Up close and personal with some very weird sh*t!

In the town of San Luis Potosi on Good Friday, the thing to do is to get yourself a ticket to the Procession in Silence. And so we did. We purchased two of  ‘el mejor locacion que es posible… por favor” (the best location possible… please) and they set us back about $12 each – but they did come with beautiful white cushions and covers… and so at dusk on Good Friday we made out way to the San Francisco Church – the beautiful yellow one – and joined in thousands of Mexican families to await the splendour.

It started off as expected with flashing lights and motorbikes followed by horses and Spanish riders, and a few religious candle-bearing children, some monks carrying large floats of religious figures, bands and singing, Roman soldiers, vestal virgins, cow girls and boys, mariachis, black Spanish widows in lace mantilla and frilly skirts, and then arrived the hooded figures: very KKK, but apparently totally above-board and mainstream religion here.

There were the classic white hoods,  the interesting red and white hoods, the gold and red hoods and even an australian-looking gold and green ensemble and a  more playful blue and white. Then came the very intimidating all-black figures. We were so close have you asked yourself: were we quietly seated on our 150 peso white seats (the only foreigners in the crowd) or were we dressed up and participating?

Then there were a few  penitents dragging large crosses with bare chained feet. (you can be pretty sure that wasn’t us!)

Finally there was a beautiful large float with hundreds of candles – still-lit on the quite windy evening, and a beautiful virgin Mary complete with dark blue sparkly cape and train. Even on this day: Jesus’s big day, Mary steals the show!