Hello and welcome back!
It's been another hiatus but I'm back again to share another installment of my time in Guatemala!
We left off last time about half way through the day as I went back to my AirBnB to take a short rest and change some gear. After that it was back out and back down to the city for some more exploring.
I first made my way back to the central park area where I saw them decorating the fountain with flowers, though I didn't know why.
From there I decided to head back across town to the market and see what photos I could find. After exploring the outer area for a bit here's some of the images I captured.
I was very pleased with the images I was able to capture and truly enjoyed exploring deeper and deeper into the market and observing daily life go by. But after wandering for a while, I was a bit hungry and decided to grab a quick snack at McDonalds (I know, judge me). While there I saw another American with a camera and struck up a conversation, we chatted a bit and exchanged Instagrams. She told me about all the flowers and that it was actually one of their largest festivals, Festival de las Flores. And that the whole town would be covered in flowers!
Shortly after she left, she sent me a message on Instagram telling me that they were doing a parade around town starting at the central park, so I quickly packed up and ran over.
I could see the crowds and hear the music, and I knew this would be an amazing event to capture. I would end up following the parade around town for almost a couple of hours, here's some of the images I captured in that time.
It was truly an amazing and inspiring event to be part of, I was right in the parade taking photos and felt as part of the locals. The music was fantastic and invigorating. The surrealism also set in, here I am in this town in Guatemala, by myself, and taking part of this amazing and beautiful festival that most don't even know exists. What an amazing experience. After that I would roam a bit more taking photos of the flowers that have already been put up, but the festival didn't start til the next day, which was a bit disappointing as I wouldn't be here, but more on that later.
Once it was night and I was satisfied with my photos, I headed back to my place. But on the way I came across some religious ceremony/parade. And I had to photograph it of course.
So much jam packed into just one day, and only my 2nd day here, it was almost overwhelming, almost. But now it was night, and my nerves were kicking in. Tomorrow I would be hiking Acatenango, a 13,000ft Volcano. I would have to be up at 5am to set out on this adventure and hope I'm in shape enough to complete it. So with my nerves setting in, I went to bed to rise to the challenge in front of me tomorrow.
That's it for this installment, I know there's a lot of photos in this one, but there was just so much to photograph! What did you think? What were your favorite photos? Let me know in the comments and stay tuned for the next installment where I begin my adventure to summit Acatenango!
//:# (!worldmappin 14.56003 lat -90.73338 long Guatemala Adventures: Exploring the Festival de las Flores d3scr)
