In April, I had two weeks off from school to celebrate Easter and all the good stuff that goes along with it. The first week coincided with Semana Santa (Holy Week, or the week before Easter) and the second week was basically just a vacation week, but for simplicity's sake, I'm going to call the whole thing Semana Santa.
Explaining my Semana Santa experience is a little complicated because it wasn't all good - mixed in with the beautiful beaches, incredible celebrations, and gorgeous forests were some stolen wallets, missed flights, and stomach bugs - so I'm going to (mostly) let my photos speak for themselves.
The first week, I was traveling solo. I knew I wanted to spend Maundy Thursday and Good Friday in Taxco (a city in the nearby state of Guerrero - you'll see why soon) so I decided to take advantage of my time in Guerrero and also visit the beach. I hopped on a sort-of overnight bus (we left at 2:30 in the morning) from Toluca to Acapulco and then spent a few days relaxing on a virgin beach outside of the city. My hostel was called Sol y Arena and I would highly recommend it.) I basically just read, swam in the ocean, and ate fish, and it was great:
Side note - Infinite Justice was a weird choice for beach reading... An even weirder choice was deciding to read it all in five days. But despite the headaches it gave me, I would definitely encourage all of you to conquer it!
Then, I got on another bus and headed to my main destination. Taxco is a particularly popular pueblo mágico - it's famous for its silver and the town itself is modeled after the old cities in southern Spain, which gives it a distinctive look (and it made it feel strangely familiar to me.) In addition to the architecture, Taxco also borrows its Semana Santa traditions from Spain. Like many of the cities in Andalucía, Taxco's streets are filled with dramatic processions in the days leading up to Easter. I had heard stories about the amazing weirdness of Cristos being paraded around town and locals paying penance by whipping themselves and carrying crosses, and I knew I couldn't miss out.
Some of what I saw:
And then, the photos stop abruptly because my wallet got stolen, which was more than a little stressful but... thanks to the incredible kindness of the couple who owned the hotel I was staying at (if you ever go to Taxco, you NEED to stay at Villa de las Sonrisas) I made it back to Toluca! And so concluded the first half of my Semana Santa adventures...
(See more photos here.)
Explaining my Semana Santa experience is a little complicated because it wasn't all good - mixed in with the beautiful beaches, incredible celebrations, and gorgeous forests were some stolen wallets, missed flights, and stomach bugs - so I'm going to (mostly) let my photos speak for themselves.
The first week, I was traveling solo. I knew I wanted to spend Maundy Thursday and Good Friday in Taxco (a city in the nearby state of Guerrero - you'll see why soon) so I decided to take advantage of my time in Guerrero and also visit the beach. I hopped on a sort-of overnight bus (we left at 2:30 in the morning) from Toluca to Acapulco and then spent a few days relaxing on a virgin beach outside of the city. My hostel was called Sol y Arena and I would highly recommend it.) I basically just read, swam in the ocean, and ate fish, and it was great:
Side note - Infinite Justice was a weird choice for beach reading... An even weirder choice was deciding to read it all in five days. But despite the headaches it gave me, I would definitely encourage all of you to conquer it!
Then, I got on another bus and headed to my main destination. Taxco is a particularly popular pueblo mágico - it's famous for its silver and the town itself is modeled after the old cities in southern Spain, which gives it a distinctive look (and it made it feel strangely familiar to me.) In addition to the architecture, Taxco also borrows its Semana Santa traditions from Spain. Like many of the cities in Andalucía, Taxco's streets are filled with dramatic processions in the days leading up to Easter. I had heard stories about the amazing weirdness of Cristos being paraded around town and locals paying penance by whipping themselves and carrying crosses, and I knew I couldn't miss out.
Some of what I saw:
And then, the photos stop abruptly because my wallet got stolen, which was more than a little stressful but... thanks to the incredible kindness of the couple who owned the hotel I was staying at (if you ever go to Taxco, you NEED to stay at Villa de las Sonrisas) I made it back to Toluca! And so concluded the first half of my Semana Santa adventures...
(See more photos here.)
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