Lent Processions in Guatemala 2026: How to Experience Cuaresma Even if You’re Not Here for Holy Week

I have lived in Guatemala my whole life, and I will tell you what I tell every visitor who arrives in February or early March expecting a quiet preseason: Cuaresma is not a warm-up. It is the season itself. The Sunday processions in Antigua begin immediately after Ash Wednesday and continue every weekend with increasing intensity until Holy Week arrives. Guatemala City hosts hundreds of cortejos procesionales throughout Lent. Quetzaltenango has its own deep tradition. Even at Lake Atitlán, the villages mark the season. You do not need to be here for Good Friday to witness something genuinely moving.

This guide will help you understand what Cuaresma looks like on the ground, what processions and traditions to look for during each part of the season, and where to find them whether you are based in Antigua, Guatemala City, Xela, or the lake.

Lent in Guatemala 2026 runs from Ash Wednesday, February 18 through March 28. Holy Week begins Palm Sunday, March 29.

What Is Cuaresma in Guatemala?

Cuaresma is the Spanish word for Lent, the 40-day period of prayer, fasting, and reflection that prepares Catholic communities for Easter. In many countries this is a quiet, mostly internal season. In Guatemala it is anything but. The country has one of the most elaborate Lenten traditions in the world, recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and the celebrations begin not in Holy Week but weeks earlier, the moment Ash Wednesday arrives.

The visible signs of Cuaresma appear almost overnight. Church facades are draped in purple fabric. Jacaranda trees begin to bloom in Antigua, their purple flowers falling on cobblestone streets as if the city itself is in on it. The smell of incense and corozo palm drifts through neighborhoods on Friday and Sunday evenings. Alfombras begin appearing on streets outside homes. And the processions, those long, slow, incense-filled cortejos that most people associate only with Good Friday, begin rolling through the streets of cities and towns across the country every single week.

What makes Guatemala’s Cuaresma different from anywhere else is the scale, the continuity, and the depth of community participation. In Antigua alone, there are around 18 Sundays of Lent-related processions plus additional Friday events, velaciones, and special ceremonies. Guatemala City holds approximately 160 processions during Lent and Holy Week. And this is not spectacle for tourists. These are living traditions organized by hermandades, the religious brotherhoods, whose members spend months preparing, practicing, and raising funds for events that have been happening in the same neighborhoods for generations.

Key Dates for Lent in Guatemala 2026

Traveling to Guatemala in February: What to Expect

If you arrive after Ash Wednesday, you are already in Cuaresma. The first week is the most intimate and the least crowded, and in some ways the most interesting for that reason.

Ash Wednesday, February 18

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. Across Guatemala, churches hold services throughout the day and into the evening, and you will see people of all ages walking through city streets with a small cross of ash on their foreheads. It is a quiet but visible sign that the season has begun.

In Antigua, masses are held at all major churches including La Merced, San Francisco El Grande, and the Catedral, with imposition of ashes at multiple times throughout the day from around 8 AM to 4 PM. In Guatemala City, churches in every zone hold services.

The first procession of Lent 2026 in Antigua takes place on Ash Wednesday itself, though it is a smaller, more penitential cortejo rather than the grand processions of later weeks. Look for the velaciones, the devotional vigils, beginning in the first days of Lent, where sacred images are displayed on elaborately decorated altars inside churches. These are worth seeking out even if you have not come for the processions. The quality of the altar decoration, with candles, flowers, silver pieces, and incense, is a form of folk art in its own right.

First Friday and Saturday of Lent: February 20 and 21

In Antigua

The first Friday of Cuaresma in Antigua brings the first formal procession of the season. In 2026 the confirmed events for the Antigua area include:

Friday, February 20:

• Velación de Santo Cristo del Perdón, San José Catedral — 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
• Velación de Jesús Nazareno de la Salvación, Aldea Santa Catarina Bobadilla — 8:00 a.m. to midnight
• Viacrucis Parroquial Jesús Cautivo, Escuela de Cristo — 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
• Procesión de Santo Cristo del Perdón, San José Catedral — 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Saturday, February 21:

• Velación Virgen de Dolores, Aldea San Felipe de Jesús — 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.
• Velación Virgen de Dolores, Aldea Santa Inés del Monte Pulciano — 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.
• Procesión de Jesús de la Dulce Mirada, Aldea Santa Ana — 1:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.
• Romería, Aldea San Felipe de Jesús — 6:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.

