest carpets are on Calle Ancha, the "Wide Street", leading to Antigua's suburb of Jocotenango.  A beautiful carpet on Calle Ancha, leading to Jocotenango  In some streets, after the morning carpets is destroyed by the procession, new ones are made for the afternoon or evening This is how carpets are made.  People get up the previous midnight, and work right up to the moment the procession comes up to destroy their work of art. This carpet had to be ready for 2 p.m., so they had some daylight hours to make it.  Others had to be ready for the procession very early ... on the right, Barbara is admiring another carpet in the bright early morning sunshine.  This carpet was in the main square (Parque Central), in front of the cathedral.  The carpet on the left went around the corner, to welcome the procession.  Behind it, you can see Volcano Agua.  Antigua is jammed with traffic coming in to see the carpets and processions.  This is a real, solid, stationary traffic jam at 7 a.m.  Most streets are closed for the construction of carpets, so cars have a tough time entering the town. Yet another carpet in font of the house, this one is being destroyed at 6:30 a.m. on "Viernes Santo" by a procession that started very early.  The carpet on the left included elaborate, miniature Last Supper.  This elaborate carpet, made, like others, out of coloured sawdust, looked like it was woven.  It took all night to make and a big accident happened ... a dog ran across (see on left), leaving a streak across the pattern.  Quick repairs were made, to make it perfect again, before the coming procession destroyed it totally.