Pastores Convite – Clowns, Cowboys and Cross-Dressers

At a typical convite police divert traffic while costumed participants – mainly men and some heavily made up and dressed as women – dance in a tight cluster in the street to the sound of merengue and Mexican banda music booming from the back of a truck and encircled by a mass of onlookers.

After about three songs (from ten to fifteen minutes) the music stops, the truck moves on a bit further, everyone follows on foot then waits while a guy shins up a ladder to hook up the speakers to an electricity pylon along the roadside. Once connected, the music blares out and the dancing resumes. This continues all afternoon until early evening.

In the province of Sacatepequez in Guatemala, the season for convites starts with an impressive show on the 7th of December in Ciudad Vieja, the day before the Día de la Virgen de La Concepción. It then continues through until the end of January or beginning of February, each Saturday in a different town.

Participants pay a small fee to enter and at the end judges award the best costumes with cash prizes for first, second and third places. It is a colorful and noisy family outing where the whole town turns up to watch or take part in the spectacle.

I took the following photos on the 8th of January in the small town of Pastores a few kilometers outside Antigua.

Miguel, a willing model, borrowed a belly dancing outfit for the day and a friend applied his makeup for him. His partner was Rafa his nephew.