The Friday evening procession of the Santo Cristo del Perdón is a particularly good one for first-time visitors. It is short enough to follow from start to finish, intimate enough to stand near the anda, and it gives you a clear sense of what the larger Sunday processions feel like without the larger crowds.

In Guatemala City

On the first Friday of Lent 2026, the Viacrucis with Jesús del Gallito, a beloved image in the traditional neighborhood near the Cementerio General, departs from its temple in the El Gallito area around the General Cemetery and 2nd Avenue and runs approximately four hours. This is one of the most historically meaningful early Lenten processions in the capital, known informally as the Procesión del Silencio and accompanied by only a single drum.

First Sunday of Lent: February 22

The first Sunday of Lent is when Cuaresma announces itself to the entire city.

In Antigua

The first Sunday procession is one of the most important of the early season. Confirmed for 2026: Procesión de Jesús Nazareno de la Salvación, Aldea Santa Catarina Bobadilla — 8:00 a.m., returning approximately 9:00 p.m. This procession covers an extensive route and lasts most of the day. Santa Catarina Bobadilla is a village just outside Antigua’s center, and the procession eventually passes through the historic streets of Antigua itself, making it accessible from the central park area.

My honest recommendation for that first Sunday: if you are based in Antigua, stay in Antigua. The Santa Catarina Bobadilla procession is easier to experience without a car and the atmosphere in Antigua on the first Sunday of Lent already has the quality that makes this season so special, purple everywhere, the smell of incense drifting down the streets, the marimba playing somewhere in the distance.

In Guatemala City

On the first Sunday, the procession of Jesús del Consuelo and the procession of Jesús Nazareno de la Paz from the Santuario de San José in Zona 1 are among the most attended. The Santuario San José procession follows a route through the historic center passing Parque Colón, La Merced, the Palacio Arzobispal, Santa Teresa, Isabel La Católica, and Cerrito del Carmen before returning.

Traveling to Guatemala in March: Lent Processions in March 

March is when Cuaresma builds into something you can feel throughout the entire city. Each Sunday brings a new procession from a different neighborhood or village. The alfombras become more elaborate. The hermandades grow more visible. Crowds increase noticeably by mid-March. Early March is, in many ways, the sweet spot for visitors: enough activity to feel the full weight of the season, not yet crowded enough to make moving around difficult.

Below is a Sunday-by-Sunday breakdown of the processions worth planning around, by location.

A practical note on schedules: For the later Sundays of Lent, hermandades often confirm specific routes and times a few weeks in advance. Always verify the current week’s details at cucuruchoenguatemala.com before planning your day. What follows is confirmed for 2026 where specified, and drawn from the consistent established patterns of each procession in prior years where 2026 details were not yet published at writing time.

Second Sunday of Lent: March 1

In Antigua and Sacatepéquez

The Second Sunday is when Antigua’s Lenten rhythm fully locks in. The pedestrian perimeter goes into effect in the historic center for the second time, closing streets to vehicles for the day. The processions to watch this Sunday come from the villages of San Cristóbal el Alto and San Cristóbal el Bajo, small communities on the outskirts of Antigua whose cortejos carry the image through the aldea first, then wind into the historic center. These are village processions in the truest sense. You can stand close to the anda. The crowd is local. The alfombras are laid by neighbors who have done it the same way for decades, and the whole event feels lived-in rather than organized for visitors.

In Guatemala City

The Second Sunday belongs to Jesús Nazareno de la Justicia from El Calvario. This is the same image that opened the season on Ash Wednesday. Its Second Sunday procession departs from the Parroquia Nuestra Señora de los Remedios in Zona 1 and follows a route through the surrounding historic center neighborhood, drawing a much larger crowd than the Ash Wednesday version. If you are in Guatemala City on March 1, this is the one to plan around.

In Quetzaltenango

 The Cathedral and the Parroquia San Nicolás both anchor Sunday activity in Xela throughout Lent. Early March Sundays in Xela tend to be intimate affairs that draw deeply local crowds and give you the highland version of Cuaresma at its most accessible.

What Makes this Sunday Unique in Antigua

 The jacarandas are in full purple bloom across Antigua. The streets are still walkable without pushing through crowds. The alfombras are fresh. This is the Sunday I recommend most to first-time Cuaresma visitors, because everything is visible and nothing is yet overwhelming.

