In Honduras Semana Santa (Holy Week) is one of the most important times of the year. Thursday-Saturday is the official holiday, but things start to shut down early on in the week. Public transportation either shuts down or is beyond packed, stores and restaurants close and all of Honduras goes to the beach on the north coast. A few other volunteers and I decided to avoid the beach rush and head to Comayagua, which is famous in Honduras for its alfombras.
Getting there was a fiasco! The bus line that I usually take was going to stop running Thursday and Friday so I had planned to leave Santa Barbara Wednesday afternoon. On Tuesday I went to the bus station just to check the schedule (you can never be too sure) and they informed me that the bus would only be leaving in the morning around 10 or 11. Okay, 10 or 11 is a pretty wide range…so I asked what time I should arrive at the station and the owner told me to come at 10 am. The next day I arrived at 10 am and they informed me that the bus had just left and the guy that told me to come at 10 obviously didn’t know what he was talking about (why should the owner know anything?). So I almost started to cry pondering the idea of being stuck in Santa Barbara by myself with no food for the next two days when some kind ladies told me that I could take a bus to the turn off and then get catch another bus from there that was heading south and then get off on the side of the road and then catch another bus to my destination. So, five hours and three buses later I arrived in one piece and met up with Mary and Kendra.
We spent Thursday through Saturday in Comayagua and were able to partake in a real live cultural event/tourist attraction. Every year the night before Good Friday different organizations or families make elaborate alfombras (rugs) out of sawdust. There is a silent procession Thursday night after mass (which lasted four hours…we only went to one hour of it) so they start working on the rugs close to midnight and work throughout the night to finish by morning before the next procession walks over them. The idea is that the rugs are supposed to soften Jesus’ journey to the cross.
The groups start designing their rugs months in advance and start dying sawdust and creating stencils for their designs, then they work like mad all night long without sleep and then watch their rug get destroyed immediately after. Mary, Kendra & I were lucky enough to be able to work on the largest rug in the procession; it was an entire block long. I actually didn’t stay up all night, but I worked on if from about 3-5 am and then 8-10 am. It was so big and involved that we were finishing it just as the procession was starting, it was pretty amazing. First, they put down a base layer of sawdust and smoothed it out and assembled the stencils.
Mary working on an angel.
Then we got to work…They spray the sawdust with water to keep it moist and to keep it from blowing away in the wind.
And then watched it be walked on
I know that these white hats don’t mean the same thing they do as in the states, but it was a little eerie. 
From left: Mary, Allison, the artist, Brian, Kendra
The group that worked on the rug
Getting there was a fiasco! The bus line that I usually take was going to stop running Thursday and Friday so I had planned to leave Santa Barbara Wednesday afternoon. On Tuesday I went to the bus station just to check the schedule (you can never be too sure) and they informed me that the bus would only be leaving in the morning around 10 or 11. Okay, 10 or 11 is a pretty wide range…so I asked what time I should arrive at the station and the owner told me to come at 10 am. The next day I arrived at 10 am and they informed me that the bus had just left and the guy that told me to come at 10 obviously didn’t know what he was talking about (why should the owner know anything?). So I almost started to cry pondering the idea of being stuck in Santa Barbara by myself with no food for the next two days when some kind ladies told me that I could take a bus to the turn off and then get catch another bus from there that was heading south and then get off on the side of the road and then catch another bus to my destination. So, five hours and three buses later I arrived in one piece and met up with Mary and Kendra.
We spent Thursday through Saturday in Comayagua and were able to partake in a real live cultural event/tourist attraction. Every year the night before Good Friday different organizations or families make elaborate alfombras (rugs) out of sawdust. There is a silent procession Thursday night after mass (which lasted four hours…we only went to one hour of it) so they start working on the rugs close to midnight and work throughout the night to finish by morning before the next procession walks over them. The idea is that the rugs are supposed to soften Jesus’ journey to the cross.
The groups start designing their rugs months in advance and start dying sawdust and creating stencils for their designs, then they work like mad all night long without sleep and then watch their rug get destroyed immediately after. Mary, Kendra & I were lucky enough to be able to work on the largest rug in the procession; it was an entire block long. I actually didn’t stay up all night, but I worked on if from about 3-5 am and then 8-10 am. It was so big and involved that we were finishing it just as the procession was starting, it was pretty amazing. First, they put down a base layer of sawdust and smoothed it out and assembled the stencils. Mary working on an angel.Then we got to work…They spray the sawdust with water to keep it moist and to keep it from blowing away in the wind.
And ended up with this:
And then watched it be walked onI know that these white hats don’t mean the same thing they do as in the states, but it was a little eerie. From left: Mary, Allison, the artist, Brian, KendraThe group that worked on the rugHere are some of the other rugs that I liked.
Saturday we headed to Tegucigalpa in hopes of going to La Tigra (a national park outside of Teguc) on Sunday to go hiking, but we didn’t exactly make it there. We got on the wrong bus and only made it halfway up the mountain. Then we waited around for a while for another bus, but another bus never came so we got a jalone (ride) another quarter way up the mountain and waited there a while longer. Then we started to contemplate the possibility that we might not be able to get back down the mountain if the bus schedule was changed since it was Easter Sunday. So we started walking back down the mountain and then caught a bus back to Teguc and went to the pool (which turned out to be a very popular way to spend Easter Sunday).
Overall it was a great vacation and I wished I could have stayed longer. Unfortunately all hell was breaking loose in Santa Barbara so I had to go back and work with Agua Pura.
Saturday we headed to Tegucigalpa in hopes of going to La Tigra (a national park outside of Teguc) on Sunday to go hiking, but we didn’t exactly make it there. We got on the wrong bus and only made it halfway up the mountain. Then we waited around for a while for another bus, but another bus never came so we got a jalone (ride) another quarter way up the mountain and waited there a while longer. Then we started to contemplate the possibility that we might not be able to get back down the mountain if the bus schedule was changed since it was Easter Sunday. So we started walking back down the mountain and then caught a bus back to Teguc and went to the pool (which turned out to be a very popular way to spend Easter Sunday).
Overall it was a great vacation and I wished I could have stayed longer. Unfortunately all hell was breaking loose in Santa Barbara so I had to go back and work with Agua Pura. 
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