Our driver is rambling rapidly; we cruise over peaks, the valley below shrouded in a willow of fluffy cumulus as we begin our descent toward town. This is a lucrative day for Carlos, he’s shuttling revellers bound for the tiny village of Todos Santos, nestled high up in the Cuchumatanes mountain range, in a remote corner of north western Guatemala.
Carlos used join the masses in celebration of All Saints Day, but has since given up indulging, dismissing youth and excess as fond memories of the past. For the Mam indigenous of the region, the festival is the highlight of their calendar year. We pull into the village at 10.30am; a delicate mid morning mist hangs in the air, rendering the main thoroughfare a beige, sludgy dirt path. The bleak ashen hue of the scene is ruptured by a flurry of bright wines and blues. Thousands of attendees are dressed in matching pinstriped shirt and pants, donning round, wide brimmed, straw coloured hats.
They congregate in groups about the path, chatting quietly in Mam, engaged in the warm-up drinking of the day. Bottles of their brew, “Gallo” are swilled and passed generously from one to the other, xylophone chords are struck in a chirpy repetitive rhythm to the delight of those in the dancing pit. Five early starters are engaged in a unique two-step shuffle, swinging back and forth from toe to heel, raising right and left feet in inebriated fashion. A fascinated gringo tries to capture the scene in pixels, but is promptly dissuaded by a snarling dancer, who lunges forward, shouting obscenities from his salivating lips.
We follow the myriad of wine and blue pinstripes up the hill toward the fairground, where two rickety Ferris wheels turn slowly, surrounded by a score of arcades and amusements. Portions of chicken and chips sizzle in oil, rain drizzles, countless bottles of beer are exchanged about the scene, foaming and spilling and filling the air with a stench of stale alcohol. We pass bodies stretched out in the mud, cradling the beer they faltered upon, a seething, disgruntled mass of drowsy drunks push, shove and step over each other as the gulping continues. I witness one man pissing on his friend’s leg whilst conversing, the recipient seemingly oblivious. Make shift chalets serve as toilets, you pay 5 quetzals to delicately tip toe your way through a stream of urine and faeces, breadth held firmly for fear of inhaling the slightest hint of the darkest odours you can imagine.
And onto the showpiece of the festival. Atop a plateau sits a 200m dirt trail, where a crowd huddles beneath umbrellas and tarps to observe the main event. A team of horses, upon which sit rip-roaringly drunken riders dressed in medieval finery, gallop back and forth along the strip, attempting to maintain balance and avoid a colossal fall. Boys and men, who have been drinking steadily the past 24hrs, dressed in flaringly colourful shirts and headdress, scurry from end to end, yelping and belching their way through the relay, drinking from foaming beer bottles to the delight of the morbid crowd. By mid afternoon we witness the first fall, an unfortunate slips from the saddle, still clutching the reins, bringing the poor beast down on top of him and crushing his legs in the process. He is carried by his limbs from the track, the mud already beginning to encrust over his costume, clearing the way for the riding to ensue.
The rain and beers continually pour; fists begin to fly, wailing for lost loves and howls of self pity echo throughout the tiny passages of town. We look in on the prison cell, where bottles of Gallo are passed through iron bars into the incarcerated, who have displayed overly rambunctious behaviour.
A sharp, crackling sound draws my attention from the scene.
From the side of the street, a shop owner raises and lowers a horse whip onto a bloodied victim, lurching forward in the mud, supported on either arm by his sons. He is moaning and groaning, swearing revenge, clumsily turning to retaliate, only to have his momentum crushed by another helping of the whip.
We hastily depart the madness before darkness, leaving the little hamlet to self implode on the tail end of an utter binge that would rival any St Patrick’s Day I’ve ever witnessed.