Third Sunday of Lent: March 8

Antigua and Sacatepéquez

 The Third Sunday features one of the most significant Lenten processions in the entire Antigua area: Jesús Nazareno El Dulce Rabí from the Parroquia Nuestra Señora de la Asunción in Jocotenango. In 2026 this procession has a newly confirmed route that incorporates the sector of El Guarda, evoking a path walked in earlier decades of the procession’s history. The image departs at approximately 7:00 a.m. and historically returns close to 11:00 p.m., covering a long route through both Jocotenango and the historic center of Antigua.

This Sunday is also the 25th anniversary of El Dulce Rabí’s consecration, which means it carries added significance in 2026 specifically. The hermandad has prepared a special year, and the crowds and devotion will reflect that. Jocotenango is a five-minute tuk-tuk ride from Antigua’s central park, or a short walk through the streets north of the city. There is no easier major Lenten procession to catch.

Beginning with the Third Sunday, the Municipalidad de Antigua also expands the pedestrian perimeter further outward, and parking options shift accordingly. Plan if you are driving.

Guatemala City

Multiple processions run across Zona 1 and surrounding zones on the Third Sunday, with the historic center churches active throughout the day and into the evening. The city’s Lenten calendar is in full operation by this point, and a Friday-to-Sunday combination in Guatemala City during the third week of March gives you a fuller picture of what the capital’s processional tradition looks like.

The Best Procession

 The 25th anniversary of El Dulce Rabí’s consecration makes 2026 uniquely meaningful for this procession. If you can only be in Antigua for one Sunday in early March, make it March 8.

Fourth Sunday of Lent: March 15

Antigua and Sacatepéquez

The Fourth Sunday brings Jesús Nazareno de la Dulce Mirada from the Aldea Santa Ana, one of the four processions that local observers have noted growing most dramatically in recent years in route length, participation, and devotion. The procession departs from Santa Ana at 8:00 a.m. and historically returns near 11:00 p.m., following a route through the aldea and then deep into Antigua’s historic center, passing the Escuela de Cristo, Mercado del Carmen, Alameda Santa Rosa, the iconic Calle del Arco, San José Catedral, and the Tanque de la Unión before returning.

Santa Ana is a short tuk-tuk ride south of the city center. Arriving in the aldea in the early morning, before the procession departs, is one of those Cuaresma experiences that stays with you: neighbors building alfombras in front of their homes in the pre-dawn quiet, families in their best clothes, the community in collective anticipation of a day that will stretch into the night. I make it to Santa Ana on Fourth Sunday mornings whenever I can, and I have never regretted it.

Guatemala City

The Fourth Sunday features one of the capital’s most important Lenten processions, Jesús Nazareno Redentor del Mundo from the Parroquia Santísima Trinidad in the El Gallito neighborhood, Zone 3. The cortejo departs at approximately 9:00 a.m. and covers one of the longest routes of any Lenten Sunday procession in the capital, historically running until midnight. The Gallito image has one of the most devoted followings in Guatemala City, and this Sunday is when that devotion is on full display. If you have not seen a Guatemala City Lenten Sunday procession and you are passing through the capital on March 15, go to El Gallito in the morning.

Quetzaltenango 

The mid-Lent Sunday processions in Xela grow in scale through March. By the Fourth Sunday the Cathedral is running a full-scale event with its traditional highland brass band sound, cold air, and an atmosphere distinctly its own. Worth a dedicated Sunday if you are in the western highlands.

Best Procession

The Dulce Mirada of Santa Ana is among the most photographed Lenten processions in Guatemala for good reason. The village departure combined with a long route through Antigua’s center, and the early morning atmosphere of Santa Ana before the procession starts, makes this one of the finest Sundays of the entire season.

Fifth Sunday of Lent: March 22

Antigua and Sacatepéquez

The Fifth Sunday is the last Sunday of Cuaresma and the most dramatic of the season. This is the day of Jesús Nazareno de la Caída from the Aldea San Bartolomé Becerra, one of the most anticipated cortejos of the entire Guatemalan processional calendar, not just Lent. The image has been venerated since 1600. It depicts Christ fallen under the weight of the cross, and the theological weight of that moment, of falling and choosing to rise again, gives this procession a resonance that is unlike anything else in the Lenten season.

