Good Friday (Viernes Santo)

The first procession was supposed to start at 2:00 am at the Nuestra Senora dela O Church and finish at 12:00 noon. I did my morning workout as usual after dropping off mom and then proceeded to the church at 10:30. I thought I was early but the plaza infront of the church was packed including the streets leading into it. I was able to squeeze through after so many 'Perdons' but only got to the entrance. Here's the Castillo dela Luna and the front of the church.








The float was of Jesus carrying the cross and the 'costaleros' were probably very tired but they still went through the ritual of swaying to the band's music and then then turn the float around to meet the Virgen Dolorosa's float. I never got close enough to take good pictures so I just raised the camera and aimed towards the floats hoping for a good shot.

The Nazareno float has been turned around and was backed up to create room for the other float.








The Virgen Dolorosa float arrives and is being maneuvered to meet with the Nazareno float. The floats were not moved close enough to each other so I wasn't able to include both in the picture.








The Nazareno is finally being moved back towards the church with the other float following behind a bit later. The ritual lasted almost 2 hours.








We returned later on to watch the evening processions and went to the San Roque church first since theirs as scheduled to start at 7:00. We waited patiently and watched the locals pass their time away chatting/eating bird seed and just dumping the shells on the ground. Our wait was in vain because it started sprinkling so the procession was cancelled and the services held inside the church.








Here's one of the barefooted Nazarenos after the procession.

We walked over to the other church hoping that the weather will clear up so that the procession can proceed. We staked our spots on the bleachers along the way and just enjoyed watching the local folks greet their friends and chat after doing their 'beso-beso' on both cheeks. It's just too bad that this was also cancelled after the rain started pouring hard about 9:00. There's always next year anyway so we just went home and watched the processions at the other areas on TV.