¡No hay espacio! Semana Santa

So did you all miss my posts terribly while I was away? Hopefully you did, but not so much so that it prevented you from going about your lives. The good news is I'm back and have heaps to show and tell you about Barcelona, the bad news is that isn't what this post is about. Why you might ask? Well because it's Semana Santa, duh! So instead I'm gonna fill you in on what I did last night to celebrate.

Before we get started just a quick bit of history, for those of you who may not know Semana Santa or Holy Week is a humongous deal in Spain. Some of the most famous celebrations in the world are in Málaga, Leon and the biggest and the best of them all just so happens to be right here in Sevilla. Thousands upon thousands of people flock here, paying exoribinate sums just to catch a glimpse of some of the processions and take part in the celebrations. How lucky am I that it happens right in my backyard, so to speak. Semana Santa starts on Palm Sunday and lasts until Resurection Sunday, the first few days people walk around to all of the churches and look at the imagens or statues of Jesús and la Virgen, then the pasos or processions start. The days with the most ornate and most famous pasos are Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, starting Thursday night into early Friday morning is la Madrugada, it is fourteen hours of the most famous pasos, it also happens to be what I went to last night. 

Around 11:30 PM on Thursday I met up with Allyson and Antonio to discuss our strategy for the night, because often times if you don't get to a paso early enough you will be too far back to see anything! We decided to go see El Silencio, El Gran Poder, La Macarena and Los Gitanos, the first paso started at 1 AM and our night would end around 8 AM. Around 12:15 we set off to go find El Silencio, the street we were watching it from was really packed and I could just see the imagen and nothing of the nazarenos, men and women who hold candles and flank the pasos, sometimes numbering in the thousands. I was disappointed about this and worried that I wouldn't be able to see much of the other pasos but thanks to Antonio's superior guide skills we got front row seats to El Gran Poder, where we met up with Allison and Lucas. After fending off our spot from a few old women who were complaining we were "too tall" the paso finally came through. It was almost eerie, for El Silencio and El Gran Poder when the imagen is coming past everyone has to be dead silent. 

Massive crowd waiting to see the paso, and the capriotes (tall pointy hats) of los nazarenos.

Jesús del Gran Poder imagen. 

You can really see the gold/silver in this one. 

All of the candles on the imagen of la Virgen. 

Full effect of La Virgen. 

We had an amazing spot for viewing El Gran Poder, up close and personal with minimal waiting time. I was so amazed by the pasos. The imagenes of Jesús and la Virgen are made of gold, silver and marble and are carried by about 100 men each called, costaleros, the imagenes are so heavy that the men get huge bruises and cuts on the back of their necks despite the special head-dress they wear to protect themselves. These men carry the imagen for six hours before getting a break!

Switching of the costaleros, you can really see their head wraps here.

After the imagen of la Virgen comes through there are more nazarenos, this time carrying crosses to show their repentence, each person can elect from one of three sizes of crosses to carry depending on the amount of pecado or sin they think they have accumulated throughout the year. As an additional way to repent some of the nazarenos walk barefoot, while others wear just socks or shoes. So the barefoot nazareno with the largest size of cross has the largest penance. The Gran Poder paso had 2,400 nazarenos and from the first nazareno to the last one it took the procession eighty minutes to pass us! 

From El Gran Poder we sprinted across the street to wait for La Macarena, we got there about an hour early and had to wait in a bone crunching crowd but it was fun. A lot of people who weren't from Spain would try to budge in front of us and other people who had been waiting, which is an extra big no-no on Semana Santa. My favorite was this group of elderly British people who tried to cut in front of two hundred Spaniards to get to the front of the viewing area, the Spanish people were all yelling "imposible, imposible, no hay espacio", and the British people were just standing there with a blank look on their faces, so after we all talked about them in Spanish for a little bit I told them in English that we'd all been waiting a long time and they'd better just go back to the back. The other plus side of being so scrunched was that it was warm, as it had gotten pretty cold out. Finally La Macarenapaso of the day. It wasn't silent like the first two, it had a marching band that accompanied it which I loved. This paso depicted the sentencing of Jesus by Pontius Pilate, this imagen was much more interesting and detailed than the first two. Also, the band members were dressed as roman soldiers, which was a change too. 