The procession departs from San Bartolomé Becerra at approximately 2:00 to 3:00 in the morning on Sunday. This is not a misprint. The anda enters Antigua’s historic center in the pre-dawn hours, and watching this image move through dark cobblestone streets in torchlight, with the sound of marchas fúnebres echoing off colonial walls and the smell of corozo and incense in the cold morning air, is unlike anything else in Guatemala. The procession historically does not return to San Bartolomé until approximately 1:00 a.m. Monday, making it one of the longest single cortejos in the tradition.

The right way to experience this is to go to San Bartolomé Becerra on Saturday evening. Neighbors begin laying alfombras from late afternoon, and the atmosphere as the entire community goes into vigil before the procession’s departure is one of the most extraordinary things I know of in this country. The anda sits decorated with months of careful work. The streets fill with sawdust and pine needles. The night has a quality of collective waiting that is hard to describe to someone who has not felt it.

Antigua’s Municipalidad deploys its most extensive pedestrian perimeter of the season for the Fifth Sunday, and parking fills from Saturday evening onward. If you are driving from Guatemala City, plan to park outside the center and take a Municipalidad bus. Tour operators from the capital also run dedicated overnight buses specifically for this procession.

Guatemala City and Quetzaltenango

The Fifth Sunday also features important processions in the capital and in Xela, where the Cathedral hosts one of its largest Lenten events of the season. But for most visitors, this is the Sunday to be in Antigua, full stop.

Best Procession

 Jesús de la Caída is the most extraordinary procession of Cuaresma in Guatemala. The overnight departure, the alfombra-covered streets of San Bartolomé at 3 a.m., the 400-plus years of tradition behind this image, and the intimacy of the aldea before the city wakes up make this a once-in-a-lifetime experience for visitors who witness it. Stay overnight in Antigua on the Saturday before. This is not the Sunday to day-trip.

Guatemala City: Key Lenten Processions Beyond the Sundays

Guatemala City is not on most international travelers’ itineraries during Lent, and that is a missed opportunity. The capital holds approximately 160 processions during Lent and Holy Week, many of them in Zona 1 (the historic center) where colonial churches sit in neighborhoods with generations of processional tradition.

Some of the most important Lenten processions in Guatemala City to know about:

• Jesús de la Justicia, Parroquia Nuestra Señora de los Remedios (El Calvario): One of the defining Lenten images of the capital. The Ash Wednesday procession in 2026 departed at 4:00 p.m. and followed a long route through the historic center passing San Francisco, Santa Clara, the Parque Central, and the Catedral Metropolitana before returning to El Calvario around 10:00 p.m. This same image processes again on the Second Sunday of Lent.
• Jesús de los Milagros, Santuario Arquidiocesano de San José, Zona 1: Known as the Procesión del Silencio, this First Thursday of Lent procession carries 70 bearers on the anda and is historically notable as one that allows women carriers for several segments of the route. The procession departs from the Santuario San José and moves through Zona 1.
• The historic center Zona 1 route: During the first weeks of Lent, several processions follow routes through the Centro Histórico passing the Catedral Metropolitana, the Portal Bicentenario, Templo San Francisco, and the Arco de Correos. If you are in Guatemala City during Lent and want to see multiple events in one afternoon, posting yourself in the historic center on a Friday or Sunday evening will almost certainly deliver a procession.

For visitors flying in and out of Guatemala City, even a single evening in Zona 1 during Cuaresma gives you an entirely different perspective on the capital than the normal transit experience.

Quetzaltenango (Xela): Lent in Guatemala’s Second City

Quetzaltenango, known as Xela, has its own proud Lenten and Holy Week tradition that is distinct from Antigua’s in important ways. The cold highland air, the indigenous Mam and K’iche’ Maya participation, and the brass bands playing funeral marches in the mountain chill create a version of Cuaresma that feels genuinely different from the warmer colonial atmosphere of Antigua.

Xela’s Lenten processions are organized primarily through the Santa Iglesia Catedral and the Parroquia San Nicolás. Throughout the Sundays of Lent, processions of images including the Divino Justo Juez, Jesús de la Paciencia, and Jesús de la Columna move through the city’s streets. The Good Friday procession from the Cathedral in Xela is one of the most important in the western highlands, but the Lenten Sundays are when the city’s processional character is most accessible to visitors who want a less-crowded version of the season.

If you are visiting Xela for language school or as a base for exploring the western highlands, the Sunday Lenten processions are worth planning your weekend around. Local guides and your Spanish school can help you identify specific dates and routes each week.

