Semana Santa (Holy Week - the week preceding Easter Sunday) is the most important religious event of the year throughout Latin America. Most people take their one-yearly holiday during Semana Santa and flock to the beach, leaving cities eerily deserted, with most businesses closed and only a few taxis roaming the streets.
In cities and villages, there are daily processions in remembrance of the Crucifixion. On Good Friday I was in Granada, Nicaragua, and followed a 3-hour procession re-enacting the stations of the cross. A huge Christ was paraded all over town by the local cofradia, or religious brotherhood.
Although to tourists this is folklore, locals take the whole event very seriously, with people walking barefoot on burning tarmac for hours, only pausing to say prayers. There is music but this is no brass band, just a few sorrowful notes repeated at regular intervals.
All of the few people left in town seemed to be on their doorsteps to watch the procession (the priest in his microphone: "People, letīs move our butt, watching won't do"). Street sellers were there to assist the hungry, thirsty crowd, giving the whole event the air of a rather strange street party.