A masked penitent carries thorny boughs on his shoulders during the start of a procession as part of Holy Week celebrations through the streets of Taxco in the Mexican state of Guerrero April 9, 2009. Hundreds of penitents, bound and flagellating themselves, wound through the labyrinthine cobblestone streets of Taxco, an almost 500-year-old silver mining town built into a mountainside, in one of the most dramatic and heartfelt Easter rituals staged in this fervently Catholic country. Picture taken on April 9. REUTERS/Henry Romero (MEXICO SOCIETY RELIGION)