Day 66 Antigua Guatemala

Day 66 (March 17) – Antigua, Guatemala

In the cool of the morning we began our bus ride to the old colonial city of Antigua. After we turned off the Auto Pista, we began a steady climb through a poorer residential area. It was disparaging to see open drain pipes coming from the houses and emptying into the road ditch. There too join bottles, cans and plastic bags in a pilgrimage toward the sea. Soon small fields of vegetables began to fill the landscape as we descended into Antigua.

Antigua is in a beautiful valley, surrounded by mountains and three distinctive volcanoes. It was founded by the Spaniards in 1542. To put this into perspective it is somewhat less than a century older than any North American city. Although Antigua was the capitol for a time, it was preceded by Santiago de Guatemala. After Antigua's destruction in the earthquake of 1773 the capitol was moved to Guatemala City.

Upon arriving in the city, we were greeted by cobblestone streets, narrow sidewalks and flowering Jacaranda trees. Antigua once had 38 Catholic churches. Although the population has risen from 9,000 to 38,000 over the years, only 7 Catholic churches remain in operation.

The city tour (by foot and bus) led us mostly from church to church, all which had been destroyed or practically destroyed in earthquakes over the years. Some have been restored but not always back into a Church. One we toured had been both a church and a cloister, but now is a 5 star hotel and restaurant.

The San Francisco Grande Church was restored, but the accompanying Monastery and Monks living quarters is still in ruins. There were some preparations being made for Easter festivities. Our guide, Hugo, gave us some insight into what happens during Easter week.

First the streets are closed to all traffic. Than the streets are covered with flowers and beautiful mosaics made from colored sawdust. These are approximately 50 meters long and 5 meters wide. Huge floats are made weighing around 5000 pounds, with Jesus carrying his own cross, riding on top. Up to 100 men carry this through the streets in one block shifts.

In the early 1900s anyone could help carry the floats. But in about 1960, the church brotherhood began selecting men of equal height. Those selected also had to pay for the privilege. It was also considered penance for their sins. Several people in our group share my sentiments, Easter would be a great time to come back to Antigua.

We then proceeded to the largest church in Antigua – La Merced. This church was kept up very well. Toward the front on the right side was a sample of the street mosaics. This one was changed every week. It kind of reminded me of the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD which has huge mosaics made with Indian corn decorating the outside of the building. These are changed every year. Then we were off by bus to the Macadamia Farm. En route Hugo told us a little about the “chicken” buses. He said they are privately owned and each owner has multiple buses. Most of already knew they were old US school buses but it seems in Guatemala they can get around 100 riders in the 60 capacity bus plus some chickens, dogs, bikes or whatever on top.

Arriving at the “Nut” farm, we were greeted by its somewhat eccentric owner. His message of co-oping with the indigenous people to provide a crop that was low maintenance, nutritious, and very environment friendly with the potential of being a good cash crop was probably quite correct. His style of delivering the message was to say the least quite different.

Several in the group got facial massages and came out looking at least 20 years younger. We also got to see a couple of different things they made from the nuts all of which were for sale.

He also showed us a couple of his inventions to husk and grade the nuts. In that respect he reminded me of some of our farmers back home who are also inventive.

Coming back from the farm to the hotel we passed a market which didn't appear very large but as I later found out was huge. I managed to pick up one of the last things on my list there.

It was about 6 or 7 blocks from the hotel and there were many restaurants, bars and shops along the way. I saw one of the nicest McDonalds ever, tucked into a rustic old building with a large courtyard in the rear.

The hotel was another quaint old building which contained several courtyards sprinkled with antiques. From the area we ate breakfast in you could look across the courtyard and see one of the volcanoes towering above.

The rooms were old Spanish style and although they were all the same price, several were much larger than others with King-sized instead of single beds some also had a patio. I think Ed and Sharon must have gotten the honeymoon suite. They did look a bit the haggered the next morning.

All the meals I had in Antigua were quite good. Our evening meal at the hotel was accompanied by live music and a folk dance troupe. Several members of our group ended up joining the foray and a couple of the ladies were dancing with the devil – fork and all. The TV in the rooms had a few English channels which allowed me to see what was happening in the rest of the world once again before sleep took over.


Rig # 15, Carol and Ron