Celebrate Guatemala's Unique Culture with Colorful Kites

Day of the Dead in Guatemala, within the municipality of Sumpango, is celebrated differently than other areas in Central America with their famous annual Kite Festival. Thousands of people, locals and foreigners, flock to Sumpango to see this impressive event. The Kite Festival, which takes place on November 1st All Saints Day, is known by the enormous kites, ranging from 1 to 20 meters in diameter. Various community groups gather together to create these giant kites from colorful tissue paper for months leading up to the event.

The day is spent celebrating with dancing, food, and music with the kites flown in the afternoon on the sacred hill overlooking the main cemetery. Although light from the construction using tissue paper, the enormous size of the kites make some difficult to fly making it a community effort to erect the kites to catch the air from Guatemala’s windy November.

Constructed from amazing colors, many kites are assembled to display an important message. Not only do the shear size and color of these kites create a work of art, but also the group effort of the community groups is priceless creation in itself.

#Guatemala #CentralAmerica #DayoftheDead #Kite #travel