Lake Atitlán During Lent

Cuaresma is observed throughout the lake villages, though at a different scale and character than Antigua or Guatemala City. In the indigenous communities around the lake, Lent is felt as much through community ceremony and cofradía activity as through formal processions.

In the lead-up to Holy Week, the villages of Santiago Atitlán, San Pedro La Laguna, San Juan La Laguna, and others begin their Lenten preparations that will culminate in the extraordinary Holy Week events that make the lake so distinctive. If you are at the lake during Lent, you may encounter velaciones in local churches, early procession activity, and the general tonal shift that the season brings to these communities.

The lake’s main Lenten and Holy Week activity concentrates in the final two weeks before Easter. Arriving at the lake in mid-to-late March positions you perfectly for both the tail end of Cuaresma and the full experience of Holy Week. [LINK: Holy Week at Lake Atitlán: Semana Santa Traditions in Every Town].

What to Look for: The Traditions of Cuaresma

Velaciones

A velación is a devotional vigil held inside a church, where a sacred image is displayed before its procession departs, honored over hours or sometimes days with prayer, music, and offerings. Walk into a church during a velación and you are stepping into a completely transformed space.

The altar rises at the far end of the nave: the sacred image at center, surrounded by banks of tall candles, flowers both natural and handmade, silver pieces from the hermandad’s treasury, corozo palm, and incense rising in slow columns toward the vault above. But what most visitors are not expecting is the huerto spread across the floor of the church in front of the altar. A huerto is a devotional installation combining a large colored sawdust carpet with borders and arrangements of seasonal fruits and vegetables, flowers, decorative breads shaped into animals and birds, and sometimes live canaries or doves in small cages. Watermelons, papayas, chiles, carrots, beets, and squash are arranged with the same care as the sawdust patterns beneath them, some cut and shaped into figures, some forming biblical scenes entirely in produce. The tradition has roots in pre-Hispanic Maya harvest offerings absorbed into Catholic devotion during the colonial period and never lost.

Walking into a church where all of this is happening at once, with the scent of corozo and incense, hundreds of candles, the hushed movement of devotees, and the brilliant color of a huerto covering a 400-year-old stone floor, is genuinely hard to prepare for. Foreign visitors who stumble in without knowing what it is often cannot leave.

Velaciones at La Merced, San Francisco El Grande, Escuela de Cristo, the Catedral, and in the surrounding aldeas like Santa Inés del Monte Pulciano are publicly accessible throughout Lent. Enter slowly, dress modestly, and give yourself more time than you think you need.

The Processions Themselves

A Guatemalan Lenten procession follows a structure that becomes easy to read once you have seen one. The anda, a large wooden float carrying the sacred image, is borne on the shoulders of cucuruchos (male carriers) dressed in purple robes, or by women carriers dressed in black. A brass band follows, playing the solemn funeral marches that are one of the most distinctive sounds of Cuaresma. Incense bearers walk ahead of the anda. The procession moves slowly, stopping to rest the carriers at intervals, and can last many hours.

During Lent the processions are smaller than those of Holy Week, which is exactly what makes them more accessible. You can stand close. You can follow the route. You can actually see the image on the anda rather than watching from behind a wall of people.

Alfombras During Lent

Alfombras, the intricate street carpets made of colored sawdust, flower petals, fruits, and pine needles, are most associated with Holy Week but they appear throughout Cuaresma too. Neighbors along processional routes create alfombras outside their homes on the Friday and Sunday evenings when a procession is expected to pass. These Lenten alfombras tend to be smaller and simpler than the enormous Holy Week masterworks, but they are made with the same care and devotion, and seeing the neighbors of a street collaborate on a alfombra in the late afternoon before a procession arrives is one of those quintessentially Guatemalan moments.

Marchas Fúnebres

The funeral marches played by the brass bands during Lenten processions are a musical tradition as distinctive to Guatemala as anything in the country. The bands are large, the music is slow and heavy and beautiful, and hearing it drift through the streets of Antigua on a Friday evening is an experience that stays with you. Concert performances of marchas fúnebres also take place in Antigua throughout Lent, separate from the processions, worth attending in their own right.

Lent vs. Holy Week: Which Is Better for Visitors?

This is the question I get most often, and the honest answer is that they are different experiences rather than one being better than the other.

Holy Week in Antigua is one of the great spectacles of the Catholic world. The Good Friday processions are overwhelming in scale, the alfombras are architectural in their precision, and the entire city participates in something genuinely extraordinary. But it is also extremely crowded, hotel prices triple, and the logistics of moving around can be genuinely difficult.

