Jueves y Viernes Santo

Not to be confused with Sabado Gloria, which used to be everyone's favorite and involved a city-wide water fight until the water crisis put an end to the fun, Thursday and Friday are the most important as well as serious days of the holiday.  As the sun sets on Thursday night it feels like any other day of the year, except that Taxco is exceptionally quiet.  There are none of the daily cohuetes, noisy fireworks without a burst of color, nor is there any of the usual Volkswagen noise on the streets, in fact, the only real sound is that of distant drumming. 

Walking to the town center the drumming still remains distant, but families are now milling about the streets with folding chairs and flavored ice treats, probably consisting of too-sweet fruit syrups and a healthy dose of chili powder.  Children are dressed extraordinarily well, wearing small suits or high-collared white jackets with pearl buttons, the youngest with snowy angel wings spreading out from their backs.  In many ways it is very much a festival atmosphere, vendors setting up stands along the roads and people selling food or bathroom service out of their homes.  All of the usual suspects are there, the noisy chicken toy, the large pencil-shaped balloons, glow-in-the-dark bracelets and helicopter sticks, kazoos, and colorful airplanes attached to a string.  The only evidence that this isn't Carnival is that among the usual wares there are also small, thorny, wooden crosses complete with a GI-Joe-sized Christ.

Semana Santa

Taxco is known for two things, silver and Semana Santa. The first is abundant year round and quickly goes unnoticed. The second, is a two week Easter celebration culminating with two days of somber processions. It is a holiday in which people momentarily forget about the Virgin of Guadalupe and focus on the boss, Jesus.  During this time the town is at its best and everyone works hard to prepare for the inevitable onslaught of tourism.  Even the enormous jacarandas are in full bloom, as are the bougainvilleas whose papery flowers can be caught climbing up walls and sneaking into windows when no one is looking. Taken together, nature has given Taxco's conservative white and terracotta a touch of much needed color.

Meanwhile, the churches are busy cleaning a years worth of dust and wax from their crucified Christs, while also restoring his suffering with thick coats of carmine paint. In a few short days these wooden messiahs will be parading the steep cobbled streets of the town on backs, in carts, and no doubt surfed rock-star style over masses of the devoted. Though playing lesser roles, many of the town's mannequins are being pulled from windows to be reinvented as apostles or the Virgin Mary herself, often with a rather confusing result. The same perfectly proportioned body that only yesterday wore a sequin mini-skirt or a gold one-piece swim suit is now being paraded about as the mother of Jesus.