Palm Sunday

We're just having our coffee at about 6 am when Benjamin informs us they are making alfombras in the street in front of our apartment. This is a very exciting surprise for us, but let me back up a bit and tell you what we had been expecting.
We knew that today there was to be a huge procession from the church on the corner, La Merced. There would be 4000 carriers of the main float, the one which carrys the wooden Christ sculpted by Alfonso de la Paz in 1650. This wooden float weighs about 7,000 pounds and is carried by 80 men. [***] By 10:30 at night when the sculptures are returned to the church, the entire city has welcomed the procession, with some streets being honored more than once as it travels about.
The part that we had not known about was the alfombras (carpets). We knew that the streets would be decorated with alfombras on Viernes Santo (Good Friday), but today was a surprise. On every street the neighbors gathered in the early hours to create magnificent designs in the streets, using pine needles (now we know what they were for!), flowers, branches and corozos (the inside of a huge pod which is popular for this decorative use). Many of them also use the palm bouquets that we had seen being created in the plaza last night. We were told that today's alfombras would be simple affairs. The really fancy ones will be done on Good Friday. If these works of art were simple, I am truly anxious to see the fancy ones. These were amazingly beautiful. By 8 o'clock when the procession began at the church, the alfombras were finished and ready. The procession itself was incredible, with its 4000 carriers for the main float, carriers for the other floats, the bands, and various other participants. But all in all I think we were more impressed by the alfombras. Our street was the first street the procession traveled, and of course once the procession went through, these magnificent art pieces were gone forever!

*** [By my calculations then, each man is carrying 88 pounds on his shoulder. And since there are 4,000 carriers involved, 80 at a time, there must be something like 50 shifts over the 14.5 hours of the procession. So each team of 50 must carry this huge load for about half an hour.]