Sentencing of Jesús.

A close up, I think the mixture of modern street signs and such an antiquated tradition is very interesting. 

The feathers are the hats of the band members dressed as roman soldiers.

La Virgen de La Macarena, it is the most famous in all of Semana Santa.

The candles on the back are so beautiful. 

Once La Macarena passed it was about 4:30 in the morning, no big deal right? According to Antonio I had "la cara de sueño" or "a sleepy face" so we went to a cafe and got some espresso to perk ourselves up, because coffee at that time of day is totally normal. After a little bit more running, we made it to our last stop, the place were we would watch Los Gitanos. This spot had two things going for it, we were literally the first people there was no one in front of us, we could have touched the paso if we wanted to. Secondly and most importantly since it was now 5 AM we got to sit down the whole time, well until the paso came by. This is where I got some of my best pictures, because I was so close and because I finally figured out how to make my camera take good pictures in the dark. 

Seemingly never ending stream of Nazarenos. 

Taking a break while respects are paid to the church. 

During the paso they drip wax on the gloves they wear and make wax hands. 

Close up creepin' on a Nazareno. 

See barefoot, I wasn't kidding.

It was so cold out, I can't even imagine doing this. 

Los Gitanos only had 1,800 nazarenos but it still took plenty long, this paso was an hour long. While we waited though Antonio told us a really funny story about his first Semana Santa and the first time he saw La Virgen. He told us that when he saw La Virgen de La Macarena when he was three years old he started belting out "Happy Birthday" at the top of his lungs, at a time when you're supposed to be quiet, because the imagen of La Virgen has a lot of candles so of course it reminded him of a birthday cake. He said when his dad asked him to be quiet he only started singing louder, needless to say he got in a little trouble for that. Thanks to Antonio telling us funny stories and answering our endless questions about Semana Santa Jesús was here before we knew it. 

Jesús imagen de Los Gitanos. 

Jesús carrying his cross. 

The back of it, so much gold...

The band!

Nazarenos with the crosses.

Rosary on a cross. 

La Virgen de Los Gitanos. 

All of the imagenes are so ornate. 

After Los Gitanos was over it was getting close to 7 AM so we attempted to make our way home. However a lot of the streets were blocked by pasos so it was a challenge. The Alli(y)sons and I were joking that without our guías or guides we would have ended up in the middle of a paso. On our way home we ran into El Silencio again, that was neat because we were much closer this time and had an unobstructed view, unfortunately by this time my camera had run out of space for pictures. I had a little bit of difficulty getting home because the paso for El Silencio was encircling my house, so I had to get brave and cut through the paso when they were stopped. I eventually made it home around 7:30, you think I would've been exhausted but I couldn't fall asleep for awhile, in the end I did sleep, until about 4 PM the next day. On Good Friday the streets of Sevilla were pretty much deserted thanks to a combination of rain and people staying up all night for La Madrugada, my Señora slept until 9 PM....

Pages from the program that the bar owner was nice enough to give us. It told the routes, what time the pasos would be there and the number of nazarenos and what colors they would be wearing. The pasos earlier in the week have the nazarenos dressed in white, green and other brighter colors, but starting on Thursday they wear black, dark green and purple to denote his sentencing and death. 

900 nazarenos, wearing all black. 

2,400 nazarenos, wearing all black. 

2,700 nazarenos, wearing cream robes with dark purple antifaz (headdress) in the first paso and dark green in the second. 

1,800 nazarenos with dark purple antifaz and white robes.

There is so much to say about Semana Santa and I can't do it justice in this post but I hope this gave you all a feel for what it was like. It was an amazing thing to experience. I'm off to the pueblo of some of my friends here in Sevilla to experience a traditional Spanish Easter, so hasta manana!