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.