In Guatemala there is no real celebration of Halloween like there is in the States, however, there is All Saints Day/Dia de los Muertos during which they honor the saints and also their relatives who have passed away. As you can see from my blog around this time last year, where I lived when I first came to Guatemala celebrates the event by constructing enormous kites. This year we headed out to northwestern Guatemala, the department of Huehuetenango, to the town of Todos Santos. Todos Santos is located in the Cuchumatanes mountain range and is a beautiful setting in the Guatemalan highlands. In this almost purely indigenous town the men still wear the traditional garb, unlike the greater part of Guatemala where the women will still wear the traditional clothing but the men will not. Although it was not Halloween, one definitely could have thought they were dressing up, as the clothing is very bright and includes chaps and a hat. They wear this clothing year round though and it is recognized that anyone wearing this traje is a Todo Santero.
In Todos Santos there were no giant kites similar to those in Santa Maria Cauque. The celebration here manifests itself in a horse race on the morning of November 1st. The race is more a test of endurance rather than your typical horse race. There is a fenced in track of about 150 yards on which selected men will ride their horses back and forth, in an all out sprint. The feat is no small one, as it gets very crowded on the small track and wrecks are common (although there was only two that I was aware of). The men are aided in their courage by drinking large amounts of alcohol; before, during and one would surely assume after the race. During the actual riding, many of the men ride with no hands on the horse, demonstrating their bravery to the curious onlookers. How and if a winner is determined is unknown to me, as we were only able to stick around for a couple hours in the morning. The event attracts tourists worldwide and this year even the US Ambassador to Guatemala, Stephen McFarland was spotted in the crowd. We also saw some photographers from Reuters there documenting the event for their news organization.
The town itself was an incredible place and it amazed me to see how much diversity exists in Guatemala’s ecology. As we left in the back of a pickup on Sunday, we were bundled up and even covered with a tent rainfly for part of the trip, however, less than two hours later we arrived in the city of Huehuetenango and it was extremely warm, in an almost desert setting unlike the pure mountain climate we had just left. The different climates that exist in such a small area are one of the many things that make Guatemala unique. The event in Todos Santos is one that I am definitely glad I attended and is one that cannot be replicated anywhere else.
