All Saints Day

One of the Guatemala's most important holidays, All Saints Day is marked by processions and festivals mixing Mayan and Catholic traditions. Most activities take place in the cemeteries, where people decorate gravesites and celebrate their dead. If you want to see a really colorful spectacle, you must go to the village of Santiago Sacatepequez, less than an hour from the capital. At the village cemetery, locals fly huge brilliantly colored kites, representing souls rising to heaven. Notes attached to the strings carry messages to the dead and to God.