Lent offers the same traditions at a pace and scale that lets you actually engage with them. The processions are accessible. The velaciones are uncrowded. The neighborhoods feel local. You can stand near the anda rather than watching from three rows back. The brass band sounds just as beautiful on a quiet February Sunday as it does on Good Friday. And in the evenings when the procession has passed, Antigua is still Antigua, with its restaurants open and its streets walkable, without the surge of hundreds of thousands of visitors that Holy Week brings.

My recommendation: if your dates are flexible and you have not yet been to Holy Week in Guatemala, come for Holy Week at least once. But if you have been before, or if you value depth over spectacle, Cuaresma is a richer and more intimate way to experience the same traditions.

Practical Tips for Visiting Guatemala During Lent

• Check weekly schedules in advance. The specific procession schedules for each Sunday of Lent are published by the hermandades and tracked by sites like cucuruchoenguatemala.com. Times and routes change from year to year. Always verify the current week before planning your day.
• Arrive early for Sunday processions. The best positions along procession routes fill up, and alfombras can be damaged by foot traffic if you are not careful about where you stand. Arriving an hour before the procession departs gives you time to find a good spot and watch the final preparations.
• Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons are the main events. Throughout Lent, Fridays and Sundays are the primary days for processions and velaciones. Plan your sightseeing and travel around these anchors.
• Dress respectfully. Covered shoulders and conservative dress are appropriate when attending church-based velaciones or walking alongside processions. This is not optional etiquette, it is basic respect for the community participating in a religious tradition.
• Do not walk on alfombras. This applies throughout Lent as well as during Holy Week. The alfombras are offerings, not photo backdrops.
• Hotel prices are lower during Lent than during Holy Week. Significantly lower, in most cases. If your primary goal is to experience Guatemala’s Semana Santa traditions, late February or early March gives you most of the experience at a fraction of the cost and crowd level.
• Dry season weather. February and March are part of Guatemala’s dry season. Antigua and Guatemala City will be warm and sunny in the afternoons, cooler in the evenings. Xela will be cold at night. Lake Atitlán will be dry and beautiful with afternoon winds. Pack layers.

Key Lenten Sundays at a Glance: 2026

Frequently Asked Questions About Lent in Guatemala

• Is Lent a good time to visit Guatemala? Yes, particularly for travelers interested in cultural and religious traditions. Lent offers the same processions, alfombras, velaciones, and community ceremonies as Holy Week, at a quieter scale with lower prices and better access. Early March is one of the best times to visit Antigua specifically.
• Are there processions in Guatemala in February 2026? Yes. Processions begin on Ash Wednesday, February 18, and continue every weekend through March. The first Friday evening procession in Antigua takes place February 20, and the first Sunday procession on February 22. Guatemala City also has multiple Lenten processions beginning in the first week of Cuaresma.
• Are there processions in Guatemala in March 2026? Yes, and they increase in scale and frequency throughout the month. Every Sunday in March features major processions in Antigua and Guatemala City. The third Sunday (March 8), fourth Sunday (March 15), and fifth Sunday (March 22) are progressively larger and more elaborate as the country moves toward Holy Week.
• Where are the best Lenten processions near Antigua? The Sunday processions in Antigua itself are the most accessible. The surrounding villages of Santa Catarina Bobadilla, Jocotenango, San Felipe de Jesús, San Cristóbal el Bajo, and Santa Ana all have significant processions that eventually pass through or near Antigua. The Third Sunday Dulce Rabí procession from Jocotenango is particularly worth planning around in 2026 given the 25th anniversary of the image’s consecration.
• What is a velación and how do I attend one? A velación is a devotional vigil where a sacred image is displayed on a decorated altar in a church for public veneration. They are generally open to all visitors who behave respectfully. Enter quietly, dress modestly, silence your phone, and move slowly through the space. Photography is usually permitted but ask local guidance if unsure.
• Can I experience Cuaresma at Lake Atitlán? Yes, in a different register from Antigua or Guatemala City. The lake villages observe Lent through cofradía ceremony, church activity, and community preparation for Holy Week. The most visible and significant Lenten and Holy Week traditions at the lake concentrate in the final two weeks before Easter. [LINK: Holy Week at Lake Atitlán: Semana Santa Traditions in Every Town].

 

 

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